Ukraine And The Gamification Of Combat: Market Replaces Centralized Control. By Tamat Jacoby at Forbes.
The tall, bearded officer, code-named Prickly — like all Ukrainian fighters, he uses a call sign to protect his identity and his family from wartime retaliation — is proud as a peacock of what he has done in six months at the helm of his frontline drone unit. In an interview with me, Prickly gave some of the credit to Kyiv’s new “e-point” system, called the Army of Drones Bonus.
“We’ve improved our performance by a factor of 10,” Prickly said. “We know that thanks to the drone points system, which measures how many men we kill and how much equipment we destroy.”
After more than three and a half years of fighting, drones have transformed the battlefield in Ukraine. Every operation depends on uncrewed platforms, either to carry out the mission or protect soldiers. Units work with an increasingly varied drone arsenal — large and small devices, powered by rotors and fixed wings, guided by radio waves and fiber optic cables. Kyiv and Moscow are locked in a deadly technology race, constantly competing to counter the other side’s latest developments, and things change so fast that an wounded fighter returning to the front after just a few months away can no longer recognize his unit’s tactics. Estimates suggest that unmanned aerial vehicles are responsible for up to 80% of battlefield casualties. …
The top brass in Kyiv struggle to keep up with this innovation — both the new technology and its use on a highly decentralized battlefield. Drone production is scattered and diverse, with the Ukrainian drone company DroneUA estimating that as many as 700 companies and 500 suppliers are now churning out UAVs of every description. …
The armed forces also strive to take advantage of decentralization, harnessing it to drive innovation and effectiveness on the battlefield. That’s where the point system comes in — allowing fighters to bypass the bureaucracy in Kyiv and buy weapons directly from manufacturers.
Frontline commander Prickly said that drone pilots save video clips of the damage they do — whether destroying machinery or killing Russian soldiers. The unit prepares a daily montage and sends it to the Ministry of Defense, where experts comb over the footage to confirm the unit’s claims and confer points for verified destruction.
The allocation changes regularly, but as of June 2025, Business Insider reported that destroying a tank was worth eight points. A multiple launch rocket system counted for 10. Killing a regular Russian soldier earned 12 points. Wounding a drone pilot was valued at 15 and eliminating him netted 25.
In the final step, the payoff, units use the points they’ve earned to purchase equipment — drones, drone jamming devices, ammunition, and other goods — on Brave1 Market, an online shopping platform not unlike Amazon.
Drones change everything. Wait until they are controlled by AI, or miniaturized to the size of insects for espionage.
The Russians have about caught up in terms of numbers and quality of drones. But Russia has always relied soley on centralized controls. So, it will be interesting to see if they make the leap to the decentralized, market-based gamification system pioneered by the Ukrainians.