If you don't like it when people make important decisions based on metrics because metrics can be abused, then you're really not gonna like what happens when people make important decisions without metrics.
Exactly this. They're a necessary evil and they require constant vigilance to minimize the "make what you measure" effect.
The original author's point is interesting, seeing rules as the constraints that, in one sense, spur creativity, give life. The reason the trumpet is the instrument of jazz isn't in spite of it having merely three valves, but because of it.
How about we make a competing metric for every metric that's being abused? Then at least there's some tension to the piece, instead of all-out paperclip manufacturing.
The distinction between good games and bad games here seems more like a distinction between games and things that are not games. The "games matter because games don't matter" thing seems more on point. Things like ranking colleges can never be games as long as they have serious real-world consequences.