Abyssal Pixels: Why Do Gamers Like Grinding?

No, not the act of smoothing something or cutting something with a circular saw or that thing people do in clubs with filthy strangers that they might knock up in the immediate future. Since the dawn of gaming, there has always been this reliance on repetition in some capacity. Pac-Man, you do the same thing over and over again, but you might get a higher score. Space Invaders, you shoot some aliens and then they pop right back for you to do it all over again. If you break gaming down to its base and really look at what we’re actually doing, then you’d think we’re a bunch of loonies that do the same thing over and over again.

This dawned on me as I was doing a dungeon for the umpteenth time in Final Fantasy 14 and then realising that what I’m doing would actually be seen as super boring. The dungeon I was doing wasn’t particularly laden with things that required my attention and because of how the game worked, I essentially stood in one spot and pressed the same combination of buttons over and over again for about 30 minutes. I was actually a bit conscious of this monotonous task since I had some let’s plays and videos going on a separate monitor for me to watch while I instinctively do the same button combination, glancing once an a while to see where I’m going.

Then I realised that this must look ridiculous from an outsider’s perspective. If someone had to watch me play this and they didn’t have a means of entertaining themselves like a phone or something, they would fall asleep in a heartbeat. Still, I’m drawn to this and as a gamer that loves RPGs the most, I get my fair share of grinding. Killing the same enemies over and over again for fetch quests, walking from one point to another constantly to deliver meaningless shit, collecting flowers for potions or whatever and so on.

But why do we gamers put up with this?

I think the simplest answer is that there is some form of reward at the end that makes it worth it. The dungeon I did gave me a ton of premium currency to buy some sweet looking pants so I had my motivation there. Someone that’s collecting 45 goat bollocks for NPC #323 is getting some gold and experience that they need to level up. If those didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have bothered. I really see it being difficult for anyone to get pleasure out of something that is so repetitive, unless their idea of fun is in repetition which does exist believe it or not.

I saw this joy in repetition from people that play truck simulators and farming simulators seriously. By seriously I mean they don’t just play it to crash the truck into everything or molest cows. It’s frankly dull as hell, but there’s some weird sense of comfort in it all. Driving cross-country in a truck and looking at plain scenery can take your mind off the hellishly violent and unfair world we live in filled with death, corruption, evil, responsibilities and Donald Trump. The same rationale can be used for grinding as well, whatever form that may be.

Before you laugh at someone playing Farming Simulator, remember that you wasted hours trying to find a Shiny Pokemon or did a dungeon in an MMO that you’ve done over 10 times before.

So what is the value of grinding? Can we chalk it up as being completely pointless? Well, in all honesty, it is pretty pointless, but without it, I can’t see some games being that fulfilling. If you can get the best end game gear in an MMO in the space of a few days doing the dungeons only once, then what’s the point really? The social aspect and the sense of accomplishment completely vanishes. If an RPG is 10 hours and you only level with the main quest and get currency like nothing, then I don’t think it would be as immersive and engaging as it usually is.

Grinding is a weird thing to quantify and explain. What seems entirely pointless initially does form a part of gaming’s fabric and I don’t know how we can do it differently. Grinding is so ingrained and prevalent, that we’ve learned to deal with it and even find joy in it.

But that’s just how I think about it, do you see why we enjoy grinding? Am I talking out of my ass and grinding should slowly disappear? Educate me, people.

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