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The Psychology of Achievement In Playing Games
A post on Pixel Poppers looks at the psychological underpinnings of the types of challenges offered by different game genres, and the effect those challenges have on determining which players find the games entertaining. Quoting:
"To progress in an action game, the player has to improve, which is by no means guaranteed — but to progress in an RPG, the characters have to improve, which is inevitable. ... It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform — to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master — to improve their skill or knowledge. Say you take a person with a performance orientation ('Paul') and a person with a mastery orientation ('Matt'). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. Paul will complete it quickly and smile proudly at how well he performed. Matt will complete it quickly and be satisfied that he has mastered the skill involved. Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle."
So the conclusion is that some people perservere with longer than others while others get bored and don't always fini
No, there's more to it than that. Taking TFA's two characters, while Paul may give up quickly when given a task that's too difficult to solve quickly, he may actually try for longer than Matt when given, say, a series of challenges each of which gets slightly harder, but all of which use the same skill, e.g. a series of more and more complex sudoku. Matt will do the first couple, realise they're all the same and then give up, but Paul will still see them as challenges to overcome merely because each one is slightly harder than the last, even though he isn't learning anything new.
It all comes down to the type of praise you receive. If you perform well on a task and are told, "Wow, you must be smart!" it teaches you to value your skill, and thus fosters a performance orientation. But if instead you are told, "Wow, you must have worked hard!" it teaches you to value your effort and thus fosters a mastery orientation.
If things are that simplistic what happens with a child that receives no praise? Or different sort of praise for different tasks? Or praise one day and none the other.
I'm not saying that everybody needs to play on the hardest difficulties they can possibly manage and devote hours to mastering every game they touch. Few of us have that kind of time or patience, and it's better spent developing more useful skills or actually being creative or productive. I don't play on Hard all the time, or always shoot for 100% completion. And I'm certainly not telling you not to play RPGs - I play them occasionally myself now, confident that now I'm enjoying them for the characters and story and not as a source of fake achievement. What I am saying is that you should pay attention to what's going on in your head when you play these games.
I almost hesitate to ask but what is the difference between "fake achievement" and so-called "real achievement" surely the difference between them are only in your own head. Having RTFA I would say that it appears that someone has had some sort of insight into his own personality and from that have extrapolated some sort of general theory of how people are motivated. No research or objective evaluation of empiric data used as a basis for this claim; pure conjecture. So to answer the question.
So which type would that make me?
It makes you the type that your are. Nothing more, and nothing less. Personally I would recommend you continue enjoying games the way you want to enjoy them; have fun and darn anyone that says you shouldn't.
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