After my comment I gave it some thought and figured that's what you meant in the context of Duolingo, which is a great example of this. I've tried in vain to convince others they're wasting their time (it could be spent more efficiently) but they feel like they're "winning" something so it's futile.

Gamification is usually meant for creating addictive behaviors but I think some of it was in earnest effort. I can see how the idea of "Nobody ever wants to learn, let's try to make learning a game" makes sense from above, but it's hard to actually implement correctly. And at some point, some new manager with ideas about gamification for profit's sake inevitably joins the company.