A Longitudinal Analysis of Gamification in Untappd: Ethical Reflections on a Social Drinking Application

TL;DR

This longitudinal study examines how Untappd's gamification features have evolved from 2020 to 2025, revealing persistent ethical issues and emphasizing the need for ongoing ethical integration in software development.

Contribution

It provides a longitudinal ethical analysis of Untappd, highlighting the persistence of ethical concerns and advocating for embedded ethical reflection in software lifecycles.

Findings

Ethical issues remain despite superficial changes

Small adjustments did not significantly alter ethical concerns

Continuous ethical reflection is necessary to prevent normalization of risky behaviors

Abstract

This paper presents a longitudinal ethical analysis of Untappd, a social drinking application that gamifies beer consumption through badges, streaks, and social sharing. Building on an exploratory study conducted in 2020, we revisit the platform in 2025 to examine how its gamification features and ethical framings have evolved. Drawing on traditional ethical theory and practical frameworks for Software Engineering, we analyze five categories of badges and their implications for user autonomy and well-being. Our findings show that, despite small adjustments and superficial disclaimers, many of the original ethical issues remain. We argue for continuous ethical reflection built embedded into software lifecycles to prevent the normalization of risky behaviors through design.