Achievement Porn
Hacker News pointed me to an article recently called “Addicted to Fake Achievement“.
That article is about video games, but this one isn’t. The thesis of that article is that some games (it mentions Role Playing Games) don’t actually require skill, just time. You start with a weak character and perform some task that’s almost too easy to fail. You’re rewarded by gaining access to another task that is also almost too easy to fail. The process creates the illusion of achievement. His point is that he’d like to play more skill based games, which he thinks would provide a more “authentic” level of achievement because you have to practice them and master a skill.
The skill, of course, being mashing buttons in a particular way.
Which brings me to my thesis, which is that he didn’t go nearly far enough.
The article is surprisingly interesting, and his point cogent, but there’s a whole meta discussion that he seems to have missed: regardless of whether the video game you’re playing is skill based or treadmill based, it’s still a video game. Far be it for me to judge a person’s choice in entertainment media, but no one who watches reality TV labors under the illusion that they are achieving anything substantial. Any achievement in a video game is a “fake achievement.” And video games aren’t alone.
The Social Pathology of Fake Achievement
The game article, and the meta discussion surrounding it is actually part of an even larger discussion that affects more than just video gamers. Games are just a minor symptom of a systemic disease:
- Our society is set up to make us feel as though we must always achieve and grow. That’s true because individuals growing tend to bolster the power and creature comforts of the groups they belong to with inventions, innovations, and impressive grandstanding (Go Team!).
- Because of this pressure to grow, there’s another incentive to make growth easier. More perversely, to make growth seem easier.
Why work hard for achievements, when you could relax and achieve the same? That’s not pathological, that’s how exponential progress works.
But why achieve at all when you can plug into any number of “achievement games” and get the same personal satisfaction? That’s when it becomes pathological.
Misaligned Incentives
Two days ago I got a call from the vice principle of my 5th grade son’s school.
My little guy can be a handful, but at school he’s an angel. Teachers love him, he always behaves. Except this time: he stole $10 out of a classmate’s backpack. So he’ll be getting punished, but there’s a line I need to walk here. I punish him for stealing to disincent him from stealing. But the true effect is to disincent him from getting caught stealing. His options for that are to actually stop (which I want), or just get better at it (which I don’t want). So the trick is to figure out a punishment that will make him think twice about stealing, but not one that will just make him more savvy.
Similarly, by creating profound pressure to achieve, our society has sprouted ways to exploit that insatiable drive by setting up “games” that simulate achievement, but that are actually meaningless.
Examples of Games
Gradubation
One salient example is our education system. Like a role playing video game, one educational challenge leads to the next, with each challenge being trivial for the people who are at the right level to undertake it. After years on a treadmill that’s too easy to fail at, players—students, in this case—are acclimated to the game of education, rather to real achievement. Their work for those years is not valuable at all, and often doesn’t even simulate what valuable work would be like: they have only managed to repeat patterns they’ve been shown back at the educators. This is the game. One possible side effect of this system is learning.
Even learning, when it really does happen, is not itself an achievement. Learning just tends to promote achievement because a prerequisite for many achievements is knowledge.
The only saving grace of the system is that education, while not directly fostering learning (which doesn’t directly foster meaningful achievement), tends to promote both as one of the possible side effects.
Another great example of a game that has an achievement side effect is money. People are rewarded for acquiring money, because money acquisition tends to promote achievement. Achievement doesn’t necessarily lead to money, and just because someone has money doesn’t necessarily mean they achieved anything. Again, achievement just a correlation—a possible side effect—of money.
How to Recognize Fake Achievement Treadmills
The good news is that these little “achievement games” are fairly easy to recognize once you realize what’s going on. The bad news is that more are cropping up at an alarming rate, sped largely by the intertubes.
Games fast becoming standard are the “followers” and “friends” games for example. Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, et al, all have their own ostensible raison d’etre, but the psychological underpinning they all share is this treadmill of achievement. This accumulation of points that’s correlated with whatever the intended benefit of the service is.
