Why we do what we do

I read someone's Blog last week (and if they read this, please comment so I can link it) which discussed, primarily, achievements in gaming. The crux of the argument (if I understood it correctly) was whether or not you enjoyed certain activities within a game which netted you an in-game reward, and whether or not you'd continue performing those activities if you could just press a button and get the reward.

If you would continue to perform those activities after receiving your reward then it's obvious that you enjoy them, so continue playing away. But if you would stop performing these activities upon receiving the reward, and if the reward is little more than a pointless piece of fluff that does not serve to better your character, then why bother with it in the first place?

Nowadays in WoW if you're keen enough to visit practically every square inch of every zone in every land, you can get yourself an Explorer title. I'm sure there's something to be said for a low level player acquiring such a title, especially as setting foot in many zones would result in their almost immediate death, that is assuming they could even access some of the higher level zones. But why would you bother mapping all of the zones in the first place? Especially when you're speed leveling to Cap where SOP is hit the Zone's "Quest Hub", grab all available quests, then rush around and complete everything as fast as you can. And so what if you don't go to that south-eastern corner and the map remains blank at that point. If you needed to uncover it then a quest would have sent you there, but none did so you don't need to go there, right? Besides, you can come back later, at 80, with a fast Epic Mount, and fill the Map in then.

But a long, long time ago, a young Hunter (most likely in his high 20s to low 30s) ventured north from the Wetlands into the Arathi Highlands. After participating in a Raid on Hammerfall he moved beyond Arathi to Southshore, but he didn't stop there. He continued to venture forth up into the Alterac Mountains, on to the Plaguelands (yes, he was a Newb), and into Tirisfal Glades. With absolutely no reward to show for his effort, with no Title awaiting him, and no way of proving to anyone what he'd done (outside of screenshots and a blog, and screenies can be faked anyway), the Hunter was determined to uncover the entire map for every Zone he found, even if he died in the attempt. And he did. Repeatedly, and often. Mobs killed him. NPCs killed him. Other players killed him when, in his noobness, he fought back against city guards and Flagged himself.

Yet he stubbornly persisted in his quest (did we mention he was a Dwarf? Yeah, kind of goes without saying, right?) and eventually he did reveal every section of every Zone's Map, including those zones in which he had no right being, not at his level, and certainly not without a Mount. (He also found some Zones that didn't exist yet, which was both cool and eerie, traveling across smooth landscapes with nothing but terrain texture as far as the eye could see.)

He didn't go exploring for a Vanity Pet or a Title, and when he was done he had no way of proving what he'd done to anyone, nor did he need to or want to. It was enough that he knew he'd done it, because in the end he'd done it for nobody but himself, and for no reason other than "it was there".

A long time ago I played The Sims, and I was enjoying it up to a certain point, being when your Sim needs to have 10 Friends in order to receive their next promotion.. Yes, their Friends could just be Friends with the spouse/partner, but there needed to be at least 10. Because I'd continued playing the Newbie family (the couple you play in the Tutorial) there just weren't that many people in my neighborhood. I needed a new family. One with a lot of members. So I created a "family" with the maximum number of people, built them a box to call their own, moved them in, then called my Newbie couple over to visit. Before too long it was late (in the game) and not everyone was friends with my Newbies, but that was okay, there's always tomorrow.

Tomorrow arrived, and my Sim picked up the phone and called her new friends...and most of them blew her off. Even the ones she was actually friends with were reluctant to come visit.

"Well I did just paint the living room, and I was going to sit here and watch the paint dry, but I guess your place could be more exciting."

Geez! Don't break a leg rushing over here!

Hitting the "10-Friend Wall" meant no promotion, and no promotion meant no more money, which meant no newer, cooler, better stuff for my Sims.

So I found a cheat code to give me all the money I needed to build the biggest, best, baddest house on the block, filled with the coolest stuff. And I did. Then I looked at my huge house filled with crap that I hadn't "earned", and which my Sims hadn't earned, and I quit. I shut the game down.

A day or two later I booted the game back up, played for a minute or two, then shut it down again.

My Sims had all the money they needed. They owned the best of everything. There was...no reason to play the game.

Up until that moment I had enjoyed playing The Sims. Then I pressed that button and gave myself the Reward and that was it. The game was no longer fun for me. I know other people would have continued to play and found a new reason and way to have fun, but I didn't.

In one game there was no reward or recognition for what I was doing. Self-gratification was the only reward, and there was no way to short cut to the end. I did what I did for me, and I enjoyed doing it, and now I find myself doing it again, and still enjoying it.

In the other game there was a reward waiting at the end. And when I found a way to give myself that reward...I stopped playing. The game was fun right up until the moment I cheated. And the sad thing is I cheated nobody but myself out of the fun I was having. A more cynical person might say I wasn't really having fun, and that I just needed the cheat code to realize that. Maybe they'd be right.