Comments on Pixel Poppers: Awesome By Proxy: Addicted to Fake Achievement

RPGs allow me to connect to a story on another pla...

2010-07-04T15:12:08.699-07:00

RPGs allow me to connect to a story on another plane of interact-ability that I can't access when I'm reading a book. If anything gets in my way of a great story, I lose interest; I am supposed to be entertained by a video game, not enslaved by it. That's not what I paid my money for.

For the record, I was the smartest kid in my class in elementary school. But my grades remained pretty consistently good across the board, even now in college. And I play an assortment of games, although mostly games boasting a comprehensive, well-written story.

You seem to be trying to tell me that since I don't enjoy grinding through games or learning how to maneuver a FPS online map so I can be at the top of the leaderboards (don't play like that's not part of the mastery orientation) that I have become lazy and spoiled and I should be ashamed of my partiality to RPGs and the fact that I haven't learned anything.

Could this be the reason why I am quickly turned off by Modern Warfare 2? Or Halo? Pah. Those mastery-oriented gamers who grind for hours against each other trying to improve their tactics and such act like animals.

Face it: all games give a false sense of achievement. You could play any modern game and go about it one way or the other. Grinding for all the hidden little nibblets or getting to the end and moving on. But in the end, you have not shot and killed 500 enemies, slayed a real dragon, saved a real princess, or collected 400000 glowing power rings.

Your ability to comprehend puzzles, obstacles, stories, characters, and everything in-between determines your enjoyment of a game. If a person finds it more fulfilling to play on easy, who are you to judge him or her? If you like working till blood and sweat trickle from your forehead then so be it. Just don't tell me there's something wrong with me for choosing either or.

I think you just changed my life. Thank you.

2010-07-01T21:44:16.803-07:00

I think you just changed my life.
Thank you.

I started gaming intensely back in the 80's and I ...

2010-06-03T06:55:19.430-07:00

I started gaming intensely back in the 80's and I can honestly say that I'm amazed at how obsessed gamers have become with achievements. I prefer games with good stories. When I reach the end of the story, I'm ready to move on to the next game. No gamertag for me thank you.

Actually, that is partly not true, at least for ca...

2010-05-08T10:21:30.622-07:00

Actually, that is partly not true, at least for casual gamers. They also show the kind of signals and outcomes you mentioned, BUT they do it in real life rather than games. There is a huge difference between the rl and games.

If you take games as a means to actually entertain and relax, than your approach is wrong, if you want to extend your real life problem solving skills to games, than you are on the right track.

I think it depends on what you want from your games.

Hah hah... This was a very interesting read. I us...

2010-03-30T02:42:57.323-07:00

Hah hah... This was a very interesting read.

I used to play Final Fantasy games all the time because I wouldn't have to be skilled at anything aside from knowing which mindset is most appropriate for taking on a boss.

But right now, I play an arcade-like action series that resembles Space Invaders, only 14000x harder. However, since I started playing the series, I tried to learn how to play the awesome songs from said series on the piano, and so forth. Mastery, much?

Even then, with that series (or the genre in general), a lot of the patterns you face will be the same every time or there will be a blatant blindspot. At least two games in the series give you enough nukes to effectively skip every boss in the game, letting you beat the game without too much effort.
Of course, bombing, more often than not, nukes your score, and I tend to have a mindset of "If I nuke this boss, I'll never live down the shame."

Scorerunners = Mastery
Survivalrunners = Performance

Thanks for summing up my life. Although you're still missing the gray areas in a growing amount of games.

^^^^^ Exactly what I thought when I read it.

2010-03-22T22:45:20.368-07:00

^^^^^
Exactly what I thought when I read it.

While your psychological babble is somewhat intere...

2010-03-20T13:14:26.182-07:00

While your psychological babble is somewhat interesting, everyone needs to take a step back and realize that you're overanalyzing it.

Video games, Specifically RPGs, are akin to watching a movie or reading a book (only less boring because you lead the hero to his predetermined fate).

I played Skies of Arcadia first when I was around 12? And I have to say, none of the enjoyment came from bettering my 'RPG skills' or from pretending I was the one who wtfpwned the most epic creatures in our known world. No, thats insane, and that IS sick.

So if this really happens to you, you probably think you ARE chuck norris when you watch Walker Texas Ranger, in which case, you DO need psychology...

Well done. This has to be one of the most insightf...

2010-03-04T04:03:33.348-08:00

Well done. This has to be one of the most insightful articles on videogames I've read.

Thanks!

This article is really great. I think a lot of th...

