Amazon Expands Effort to ‘Gamify’ Warehouse Work

At dozens of Amazon warehouses every day, employees go about their regular work routines, plucking the items from shelves that make up customer orders and dropping them into plastic bins. They get paid, of course, but some of them are also vying for digital rewards that allow them to buy virtual narwhals, dinosaurs and other electronic pets.

More and more Amazon warehouse workers around the U.S. are able to spend their shifts earning such rewards by competing in games that they control by quickly completing the repetitive tasks necessary to fulfill Amazon customer orders. The games are part of an Amazon program, called FC Games, which the company began testing at a single facility in 2017. Now it’s in the midst of a major expansion of the program and has recently begun offering the games to workers at Amazon fulfillment centers in at least 20 states, The Information has learned.