Whenever some game has a set of "challenges," trophies, or accomplishments, I feel compelled to satisfy them. The caveat is that they almost always make the game less enjoyable. Some people have aptly described this as "gaming OCD," but that doesn't begin to account for the psychology behind this course of action.
Challenges (such as secret bosses, exotic weapons/armor) take anywhere from 30%-100% more time to complete after the main game is finished. In Kingdom Hearts (PS2), I recall defeating Sephiroth with another 3-4 hours of grinding, so it wasn't a big deal. On the other hand, beating Ni No Kuni (70 hours) and getting all the trophies (110 hours) is a huge difference, and I recall experiencing a lot of stress grinding the same shit incessantly.
There are 2 plausible rationales for people who think like this: first, since we spend money on a certain product, we want the "bang for the buck." What happens when you dine in a buffet? That's right, you almost always overeat, because you want to exploit your payment as heavily as possible. Economists argue that because utility for certain products will exhibit a "U-shape," people would theoretically stop consuming once marginal utility falls below 0 (the peak), but that has long ago been proven to be bullshit because humans are not perfectly rational. (Source: COMMON SENSE)
Second, if the primary game is not difficult enough, then people might feel obliged to continue playing due to the paucity of satisfaction. I was never a really good player at FPS (I only beat Halo on "Hard" not "Legendary," and even that proved quite taxing, to say nothing of my performance in Battlefield 3, etc.) so I have never had the urge to play them on hard mode. It would take too long and my attention span would refuse such an option. However, for typical RPG/adventure/platformers/racing, I've found those to be rather easy so there's nothing stopping me from trying out hard mode.
Anyway, the fact of the matter is, whether or not I "completed" something has almost no correlation with my enjoyment of the game, so...
My rule of thumb from now on is: if you expect to take any more than 25% of your total game time finishing all the miscellaneous crap, it's probably not worth it.
If anyone else is a completionist OCD'er, feel free to share what you think on the subject.
Whenever some game has a set of "challenges," trophies, or accomplishments, I feel compelled to satisfy them. The caveat is that they almost always make the game less enjoyable. Some people have aptly described this as "gaming OCD," but that doesn't begin to account for the psychology behind this course of action.
Challenges (such as secret bosses, exotic weapons/armor) take anywhere from 30%-100% more time to complete after the main game is finished. In Kingdom Hearts (PS2), I recall defeating Sephiroth with another 3-4 hours of grinding, so it wasn't a big deal. On the other hand, beating Ni No Kuni (70 hours) and getting all the trophies (110 hours) is a huge difference, and I recall experiencing a lot of stress grinding the same shit incessantly.
There are 2 plausible rationales for people who think like this: first, since we spend money on a certain product, we want the "bang for the buck." What happens when you dine in a buffet? That's right, you almost always overeat, because you want to exploit your payment as heavily as possible. Economists argue that because utility for certain products will exhibit a "U-shape," people would theoretically stop consuming once marginal utility falls below 0 (the peak), but that has long ago been proven to be bullshit because humans are not perfectly rational. (Source: COMMON SENSE)
Second, if the primary game is not difficult enough, then people might feel obliged to continue playing due to the paucity of satisfaction. I was never a really good player at FPS (I only beat Halo on "Hard" not "Legendary," and even that proved quite taxing, to say nothing of my performance in Battlefield 3, etc.) so I have never had the urge to play them on hard mode. It would take too long and my attention span would refuse such an option. However, for typical RPG/adventure/platformers/racing, I've found those to be rather easy so there's nothing stopping me from trying out hard mode.
Anyway, the fact of the matter is, whether or not I "completed" something has almost no correlation with my enjoyment of the game, so...
My rule of thumb from now on is: if you expect to take any more than 25% of your total game time finishing all the miscellaneous crap, it's probably not worth it.
If anyone else is a completionist OCD'er, feel free to share what you think on the subject.