Why rewards always devalue the game experience

by Xenos , Shores of Time, Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 07:40 (4230 days ago) @ thebruce

But... trophies are given at competitions. If a trophy is a reward, but someone wants to hunt for the sake of hunting, then why would they even enter the competition, except to 'win', to be noticed, or for the reward?

You could say they have noble intentions - perhaps to serve as an inspiration for others, to raise awareness, for the joy of testing hunting skills against others who presumably would be of comparable skills, a personal challenge to push to be better.

But do any of those require competition or trophy?

I don't necessarily disagree with the central ideas of your point, but I did think of two things that I think bear pointing out.

One being achievements are not like trophies in the sense that when you enter a competition you are competing against other people actively, they are right there most of the time even. Achievements are often even a passive way to track your progress in a game. And in game rewards are usually similar. I have used the example of Halo Reach many times, I played it because the gameplay was awesome, I never once thought "Oh man, I need to get this awesome helmet! I need 1,000,000 more credits!"

Secondly, marathons are a great example of a competition where a lot (if not most) of the people that run them do it for enjoyment and not because they hope to win.

Now, I do not think that this means that those rewards in games are good, just pointing out my thoughts when I read your post.