This is one of my problems with playing online.

by Mercury, Chicago, IL, Monday, April 22, 2013, 14:39 (4232 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I wholeheartedly agree on this: that socially agreed upon rewards--be they accomplishments, time commitments, incentives to continue, etc.--devalue the game, for me.

That is not to say that rewards specifically devalue the game, but that in a social setting, bragging rights will often trump a personal agenda, and that's where I get frustrated. Because I never get to decide what I'm bragging about... My profile, inventory, etc. decide that for me.

I always enjoyed the social aspect of games before I started playing online on a larger scale leader-board, on other people's schedule, and with other people's expectations. When the pool of players was me and three friends, Being the least of three was not nearly as psychologically vexing as being the lower-middle of 10,000,000. I was always able to set my own goal and be rewarded with reaching it, and could negotiate the terms of my goal with the kids sitting next to me, even if their goal was different.

Now I often enjoy games, but not always. Occasionally I feel the social pressure that someone I don't know will think less of me for something I shouldn't feel required to care about. I find myself more and more drawn back to co-op, single player and offline games, because I can still set my goal as I see fit, whether the goal is finish the level, or rack up a friendly-fire body count, or zone out and enjoy the scenery.

See, most of the "rewards" in games themselves don't bother me. Whether it is simply there for me to accept as a reward or despise as an obstacle to my own reward system, the item, incentive, score, etc. is agnostic to my personal value system, and it's just another piece of the game mechanic I can deal with how I please. Yet when You (in the greater social sense) tell me which reward matters, when gaining or losing that reward reflects value on me within your value system, that's when it degrades my experience. I can still have my own value/reward system, but I'll have to deal with everyone else's too, even if I try to ignore it.

I don't see a different trajectory for games going forward, and I get my fun where I can, but I'll always prefer a self-imposed reward system to an socially-imposed one.