@TG16_IS_BAE : And this topic only reinforces why I am strongly opposed to “achievement” systems in video games, as it encourages compulsive people to obsessively commit themselves to what should be a hobby that one does in their free time. Free to play games are also extremely problematic in this regard. Fun is fun, but compulsive behaviour is a problem that is scarcely spoken about in polite company.
And at its most extreme, compulsive behaviour can lead to tragedies such as parents neglecting their children (resulting in permanent damage to their health or death) and/or their own wellbeing due to people spending inordinate amounts of time compulsively trying to master what is, by design, impossible.
For example, I was OBSESSED with Pokémon Shuffle on 3DS for a time (it is my most played game on the console with about 880 hours clocked in). And I spent virtually every waking moment trying to make use of every heart that I was entitled to, so much so that it occasionally impeded upon my personal life. THAT is a problem. It is NOT praiseworthy despite what I have “accomplished” in the game (which amounts to nothing in the real world), and I even tried to justify spending money on the stupid game to myself (not much, mind you, but a few dollars too many all the same).
I speak for myself as I do for anybody else reading this (if I hadn’t already made myself completely clear):
Mindless compulsive behaviour is NOT praiseworthy.
So I’ve caught 600ish Pokémon? Big deal. I’ve squandered 880 hours of my life compulsively trying to master a game designed to occupy countless hours of my time. Sure, I enjoyed it much of the time, but it was also quite frustrating and felt like a chore at the worst of times. I had eventually committed myself to giving it up, and man was it liberating.
And this is the sort of behaviour they are trying to defend? It is STUPID behaviour. And I drew from my own experience (and I wasn’t even referring to Shuffle when I made my comments above either). And yet I am characterised as a nasty, arrogant POS for pointing it out. But I also believe that evil cannot be repelled with evil, so I know better than to reciprocate such insults.
It is unfortunate that people are so narrow-minded that they consider any dissent to their worldview to be an affront to their humanity. It’s amazing. I love hearing about different points of view and I love hearing stories about the circumstances of people’s upbringings, and ultimately, I think we will find that we have more in common with one another than we realise, and that we all have much to learn from one another given the broad variability of the human experience.
