A meta study doesn’t seem to agree with you that gamification in physical activity (PA) contexts is neccessarily and always bad:

gamified interventions appear to be a promising avenue to promote PA to various publics. Influencing primarily the number of daily steps of the participants, gamification is an interesting way to improve daily PA. However, if the effect of gamification persists in follow-up, this effect decreases with time with a more volatile long-term effect. The integration of gamification in more global healthcare interventions could be a way to address this limited sustainability. Future rigorous trials are needed to explore these perspectives.

Mazeas A, Duclos M, Pereira B, Chalabaev A. (2022). Evaluating the Effectiveness of Gamification on Physical Activity: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. J Med Internet Res 2022;24(1):e26779. doi:10.2196/26779. PMID: 34982715