[Paul-Craft]

Funny you should mention "succeeding" at a hobby. I collect coins. There are 2 major companies that will grade and encapsulate coins in clear, tamper-evident, sealed polycarbonate holders that have labels inside them with bar codes and serial numbers and all that jazz.

Both of those companies have this concept that's called a "registry set," which is where you can go on their websites and enter the serial numbers of coins you own, then create virtual sets out of those coins. You can create your own set lists, which I have no problem with, but there are also pre-made set lists the company created, which are scored according to a rarity-weighted average of the numerical grades of your coins, with a score of 0 for any missing coins. For instance, there's a Buffalo nickel registry and a wheat penny registry, and so on.

I think you can probably see where I'm going with this now. Before these companies came into existence and started publishing rankings of these sets, you couldn't really do something like say "@gilleain has the #1 ranked Buffalo Nickel set in the world," and such. Now you can, and it really annoys the piss out of me. It's not because my collection doesn't rate very highly (it doesn't, FYI), but because I think "competitive coin collecting" is bad for the hobby and only serves to make those 2 companies money.

[Almondsetat]

GAS is about simulating skills with resources.

If you want to reach the level of @gilleain you have to obtain the coins he has. Coin collecting is based entirely upon owning resources.

On the other hand let’s say that a guy collecting coins has built a very popular YouTube channel about numismatics. He has his own collection and talks about it. You are envious of his success and you want to become just as popular as him.

A person without GAS would think that in order to achieve this he would have to learn a lot about numismatics and then improve in his ability to speak and entertain.

Someone suffering from GAS would think that acquiring the guy’s collection is the solution and would blame his lack of popularity not on his skills but on his resources

[gilleain]

As it happens, my coin-collection ranking is very low. Mainly as I have none.

Totally agree that this 'gamification' of collecting is an unpleasant way to monetise something that is otherwise quite a chill pursuit.

From the companies point of view, of course, it means collectors are more likely to try and 'finish' collections. Like how some card collections (I think?) would have books that you would put your cards in, which gives an endpoint to achieve.

edit: I lie, I do technically have a single coin I suppose. A 1918 silver 'threepenny bit' (3p coin) from a Christmas Pudding. King George V's head on it. Forgot it was in my wallet.