2010-03-03T23:45:36.500-08:00

This article is really great. I think a lot of the commenters here may have missed the point. As I interpreted it, it's not about RPGs vs. Action Games so much as the way they are played and how this attitude matters in other aspects of life. Although I happen to play almost exclusively action games, I recognize a lot of the "performance orientation" in myself that you liken the fake achievements of RPGs. I think it is not too late to turn this attitude around. I just wanted to let you know this article made me realize a lot about myself.

I like this article. I'm a gamer who has mostly gr...

2010-02-28T21:21:42.143-08:00

I like this article. I'm a gamer who has mostly grown up on pc games and played very few RPGS. Recently Ive been playing a few more RPGs. I played final fantasy 4 and I enjoyed it because some of the dungeons were actually quite hard unless I did some grinding. So I'd have to replay the dungeon and find a different approach.

OTOH I found myself abandoning ff6 about halfway through because everywhere I went I was over levelled. Every single physical character of mine was one hitting enemies.

Videogames have a large amount of impact on the mi...

2010-02-19T18:01:05.742-08:00

Videogames have a large amount of impact on the mind... more so than television, I think. People can be examined by the types of games the play and why they play. I like action games with puzzle elements (like Zelda) or exploration (like Metroid). Changing the difficulty is the best bet to get the most out of a game. Take Murumasa:The Demon Blade for example. This game is an action game with some RPG elements thrown in there. Play on easy and you will level up, take down enemies easily, and not much skill is required to win. Play on hard, and its a whole different game. The enemies are harder, your defenses are easier to break and leveling up doesn't do much, it focuses on skill.

The personality profiles are interesting, but the ...

2010-01-28T14:49:19.049-08:00

The personality profiles are interesting, but the article's takeaway is not. We're talking about games, for god's sake. I work hard at my job even though a lot of it is boring, and I clearly fall into the "performance" category.

The person who said "For me, if something's fun that's all that matters. I'm not "achieving" anything in a video game, honestly" has it exactly right.

Thank you for this article.

2010-01-27T21:13:57.434-08:00

Thank you for this article.

It's not an issue exclusive to rpg's or action ori...

2010-01-22T01:20:04.869-08:00

It's not an issue exclusive to rpg's or action oriented games.

RPG's Counter point:

1) Play an RPG that limits the amount you can over level, or has other strategic elements that require player skill/thought over charecter. (see Persona 3, Demon's Soul)

2) Learn how to wield your charecers and their abilties more efficently so you can do more advanced manuevers and tackle elite things before your level (See World of Warcraft, soloing elite quest, or figruing how to push your charecter to handle more enemies at once)

3) Then don't over level. Go through the game at the pace you encounter it instead of stoping to grind. Or what's more, do a low level challange (Lvl 1 playthrough, minimum step game, get to final dungeon in 12 hours, ect)

Action Game Coutner Point: Just the same Action games can just as easily be made trivial, and seem to be headed that way.

1) Health automaticaly recahrges just by laying low. Makes health, as a resource, effectively infinite (Re Halo / GoW syndrome)

2) Constant check points, trivializing death, hand holding. (Re Prince of Persia, Bio Shock, Uncharted 2: check points before every battle/room really...)

3) You can always just turn down the difficulty slider. It has the same result that over leveling has really, players just go about it in diffrent ways.

*) Memorizing patterns through repition is grinding. (re doing level 1-1 with your eyes closed). Granted, this is still the player rather then the charecter improving. But it is diffrent from someone else who learned the game well enough to be able to hanld dynamic or variable levels within a game.

Argueably anyone could memorize the timing down eventualy without actualy grasping the skills or concepts of the game, but that is probably a seperate argument all together. (Learning how to play only one song vs learning how to sight read. It's much easier to perform the first then to master the later)

Good stuff - but of course it goes well beyond act...

2010-01-21T10:26:12.105-08:00

Good stuff - but of course it goes well beyond action games. And it applies within many contexts, including higher academic work too. I've experienced being a "Paul" and a "Matt" and a Paul in one area transitioning to a "Matt" in that area. I really like the distinction, thanks for sharing your realization.

See, here's the thing. Grinding out 50 levels in a...

2010-01-20T12:06:16.129-08:00

See, here's the thing. Grinding out 50 levels in a Korean PvP MMO is definitely about persevering. Then again, there's people who make it a PERSONAL quest to finish the mandatory 30x repeat quest faster than the last time. To find the more efficient rotation to do more DPS to 2 targets so you get your X items faster. To get to the top in gear so you can begin PvPing with your opponents on even terms. Once you're at that point, at level cap with decked out gear, the game is no longer about performance and mastery, it's about outright mastery. You have to learn how to take on the opponents 2v1, 3v1, and potentially 4v1 once you've hit that point, and half your race on the server quits.

