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Nah, I agree with the others below: If you need to gamify something to enjoy it, then you don't actually enjoy it. It's like people who get gym memberships on January 2 with the goal of trying to lose that stubborn 20 pounds and finally "get into shape". But the goal is more important to them than the exercise, which they find sucks, and they have to force themself to get to the gym and quit by March. the fit people who go to the gym aren't there because they have exceptional self-discipline; they're there because they like going to the gym. It's not something they have to force themselves to do; it's something they look forward to doing. I'm an avid cyclist, and I regularly go on long rides on the weekend. But I'm not putting in 60 miles because I need to tick some box that says I have to do 60 miles today and maybe I get some kind of reward for doing it. I ride the 60 miles because that's the length that corresponds to the amount of time I want to spend riding. And if I get sick of it and turn back early I don't care, because I'm not trying to force myself to do anything, or unlocking any achievement.
I feel that this is a problem of box tickers and speed-runners in general, and especially in the outdoor scene. About a decade ago I was hiking on the Appalachian Trail in Massachusetts when I came across a through-hiker eating lunch at the saddle between two mountains. I told him I was surprised that he was so far north about a month before most hikers would get that far. He excitedly told me that there were people who had finished already. I continued up the mountain and was enjoying the panoramic view at the top when he passed me. He plowed forward without even looking at the scenery. What's the point of doing a hike like that if you aren't even going to stop at the summits? It was clear that he was eating at the saddle so he could carb load before the climb and make better time.
Years later I was hiking Mt. Harvard in Colorado when I came across a guy from Kansas City who was trying to hit all of the fourteeners in the state. We hiked together for a while until he decided that I wasn't moving fast enough for him, but he did talk about how his wife was very supportive of his mission. I never would consider a hobby something that required suport from my family unless it was some kind of obsession that kept me away, which it appeared to be for him. When we got to the top we ran across two guys who were hiking together. From the summit the trail continues across a ridge to another fourteener, Mt. Princeton. It was a clear, warm day, and while the trail looped back around to the trail we hike in on, it looked like a long, hot, sunburned, high-altitude slog. The guy from KC and one of the guys decided to do it, while me and the other guy hiked down to the parking lot together. The thing about it, though, was that the guy from KC was staying with a friend in Denver who was getting him into a show at Red Rocks. If he had hiked straight out to his car from Harvard it would have been about the average time you'd leave to get back to Denver and change before heading to the concert. The guy acted like he had to get back to the car by five if he wanted to make it and thought it was possible, but he was effectively skipping the show. And since there was no cell service there, he was leaving his friend high and dry. Skipping an activity to do something else is one thing, but the guy seemed so concerned about bagging an extra peak that he was willing to risk pissing of a friend who gave him free passes to a band he really liked.
Counterpoint: Actual games.
Perhaps what we are discussing is more "the feeling of progress." Newb gainz are fun. Novelty is fun. Plateaus are not.
Every once in a while, I stop lifting say squats for a while. When I start back up, it's fun to rapidly increase. Then I plateau. Rinse, wash, repeat. (This is fine because I'm focusing on running for the time being. Where ... I'm making progress.)
Having bucket lists for hikers/explorers is a fun way to force oneself outside of one's comfort zone. I like hiking. Having a goal makes it channeled towards something concrete.
There's more than one way to enjoy various hobbies, in other words. Camping can be luxurious or hardcore. Cheap or expensive. Hiking, running, lifting, shooting, offroading, drones, car stuff, music, etc. all have multiple levels one can find a sweet spot.
Also most people like some kind of diversity, so switching and taking breaks is pretty normal.
Sounds like a rational agent trying to maximize utility between two competing goals and willing to take risks.
I mean the gamification scheme works mostly by overstimulation of the part of your brain that gets a ping from being successful. You get a dopamine high from achievement which is how your brain evolved to get unpleasant or difficult tasks done. That doesn’t mean you enjoy the game or got anything valuable from it, it means that the game used sounds and visual displays to trigger the dopamine that comes from accomplishing a task, but in a much more stimulating way. I’d put it this way — if games didn’t have those gamification elements in them, would you still enjoy them? I used to like Skyrim and it was always somewhat a thrill when you saw a hidden door open or quest completed or level up messages appeared. But what if none of that happened? How much fun is it really to solve random puzzles without the reward attached? No loot, no completion, no NPCs blowing sunshine up your ass, just turn the statues around to solve the puzzle with nothing to reward you? Just thwack the bandits for no pats on the head, no loot, no hidden rooms to discover? Is that really fun. Or is the fun getting those little bits of dopamine from the feeling of having done those things?
Ok, but Skyrim is an immersive open-world game with a narrative and all that.
Most phone games are way worse on the metric of gamification! It's like slot machines--they just skip straight to the dopamine.
Plenty of people just play games like Skyrim or Red Dead or GTA as a way to pass the time, long after they've beaten them. I'd argue they'd be better off if they found it less relaxing.
A lot of shooters are just fun because it's fun to shoot endless hordes of zombies or whathaveyou.
Don't some people love to just play poker on Red Dead?
Personally, my perfectionism gets triggered a bit too much with a game like Fallout and so I can't even just enjoy it because I have to keep checking the damn guides to make sure I hit all the things. So I started Fallout 4, but barely did anything. (I really like Fallout New Vegas years ago.)
I barely even game anymore and haven't for the better part of a decade now. My dopamine circuits are apparently satisfied with arguing on the internet. (I can and do still read full books just fine though. Never understood that issue.)
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No! Do not get me started between the difference between compulsion and fun. If you can play a game and enjoy it without any meta progression or score at all, only then do you enjoy the game. All the rest is just artifice trying to hijack your addiction centers.
So you're a filthy casual?
One of those "mobile" "gamers"?
(I'm kidding. Once again, I think there's more than one model here, and "true" "enjoyment" is neither easily defined nor discerned.)
You know.... unironically yes, but only because I feel like the ground shifted from underneath my feet. I mean, minus the mobile gaming thing but let me explain.
I think nearly all gaming up until mobile gaming and esports would be considered casual to modern sensibilities. There were no global rankings for Quake, you might even play only the single player game and never venture online with QuakeWorld! You might only play custom maps for StarCraft or WarCraft III. Did StarCraft even have a global ranking system or did that not start until StarCraft II? Jagged Alliance IMHO is hardcore as fuck, but it's also largely a sandbox for fucking around and beating it at all represents a substantial achievement.
None of these games have the sort of cutthroat competition a global ranking system introduces, nor the sort of metagame progression or constant attaboys of unlockables, achievements or cosmetics that mediocre modern games might shower you with to try to keep you around. They aren't super sweaty, and you can probably see everything they have to offer in terms of novelty in about 10-20 hours.
And yet, the moment to moment gameplay of them is so fun, I return to them over and over and over again. I don't need a global ranking, achievements, or loot crates to make Quake 3 on a LAN just as fun as it ever was in 2000. Or playing through the StarCraft campaign again. Or firing up Jagged Alliance for the first time a few years ago. They were made fun for fun's sake. And that, unironically, seems to code as "casual" now.
The release of Halo Infinite made me realise I was old and out of touch
A halo game comes out, it's pretty good, some networking issues but as far as triple A shitshow releases go, it was pretty smooth. IT WAS ALSO FREE.
The entire Halo Reddit community was fucking losing their shit about the lack of cosmetics, challenges, and unlockables. They were barely discussing the game, the balance, the maps, the things that make the game fun.
No, they were just endlessly bitching about the lack of armor cosmetics. You can't even fucking see your armor when you're playing.
Fortnite broke the kids man, they've lost sight of what makes a game good
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