This explosive growth in “achievement porn” is why it’s more important than ever to get your mind right about what you’re doing with your life and why you’re doing it.
Is this activity making a positive, tangible difference in my life or anyone else’s life?
The easy part to culling the bullshit is to ask yourself: Is this activity making a positive, tangible difference in my life or anyone else’s life? Is it a real, true prerequisite for a tangibly effective activity? Alternatively, am I totally okay with doing this just because I like doing it, laboring under no illusion that it benefits me or anyone else?
The hard part is ignoring the voice in your head that will definitely crop up should you discover that you’re on a meaningless treadmill. That voice will tell you all the really great benefits of your bullshit treadmill in an attempt to convince you that it’s meaningful.
I know that voice will pop up because like every bullshit treadmill that exists, it exists because it’s correlated with something we consider “good”. Just like punishment is correlated with good behavior, education is correlated with scientific advancement, and money is correlated with value, your treadmill of choice is correlated with something good too:
- With Facebook it’s “reconnecting” or “staying in touch.”
- With Twitter it’s “influence.”
- With WarCraft it’s “forming friendships.”
The fact is that each of these correlations are pretty much true, but none of them are necessary, and they are almost never optimal. People had influence before Twitter existed. In fact, Twitter influence is a sorry substitute for robust influence over devoted followers. Close friendships formed before World of WarCraft came out, and the fact is that there are far better ways to connect with people for the purposes of forming friendship.
If you like these things because they entertain you and relax you, fine, more power to you. I have a 110″ inch screen in my media room that I play games on a couple hours a week, because I think they are fun. But don’t delude yourself: they are bullshit. They are treadmills that are impossible to fail at, that exploit our deep-rooted desire to achieve, and that are sorry substitutes for whatever you’re trying to convince yourself they are good for, friendship, connections, influence, or otherwise.
Get off the treadmill. Go for a walk.
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112 Responses to “Achievement Porn”
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About Me
My mission is to inspire people to think clearly, to live deliberately, to conquer fear and embrace possibility, to express beauty, and to love completely. Prepare to be scorched then reborn, authentic and complete.
What is the value of achievement without incentive?
You make a lot of broad generalizations in this article. I like the idea’s you have but what is your background in sociology?
You question confuses me.
The incentives I’m talking about are rewards offered for achievements by a third party who values the achievement at least as much as the reward offered, when the achievement itself isn’t sufficient to motivate the achiever to follow through on it.
You’re asking if achievements have any meaning without incentives, but I think you have it reversed: incentives become meaningful in the context of the desired achievement.
[...] recently saw an article called “Achievement Porn” describing how video games and even social networking sites seem to offer you tasks you can [...]
A well thought out piece. I was referred to this article from a comment thread on follow or not to follow etiquette on Twitter. I am a Web Philosopher who approaches the Internet phenomena from a sociological and psychological perspective and I find your take on web “achievements” fake or other wise very thought provoking. I will be listening (reading) to your thoughts some more in the future, thanks.
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Where are all the commenters who want to take advantage of porn achievers? I only made I through half of your comments, but I figured there be at least a few enterprising schemers in here.
I think that this treadmill is there, who sees all the people running on it?
Tex´s last blog .."Don’t undertake a project"
I’m also wondering where they are. Maybe they’re too busy building the obsessions of the future.
[...] week I published an essay called Achievement Porn in which I warned against the dangers of addictive treadmills sinking their hooks into your ape [...]
So you think there are _real_ achievements in the world?
Bad news for you: the same mechanism which keeps most peoples from realizing that game achievements, “friends” and “followers” are fake achievements, keeps you from realizing all other achievements are fake too.
Yeah, there can be difference just for you(because you probably think that science is “real”), but the logic tells us that there is no way one thing can be more “real” than another one in general.
P.S. Sorry for my bad English.
[...] has come once again because, while I’m reading Camus at Combat, Dare Obasanjo is response to Peter Michaud’s response to Doctor Professor. The short of that litany is that Professor realizes that the [...]
