There’s a really interesting article over at Kotaku about a 24-year-old stay-at-home mother named Kristen who is the No. 4 ranking player, worldwide, in Gamerscore. Currently, she’s at 166,365 GS. Man, and I thought my 8,000+ GS was impressive /sarcasm. She’s achieved this mountain of a score from “boosting” and playing a slew of terribly reviewed games.
And it’s all for the boasting.
Because in the article, she is quoted as saying that, “Like, maybe 65 percent of the games I play I don’t enjoy.”
This part bothers me, mostly because I can’t really wrap my head around it. Let’s break it down. More than half of the games she plays…she doesn’t enjoy. Yet she journeys onwards. Pushes through the tedium thanks to party chat and other boosting gamers. Me? The minute I hit a wall or the game becomes a chore (hello, Eternal Sonata), I shut it off and move on. Because I paid a lot of money for my gaming system, as well as its games. And for that amount of money, I deserve to be entertained–to a point. A lot of entertainment is actually determined on us, the consumer, to bring something to the table. I guess, in a way, this Kristen, this CRU x360a, is entertaining herself with every ding that sounds when an achievement unlocks (even at the cost of playing Night at the Museum 2 and games in Japanese), but I don’t know. It seems like a lost cause, and I worry for the day that revelation reveals itself.
Now, I like achievements. I do. They can be great enablers, and I’ll often skim a list of them for a game I’ve bought to see if there’s any gameplay tactics or tricks I should be keeping an eye on. Sometimes you are rewarded for just natural progression, other times for trying something different. They are nice pats on the shoulder, and while I’d love to unlock every single one in every game I have, I won’t. The games I truly enjoy, sure, most likely, because I just have to have more and more of said game, but finding all the flags in Assassin’s Creed will never happen, nor will I be completing Mass Effect three more times or whatever.
After all, there’s a reason achievement whore and achievement chore rhyme.
Grinding Down 