I don't understand what you thought the product was? It's an exercise bike. You do exercise classes on it. It's not a games machine. What were they thinking? They were thinking it's an exercise bike.
You can imagine "games" in this sense being competitions played out via the bike, so time trials, race tournaments, etc. Compete with your friends (or others) to get through a race comparable to Tour de France stages -- something like that. Aside from survival, there is no greater motivator for pushing oneself physically than competition. Games facilitate that.
If you're a competitive person. Not everybody derives motivation from competition.
That depends.
If you're trying to develop a habit of regular exercise for your health (intrinsic motivation), competition (extrinsic motivation) is just as likely to be harmful to your goal.
In my personal case, removing the competitive element was extremely helpful for me to start doing regular exercise for its own sake.
> And gamification through badges is pretty standard exercise fair. My parent’s senior community even has gamification via small prizes for how many days you go to the gym.
I was just pointing out that Peloton does gamification through badges and that it includes an equivalent of days going to the gym.