Goals, Gaming, Benchmarks, and Life
I'm not fully sure why, but my mind at the moment as turned to a matter of goals and progress. I think about it more frequently in terms of games, but it applies to real life just as readily. A person with a goal is driven toward completing it. I've seen those who just attended fighter practice out of convenience and camaraderie and those who actually want to be a knight. In the former case, there are vague remarks about completing armor. In the latter case, they simply do it. Game designers have come to understand this process, especially in the MMO years, though there was some move to that beforehand. More powerful abilities and equipment lure players to spend time completing objectives that may have nothing to do with the main story. "Perfect" completion of goals might unlock new costumes or levels. Increasingly, there are "achievements" in games that server little or no mechanical purpose save bragging rights. Designers know that the existence of such...