| I got to this point with games a few years ago. My coworkers (all big gamers) were amazed that I would wait for games to be on steep sale or just play older titles. My first job out of high school was working in a game store where I fell into the rat race of having every shiny new thing I could afford and getting hyped up on the hyper competitive nature of everything. Really, it was Destiny 1 and Halo MCC that broke me hard of this habit. Between the games being broken or lacking, and me not enjoying the PvP aspect of Destiny 1, I just stepped away from it all. Now I am content to game for the sake of burning time. I don't like PUBG, but I have it to play with friends while we drink beers and shoot the bot infested unranked, the final moments are tense and fun and if we fail at least we had the fun of getting there. I got XBOX game pass and just pop in games to try them out now, no worries or hassle of returning since it is Netflix style gaming. Even on my phone I have loaded up old games where I turn on cheats for mad fun. I am currently playing Pokemon Sun and whenever the baddies start a match with "I am stealing your Pokemon" they face my 100% started with 100% critical chance and I just lob a Master Ball and steal their Pokemon. I enjoy walking through walls and just being ridiculous in it while still enjoying the story and atmosphere of the game. (all the fun, none of slowness inherent in those games). But I do agree. I don't know how many times I would work my 9-5, try and game some, get upset at the losses, and just wallow out the rest of the night, skipping other stuff I wanted/needed to do. The highs certainly weren't worth the lows. Part of why when folks say video games aren't addicting, I ask why CoD put in the prestige system. It keeps hitting you with that dopamine of 'yea, just unlocked something' which constantly throws you back into combat where something else gets unlocked. |
It's also part of the competition. It's called "Prestige" because having a lot of those levels is meant to be prestigious. For me, it was closer to an MMR Ranking or KD Ratio. It's less about collecting the icons, and more about getting some form of external validation that you were a better player than other players. Of course, Prestige is a bad indicator that you are a better player than other players, but it allows people who aren't good but have a lot of time to compete on some level.
If this were really about "yea, just unlocked something" I would expect better rewards. I haven't played the new CoDs a lot, but from what I remember, the rewards for prestiging were largely meh, and you get most of them from low levels of prestige. If you hit prestige 99, you've done a lot of prestiges without any unlocks (other than the bars next to your username, which no one ever looks at).