Pixel Artist / Game Dev Tahko on Mario Kart World¹:

hot take but the open world in mario kart world is actually super detailed there just isn’t any fancy reward for noticing things

There's a metaphor there!

Games are notorious for incentivizing exploration through secrets, achievements, etc. It's what they do — gamify curiosity. It's beautiful to me that what will likely be the best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch 2 has brought in so much detail and left it to the player to seek it out for the pure delight of finding it.

Platforms have similarly gamified several creative pursuits: Writing, art, music, etc. There are plenty of benefits: more easily connecting with like-minded creatives, being exposed to more inspiring work, reaching a broader audience, etc. It can be fun! One potential tradeoff though, is a misplaced emphasis on how many points a piece gets on these platforms. Which then contorts the practice from creating beauty to algorithm juicing.

I remember as a kid spinning up Time Trial on Mario Kart 64 many times. Though it wasn't to try and beat a personal best. The benefit of this mode was that you had the track all to yourself, and there was no point where you'd be kicked out until you completed three laps. This was so alluring because it gave me time to slow down and explore the scenery, find the secrets, and imagine my own stories in these worlds.

Curiosity, it seems, didn't need an achievement to be worth pursuing. I imagine the same is true for whatever your practice is.