Help me get over my trophy/achievement obsession

[Infected Elite]

just play games to play them. Find more to do with your life outside of gaming. get more than 1 job. Make less time for gaming.

 

i play a lot of games, but every day after work I don't play anything. I cook, shower, relax. Weekends are pretty much my game days and even then sometimes i just dont care to game.

 

Its nothing more than an imaginary digital statistic. Just game to enjoy it, don't make it a chore.

[Dav9834]

6 hours ago, Dr_Mayus said:

Going on a trophy website asking how to stop going for trophies is like going into a shooting den asking for the best way to stop doing drugs.

This is incredibly accurate lol

 

To the OP, play some old games that you cherish that don't have trophies. And just play for the story or game play. 

After a while you'll see a difference 

 

FUN FACT from Dav9834

Years ago the Russians wanted to see how people would do psychologically on a trip to Mars. So they took volunteers and put them in essentially a shipping container for 12 months(no joke). They found the first 3 months were difficult for the people(understatement), getting worse and worse, and then, poof 3-4 months in they were "fine" and adapted. 

 

So for the most part people adapt in 3 months. This can be helpful for a lot of things. Jobs you don't like, diets, exercise, etc.

In your case, stay away from games with trophies for 3 months and you should start to adapt. Theoretically...

 

[mecharobot]

Take your consoles with trophies and put them in the closet. Don't play anything for a week or so. Then play some accessible game, like Mario Odyssey or something and you'll forget what trophies you even had on your profile.

 

Also if you really are missing the game history, you can just make your own at sites like backloggery, myvideogamelist etc. They're probably more accurate too all things considered.

[Lava_Yuki]

Give up playstation and xbox and move over to the world of Nintendo where there are no trophies is an option. 

[exsentry]

 

On 3/21/2021 at 1:32 PM, Malex595 said:

Taking on a full time job/non gaming telated hobby/ girlfriend can help

 

^This. Ever since I bought a house last year, I have been obsessed with gardening (plants & flowers). It takes up the majority of my down time along with most of my disposable income. Other than Hitman 3, I don't even remember the last AAA I purchase. Probably squeeze in 90 minutes of gaming a day now compared to the previous 4 hours.

 

Probably not easy to find a different hobby you are obsessed with, but it's much easier to have an newer, healthier hobby than completely try to ditch the current one maybe.

[Yukiko Miyamoto]

Probably best to move to other platforms like switch or steam, you can actually play for fun.

[ValkerianCreator]

There is probably no better way to turn anyone off from trophy hunting crusades than to show them what happened with the top trophy hunter from before, and why he or she stopped doing it. That usually sends a reality check pretty fast. You might also get something similar if you reach a top 10 global leaderboard in a hard game that requires a lot of skill. At first you will love it and you will feel proud about it, but soon after, you will realize that the only people that reached that level were not necessarily the most skilled, the most awesome, or the most lucky, they were simply the only ones who played the game for +200 hours, even though it was a 20-hour-long game. The most spectacular performances weren't a result of "ultimate skill" either; they were more like ultimate automation, because those guys could just play and move everything without even thinking about it; it was all automatic. Therefore, the top performances were not (and are not) as spectacular as you believed when you were a new player that looked up at those with a "wow" in your mind. They were a result of playing it (or doing it) too much, rather than being too awesome lol 😁. That was definitely disappointing, by the way, when I reached that point and I got one of those highscore performances, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

 

I experienced that with Beat Saber on psvr1. Once upon a time (I think it was in 2020) I used to be one of the common top 10 scorers there, in all the difficulty modes, except expert+. However, I got more joy from getting the platinum (in just 24 hours) than from getting the top 10 scores in 100 hours (most of them are gone in 2024, except a few in some songs, like Angel Voices). I also got more joy from the first completion of an expert+ level than from the first expert+ SS rank. In other words, those accomplishments--although real and quite demanding--are not as noteworthy or meaningful for the long-term as one might think, the day when you get them. The reason is that they are only affecting you directly, they are not affecting other people directly (except probably the other top 10 scorers who are judging themselves and their "performance and abilities" looking at your score). However, if you think about it, the ones who really benefit long-term from all your dedication are the makers of the game; it's not really the other 100k players. If it is a VR fitness game, you might get more fit for yourself too, which is good (and I also experienced that with some VR games), but at the end of the day, the maker of the game is who really wins the most with all your achievements and with all that time that you put into them.