[...] you addicted to fake achievement? (some bad language towards the [...]
[...] via Achievement Porn « Essays « Pete Michaud. [...]
So did you get the gay pirate eye patch at level 8 or 9?
I got when I unlocked the “Skull crusher” achievement.
[...] has come once again because, while I’m reading Camus at Combat, Dare Obasanjo is response to Peter Michaud’s response to Doctor Professor. The short of that litany is that Professor realizes that the [...]
A couple of years ago there was a discussion in the forums of my World of Warcraft gaming guild, about whether playing had overall been a positive influence in our lives. I believe I was the only one of about a dozen who commented at the time who stated, without any reservation, that Wow had been good for me.
Perhaps it’s enough explanation to say that I definitely needed something that was “almost too easy to fail”, coupled with a more predictable substitute for “friendship, connections, influence”, at least for a time. And while I was experiencing that, I found other things.
I get that your essay isn’t about video games, but I think most undertakings may not have inherent value, once you step past the first level in Maslow’s Hierarchy. Your measurement of value is “a positive, tangible difference in my life, or anyone else’s life.”
What makes a difference is so personal. Have I learned leadership skills I didn’t have before? Yes. Have I reawakened my writing skills and started a new stream of income because of someone I met in Wow? Yes. Did I save a marriage with a referral to some advice, in game? I’m told so.
I don’t think I can explain adequately, but I think your vehemence in labeling in-game achievements “fake” goes further than it needs to. So I’m left both agreeing and disagreeing with you, which is one of the reasons I enjoy reading your stuff so much.
If I’d never played Wow, I probably wouldn’t have started blogging… and probably never read your site. One’s life can make the oddest connections, and the value you take from them depends a great deal on what you bring, how you choose to think about them, and what you create from those thoughts.
Karilee, you may be surprised to know that your story is similar to mine. Some parts of my childhood made it easier for me to come out of my shell, learn social graces and leadership, and develop self esteem all online, and in my case through the medium of a gaming guild (very much pre-WoW, but the concept was the same).
Perhaps for me, at that age, in that situation, the optimal way to grow was to play games in a group. I took social lessons into offline life with me. I began learning writing, design, and web development because of that.
The examples I chose were meant to target the fat part of the bell curve of people who engage in activities like WoW or Farmville–those people know who they are, and they know they are frittering their lives away. That’s why I think my follow up on this, about Meaningful Work, is important. The take away is: there is no right answer. For some Wow is a curse, for you it could be exactly what you need right now. It’s up to you.
My admonishment is not to tell you what is worth your while, but simply to be brutally honest with yourself about that.
I believe this article would have had more impact had it stated some examples of what *real* achievements are.
Once again, well said.
Do a couple more on this topic, and you might wake some people up.
[...] will convince yourself time and again that the message doesn’t apply to you. That you can waste your time on treadmills, fail to produce work, or yes, equivocate in your thinking. In fact, chances are that if [...]
I really can’t agree with the two-dimensional distinction between fake and real achievements. Your article is interesting, but I don’t think that “achievement treadmills” can be easily assessed in terms of their value to society. How can you, for example, argue that a game is “bullshit” and not have a very real basis in establishing social constructs, value systems or learning opportunities?
The definition of “game” seems to be diffusing its identity through media-rich and interactive online content, broadening into a full spectrum of “achivement” opportunities (both real and fake): anything from games in advertising to games designed to provide real learning opportunities to the user. What if online games can offer something more valuable than real human interaction?
Great question. What if they can? I challenge you to build such a game, it’ll be boon.
[...] Michaud has an interesting pushback against video game achievements, Achievement Porn, The article is surprisingly interesting, and his point cogent, but there’s a whole meta [...]
Hi Pete,
Your essay has been on my mind since you first published it. Thank you for writing it. You’ve changed the way I think about many of the things I do.
RJ Ryan
You’re welcome. The next step is figuring out how to use it to your advantage and to the advantage of people in general. You can change the world Rusty, go do it.