Role Playing Games instill a false sense of achievement
It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform - to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master - to improve their skill or knowledge.
In the “Awesome By Proxy: Addicted to Fake Achievement” article on pixelpoppers.com, I think the author nailed it right on the head when he said,
In childhood, it is remarkably easy to instill one orientation or the other. It all comes down to the type of praise you receive. If you perform well on a task and are told, “Wow, you must be smart!” it teaches you to value your skill, and thus fosters a performance orientation. But if instead you are told, “Wow, you must have worked hard!” it teaches you to value your effort and thus fosters a mastery orientation.
RPG’s, from the old school Ultima series, A Bard’s Tale or even Final Fantasy, it was obvious that time invested eqated to the character’s skill improvement. Most tasks eventually became repetitive chores that never came close to pushing the envelope of thought provoking. Modern Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games or MMORPG’s (muh-mor-pah-ga’s as Zero Punctuation would say) are even worse in that many players seem to think they actually are developing, or at the very least, displaying skill/talent.
Just check out some videos on youtube if you don’t believe me.
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2:54 pm
Of course, there are lots of things that give a false sense of achievement. It’s easy to argue what the definition of ‘achievement’ is, anyway. Is it an achievement to be promoted to head janitor? Or what about making lots of money on the stockmarket (surely the achievement is learning the stockmarket, not the money you get from it)? And if life is Absurd in the philosophical sense, what real achievement can ever be made!
Someone playing an RPG (or any computer game) may not be developing skills that you place any value on but unless the game is completely luck-based they WILL be developing talent and achievements. And is watching a soap more or less useful? What if the knowledge of that soap or RPG was used in a TV game-show to win lots of money - is THAT an achievement? If you think the latter is, why not the former as well!