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Home » Succeed For You
First Coffee ThoughtsGaming

Succeed For You

Elaine Barlow
Last updated: June 30, 2025 10:32 am
by: Elaine Barlow
Original Publication Date: August 23, 2024
Reading time: 6 minutes
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Summary

There is a word for people who cannot be motivated to do something unless something is in it for them and that also involves humiliating someone else.

First Coffee Thoughts (previously under “Musings” and “CoSo”) are blog versions of my #FirstCoffeeThoughts and #FCT multi-thread posts on CounterSocial. These are here for posterity and also to make them easier for people to read at a later time should they wish to.

#FirstCoffeeThoughts

Tactical Breach Wizards is a SINGLE PLAYER turned based strategy game. You are in competition with NO ONE but yourself as far as how many turns it takes you to complete objectives or if you attempt any of the OPTIONAL BONUS OBJECTIVES on each level. It’s between YOU and YOU.

There has been some discussion about why doesn’t the game have a LEADERBOARD so you can “show off” your score on each level and there is no “replay value” if you can’t compete via a public leaderboard.

I understand that I am an OLD PERSON when it comes to gaming. I’ve been gaming since 1978 … and priorities change and appeal changes and games change.

It just would be nice if people could learn something valuable about themselves without having to step on, punish, humiliate, or bully other people.

I realize that ALL gamers care about now is comparing themselves with others or PVP so they can kill people over and over and show how much better they are than everyone else.

I understand that self-esteem is low in people and this is the only skill they have in life and they need to be able to brag about the one thing they are good at …

I understand that games that are designed solely to challenge you in the privacy of your own home are boring and useless and have no value unless you can show other people what you have done.

I understand that most people play games not to enhance their mental or spiritual selves through exploration, story experience, and overcoming challenges but instead to delight in violence, killing their friends, bullying and belittling their enemies and women who game, and avoiding life.

I get all of that.

It just would be nice if people could learn something valuable about themselves without having to step on, punish, humiliate, or bully other people.

It would be nice if there was VALUE to pushing yourself further and using your mind in a way that didn’t have to be demonstrated in how many people you could shoot in the head with a sniper rifle and teabag.

Why is everything a competition? Why does personal growth need to also be a competitive sport or it has no value?

Your game sucks and has no replay value because it has no leaderboard where I can show off how fast I solve the puzzles and push myself to be better than other people who appear on the leaderboard above me and who make me feel stupid and inadequate because I’m not better than they are.

Even the Peloton and the Aviron rowing machine have leaderboards and competitive games. IT’S EXERCISE PEOPLE!

Is everyone so broken that they REFUSE to better themselves unless it publicly puts them above someone else?

Tactical Breach Wizards doesn’t need a leaderboard. You don’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. You don’t need to judge your ability to succeed in the game by how other people do. You don’t need to turn a single-player puzzle game into a competition with other people. It’s not necessary.

Challenge YOURSELF. Push YOURSELF to solve things faster or more efficiently for your own satisfaction. You shouldn’t need other people’s approval or jealousy as motivation. Do it for YOU. No one else.

Related Reading >  Life is for the living

You know …

There is a word for people who only feel joy and satisfaction when they succeed at the expense or to the detriment of someone else. There is a word for people who thrive on belittling others and putting other people down. There is a word for people who can only enjoy something, only feel something positive, when someone else is feeling negative. There is a word for people who cannot be motivated to do something unless something is in it for them and that also involves humiliating someone else.

You shouldn’t need other people’s approval or jealousy as motivation.

If all that is the ONLY reason you game … if all that is the ONLY way you get joy out of your game time … maybe you need to think about that.

Maybe you need to think about what drives you to want to humiliate someone … or hurt someone … or be better than everyone or else you can’t feel any satisfaction or positive feelings about your own accomplishments.

Seek help.
Get therapy.
Find peace.

TAGGED:competitioncosocountersocialfctfearFirst Coffe Thoughtsgamingnegativitysociopathstactical breach wizardsvideogames
VIA:Elaine Barlow (@thewebrecluse)

A Note From Elaine

This is my experience, not yours.

I don’t write reviews perse. I write about MY EXPERIENCE with media. If it resembles a review that’s because I’m trying to communicate what media means to ME which has absolutely NOTHING to do with YOU. The existence of my experience doesn’t invalidate yours in any way. If you are triggered by what other people write about art, that is a YOU issue and you should seek help for your emotional dysregulation problem instead of attacking or bullying others for expressing their SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE with art. You are not the center. Yours is not the default experience.

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Why No

Comments?

Because this is my life. Not a conversation.

I use this space to journal, to express myself, to have fun … to be me.
Who I am, how I express myself in my own space, my feelings and my lived reality are not up for debate and don’t need your commentary.
You’re a guest here.
Not everything you see online requires your input or opinion.
In fact, almost NONE of it does.
Learn to just enjoy and accept who people are.

Elaine As Jekyll and Hyde

© 2009-2024 Elaine Barlow / ☰ / The Web Recluse.
All gif animations and drawn art by the amazing Christina Oei
No part of the materials available through the thewebrecluse.blog or thewebrecluse.com websites, their subdomains and any affiliated websites, may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated or reduced to any electronic medium or machine-readable form, in whole or in part, without prior written consent of Elaine Barlow.  Any other reproduction in any form without the permission of Elaine Barlow is prohibited.

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