Completionism

Mainly after the arrival of achievements and trophies on the Xbox and Playstaton systems, people started to seek the 100% of games, being for a better utilization of the money spent, just to calm down the OCD or simply because of the pure enjoyment the game brought to them. But how important is that? Or how important is for a game to have a large extra content beyond the main game?

About the first question, I think the importance of doing the 100% of a game is exclusively defined by the player. I know some people compete on "who has the most platinum" or something like that, but many more simply don't care. That can even extend the discussion to "how important is beating a game?", but it is not today's subject.

Personally I am among the ones that don't care about it, but some games simply awaken this desire in me for some reason. I did 100% of Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle (and its DLC) because it is a game that got me hooked on its mechanics and has an increasing difficulty that had me pushing the limit of how much I could do in it. I also got the 999 stars in Super Mario Odyssey, just because it is a fantastic game and is so much fun just to grab the controller and play a little.

Notice that the two examples above had two completely different reasons and each person will feel that need from different games and different reasons. But what a game have to offer to incite this feel in someone that don't usually go for the 100%? What frequently happens is the promise of an in-game reward, even it being a golden poop, and that will be something that only who did this hard task will have. In other cases, the path chosen by the developer is to make way harder challenges than the ones in the game, provoking the players to try to beat those just to prove themselves. These are some examples, but, as I said before, everyone will have a different trigger.

The harder challenges coice is also kind of a trick to add replay value and length to the game with "less effort". I'm not trying to discredit anyone, but it is something done since the NES games, that only seemed like they were long but, in fact, they were short and hard to finish.

Going back to the second question I made in the begining, about the quantity of content in a game beyond the main campaign, it is something that might be problematic in case a developer chooses not to make these with the same care as the "main game". Sometimes the developers want just to add hours to a game and create some achievements with an absurd number. Of course there are some cases that this post-game content is very well done, even bigger than the campaign, well tought and rewarding. Both cases can instigate people to go after these extras, but I belive that the more well crafted they are, more effective they will be.

That was a lot of writing and no conclusion at all, but I just wanted to share some toughts. I think this is a very personal matter, some people play only while they are having fun and others feel obliged to do it all for whatever reason.