 

The only case where I do think that "gaming achievements," such as hard platinum trophies and highscores in competitive games, are truly meaningful in the greater scheme of things is if you are some kind of gaming streamer with a successful channel in Youtube or Twitch, and your "gaming accomplishments" are really contributing to other people, or helping them, in some meaningful way. Otherwise, it's just a nice "ego stroke" for yourself when it happens (when you get that hard platinum or highscore), but it's not that great of a deal, for example, just 1 or 2 years later. And you are going to realize that [if you are one of those people that got rare gaming achievements], they are nice to have, but they are not really making a big difference, if you think about it, and they probably took a lot of time out of you.

 

That's probably why I want to focus on the writing of 2 science-fiction action series. It feels like that can make a more meaningful use of my "hobby time," and a much bigger contribution for many people, than raising my "certified VR guru" level, lol 🤣😂😎. I just feel hungrier now for accomplishments that are considered more meaningful, or that can make a greater impact, perhaps, even at a global level. I guess a great book series is more likely to do that than the global SuperHyperCube highscore on psvr. One thing is certain: other people can't benefit that much from any of my "gaming accomplishments," but they can benefit from reading something good and inspiring that I wrote.

 

And yeah, going back to the trophy hunting analysis here; I don't want to break anyone's dreams here, but if you look at what tends to happen with the top trophy hunter, it's usually not pretty. Typically, they have some sort of family breakdown or another form of crisis; and when that happens the 1000 platinums and the 575 ultra rare trophies are not going to save them. That's just how it is. It's not that they are bad, but if all those accomplishments didn't translate into another additional source of income, or something that many other people considered worth following or paying for, it doesn't do much to keep the full-time player afloat in real life. That's why both Hakoom and ikemenzi went "cold turkey" all of a sudden. The only full-time gamers who stay afloat that way are the ones who were truly serious about making a successful streaming Youtube/Twitch channel out of it. Everybody else (which is nearly everyone) shouldn't worry too much about the gaming jazz, because it is just an extra at the end of the day (even if you got amazing skills lol). I knew that when I noticed that the main perk that my very-hard-earned 50 VR platinums gave me was a quick access to my profile in this site by clicking "leaderboard" and "VR," and then looking for me there in page 1. Pretty nice reward for those 50 VR platinums huh? 🤣 And no, I didn't get paid or anything 🤣. I did it for free... Actually, you know what, that's very wrong... I paid for the games and the psvr1 + Ps4, so it wasn't for free. I also paid with time (hundreds of hours). I don't regret it, obviously... I did have fun with my VR experiences. But when you really analyze it, if you are not someone with a serious gaming channel that is pulling money and a real following with it, it's a much better idea to use the majority of your useful extra time in other ventures that can lead you to much greater success. I know it's easier said than done, because I used to be very proud about my scores in Beat Saber and SuperHyperCube, but, at the end of the day, they really didn't do a lot for me. I imagine it's exactly the same thing with those guys that have the +1000 platinums, but multiplied times 100 and with a lot more losses along the way. Honestly, I think it's pretty sad that ikemenzi didn't make a youtube channel with 10,000 freaking gameplay videos in it, only because "his English was bad." (That was his response when I recommended it to him.) He would have had +100k followers by now, even with "no commentary" videos. Instead, it's "going cold turkey" and "crisis time." Hopefully the guy didn't die 🙃... that's the reality of "true hardcore gamers" and "trophy hunting addictions" in a nutshell. Another funny and unfortunate reality, is that you can tell when some sort of crap happened in a gamer's life, if they suddenly raised their numbers of gaming hours, platinums, achievements, etc. in an abnormal manner. Sadly, when the gaming achievements skyrocket, it is [typically] not a sign of beautiful news, it is common that the person wanted to "feel better being a badass at gaming" because something else wasn't working wonderfully in their life. I completed Racket Fury, beat SuperHyperCube, and landed in Beat Saber's top 10 scores in 2020, when things were not going great for me. That's definitely not a coincidence.

 

If you consider all of the above, that might help you to get realistic about "gaming achievement hunting." In a nutshell: it's not important. You don't have to quit gaming "cold turkey," or quit all achievement hunting, or anything like that, but just be aware that all those "epic gaming achievements" from today won't make any big difference 3 years later (unless you were doing it for a successful gaming channel). So, getting them or not should be completely optional. What shouldn't be optional is sharing any rare gift you have, and doing any good thing that you can do. In my case, I can write sci-fi books and I am pretty good at teaching too (math tutoring, etc.). Maybe you can do something else with your personal abilities and with your time. Something good and useful. You can still game here and there, but it shouldn't steal too much time if it's not how you plan to make a living.

 

My 2 cents on the matter ; )