The problem with the argument as laid out above is that it's black and white, with no grey area for games that are transcending the boundaries the way many RvR and PvP-oriented MMOs are. A modern MMO is no longer about getting geared to kill a set of NPCs inside an instance over and over; it's now about getting geared to fight against the other race. These are the vast majority of MMOs that are failing lately, though, due to WoW being a MMO heavily based on performance at this point, so I really don't have much hope for the community that refuses to move from WoW to another, much more balanced game.

Personally, I think it is self-destructive to take...

2010-01-20T09:23:00.590-08:00

Personally, I think it is self-destructive to take something that is supposed to be fun and entertainment, and analyze it to the point where it is no longer so. If a person can have fun playing a video game, irrespective of the reason, it is a disservice to that person to make them think there is something wrong with them because they play a certain way (unless it has serious ramifications like health deterioration).

I like RPGs, but I often try to challenge myself w...

2010-01-20T09:05:28.448-08:00

I like RPGs, but I often try to challenge myself while playing them. I play FFVII once in a while, and make up some rule I have to follow throughout the game. One playthrough, I set a rule that each character must use their original weapon and armor, and no materia (magic) could be used. This kept the game very challenging throughout. Unfortunately, I never finished it. I got to Sephiroth, but it was a stalemate. His first form heals himself every turn for like 7000, and using starting weapons, which hit for 1500 or so, I just couldn't hurt him fast enough. Of course he was never able to kill me either.

I was very inspired by this post (especially the l...

2010-01-19T11:13:00.736-08:00

I was very inspired by this post (especially the last sentence) and did a lot of introspection when I read it. Much of that introspection went into the Exit Fate review (although it is really an essay on all jRPGs) that I just put up at www.necessarygames.com (any comments are of course welcome). I cited your article, because it really was that good and I really learned a lot from it.

When I read this article, I have already naturally stopped playing most jRPGs due to most of the same reasons you cite above. This was not quite as drastic as not playing jRPGs at all, because I think jRPGs are good for releasing certain kinds of sentiments and provoke certain kinds of thinking, but these realizations do not come any faster when you gorge them, as most jRPG players tend to do.

I'm reminded of Don Quixote's addiction to chivalry books, as Cervantes expresses through one of his monologues that while they may be good in moderation (and do offer good entertainment, which has inherent value), they can be extremely destructive and time-consuming when binged, creating, in the extreme, the hollow man that was the titular character.

I don't think you're trying to go on a firebrand mission preaching to just not play any games in certain genres. I believe your bigger point seems to be: think about why we do the things we do and if we're getting out of them what we wanted from them. That itself, if I interpreted you correctly, is great wisdom. Thanks for reinforcing it for me.

For me, if something's fun that's all that matters...

2010-01-19T09:45:46.366-08:00

For me, if something's fun that's all that matters. I'm not "achieving" anything in a video game, honestly.

Ok, the original article and most of the commenter...

2010-01-19T08:21:40.378-08:00

Ok, the original article and most of the commenters take the point of view that the choice of games (RPG vs Action) shapes how kids are. But wouldn't it be just as likely to be the other way around?

I mean, perhaps your first inclination towards RPG just signals who you are, period. You may try to be what you are not, do what you would not, but that does not necessarily change you.

Which way the causality goes is very important for this discussion. Perhaps it is a mix of both. But good'n'old research certainly is in order.

As the "demotivating phrase of the day" I give you this, regarding the latter possibility:
If you are a bird who is not meant to fly, the harder you try, the harder you fall.

Then again there's the Gattaca (movie) POV.

Very interesting article. I wonder where perma-dea...

2010-01-13T07:48:42.532-08:00

Very interesting article.
I wonder where perma-death games fit in this. A perma-death game is one where death is permanent. They can be either action or RPG...
While RPGs seem trivially easy, and action games seem harder, really any game is trivially easy as long as it has unlimited save points.

I'm in a different camp. I just consider games a...

2010-01-12T15:53:37.351-08:00

I'm in a different camp. I just consider games a form of interactive entertainment, not something to sharpen a skill. If I'm going to spend hours and hours perfecting a skill, I want it to be for something real-world, like my music. (A *real* guitar!) Learning an arcane seqence of keystrokes that becomes instantly irrelevant once the game is over, gives me less a sense of accomplisment than a feeling of misplaced effort. But, to each his own!

This is an excellent article - congratulations and...

2010-01-12T09:44:58.664-08:00

This is an excellent article - congratulations and thanks for it.

Stumbled from CA! I've always been more of a perf...

2010-01-11T23:03:02.533-08:00

Stumbled from CA!

I've always been more of a performance player, and known it. I just didn't know the words to describe it.
Now that I do I can see what has to be changed! Great article!