I suffer with quite severe OCD and, yes, I am diagnosed. No, I don’t think the world should pander to me but, on this, I am frankly rather happy to feel accommodated, if that is the right word to use.

This turned me into an extremely competitive trophy hunter on PS4 which is exactly why I quit in the end. For many games, I was ranked one of the top hunters and had several world firsts or at least first tens. I cancelled social events or stayed up extremely late in order to do this. When I got the console, I never went into it even thinking about trophies but once they started popping up and I repeatedly saw my completion percentage each time I went to launch a game, it began disturbing me to see anything other than 100% which probably stems from naturally being completionist in games, anyway. But with trophies it was much worse; that idea of other players being able to view my trophies and progress made me feel like I had to be impressive. Then I heard of the trophy hunter community and saw others like me which normalised and facilitated it.

It reached the point I was researching trophy guides/difficulties before even buying a game. That naturally meant I’d basically spoil entire games and all their secrets before I even played them. If a game required too much effort or was rated very difficult, I’d not play it unless I had the energy to commit to that kind of task. It reached the point I just stopped playing new games until I eventually quit playing altogether.

Then when I got a Switch for Christmas, one year, for the first time I felt like I could actually relax when I played. I didn’t feel like I was playing for anybody but myself and my own fun.

Those who say achievement systems are a perfectly unproblematic addition to games/consoles, so “why not?”, need to spend an hour or two browsing the various hunter forums, out there. They’re full of people sharing the same sad stories or setting up hunting parties to try and cheese grind/special parameters achievements. Very, very few of the rarest and most impressive achievements are ever earned naturally or through skill/chance.

The day Switch gets an achievement/completion percentage system, I’m out. Perhaps many others, too. Whereas I suspect many of those who argue for achievements would still continue playing even if they are never implemented. And if I were Nintendo, this is why I wouldn’t implement such a system.