RaveThe Independent (IRE)It’s refreshing that Hon comes from the UK tech scene rather than California’s, and he has not bought into Silicon Valley’s values of disruption and data-harvesting. Instead, he is quietly incisive, sceptical of ‘charismatic technologies’ ... You’ve Been Played not only catalogues the rise of a sinister and pervasive trend, it also functions as a primer on the psychological and philosophical implications of games themselves ... It is Hon’s eye for strange details and quirks of human behaviour that brings his arguments to life ... As the book progresses, its subject becomes ever more abstract ... Perhaps it is proof of this title’s ambition that it left me with spiralling thoughts, and a series of questions about life, and games, and competition ... Hon could write several more books on this theme, and I suspect that I and other readers would not be bored. In the meantime, though, this expansive, fascinating study, equal parts dismal and dizzying in its implications, is a valuable testament to the era we’re in, and an aid for unravelling the spirit of competition that runs through our culture, and which we are so often sold as self-worth.
