@John Blackbourn - I asked Isaac on whether this was custom made or if they were using a plugin and he mentioned it was all custom made. However, I believe the profiles section on WP.org is powered by BuddyPress so it's possible that in the future, something like Achievements will be used for the WP.org profiles.

@Ted Clayton - Interesting. I wasn't aware and really have not read into the negative impacts game theory could have. I'll have to do some more research into this area.

@Erlend Sogge Heggen - I have not heard of OpenBadge but if it's platform agnostic, it would be great for something like that to be used instead of something tied strictly to just WP.org.

@Vanessa Blaylock - Well said. I've never heard anyone provide that kind of perspective on things. If I get the chance, I'll try and get in touch with whomever is charge of things like this at Automattic and point them to your comment to see what they have to say about intentionally distorting things.

@Syed Balkhi - If it helps, I typed in different Gamification search terms into Google and a WPBeginner article kept popping up :P