I've long been a fan of this essay, as something to strive for over the next, say 500 years, assuming that civilization lasts that long, technological "progress" continues, and all the surplus humans that are no longer necessary for work don't get wiped out by the elites who want more of the world to themselves.
However, this essay has always seemed to be heavy on idealism and light on practical or concrete solutions to very obvious problems.
Even if we assume that all work could be gamified, it's not clear that everyone will want to play such games. I love games, and have spent way too much of my life playing them, but I've gone months and years without playing any games at all, and don't see how being forced to play a game would be any better than being forced to work.
Also, its difficult to imagine how the most undesirable of jobs could be gamified. Who's going to want to play the garbageman game? Or the fix the sewage system game?
The products and services of our modern world also requires sustained, multi-year efforts by trained specialists. Something like the mass production of medicine isn't something you can just play with once in a while and still get it made in high enough quantities with serious quality control.
Some believe that robots will eventually do all these things for us. Maybe. That remains to be seen.
Whether the economic whip is really necessary to get people to do the jobs that need to be done today is an open question, but simply telling people to play instead of work doesn't seem to be a very practical solution for many jobs.