Why "Perfect Run"

In the article The Perfect Run, the author talks about her experiences with games that how certain games drives us to perfect our gameplay and asks what compels us to do it and how it is played into game's design. Here we will try to find some answers:

Encouraging perfection by design

Developers often encourage and even demand perfect play from players.
Perfecting your run is the very point of old arcade games, and early console games that are inspired by them, such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. Those games have really no other point, you don't reach to an end; either you casually play some rounds or try to get the highest score before you eventually run out of lives. Of course, another shot at having the highest score means more coins you need to buy. This is why scores are that important, it might seem kinda alien to those who are unfamiliar to these type of games but scores are still a quite big deal among arcade enthusiasts.
The games that is designed to push players for being better and better in each play through instills a similar mentality. Racing games for example, you can always complete races in less and less time. Or rouge-like or some survival games, with each iteration you are slowly doing and doing better, but you will never live forever, the only thing you can do is achieving the best you can.

(wow, high score)

Sometimes you need perfection to even progress, achieved by giving players little or no error margin. No damage runs for example, usually exist as self-imposed challenges but some games demand them. Most games can technically have no hit run but in my opinion it goes best with bullet hell games, such as Touhou series. You are both trained by the game for that mentality and it takes you to study patterns and improve your reflexes enough, rather than having RNG by your side. Other challenges that might be demanded a well, such as completing under a certain amount time or entering just the right inputs at the right time; like platformers or rhythm games do.
In some games, players are implicitly pushed to play perfect when the mistakes have permanent effects. You might heard of the term "save scumming", referring to players loading and saving a certain part of games over and over to the achieve intended result. Strategy games -- like XCOM or Fire Emblem series -- often put player into this type of perfection mentality; while the game intends to take your hit and continue but players rather just shoot for a run that all progress they have achieved is safe.

(enemies in the game can't believe how much I save scum in emulators)

It's interesting when players go for the perfection when it's actively discouraged. For example in Europa Universalis 4, a major part of the game comes from getting through random events and even has a mode that forbids players from console commands save scumming and they have to play in that mode for getting achievements. Yet for harder achievements, players are still inclined to going for perfect runs, resetting the game until they get desired RNG, getting around bad events by exploiting game mechanics in the way the developers didn't intend.
Speaking of achievements, they are essentially the score systems of today. They are flashy, they look nice on your achievement page, you can also see how other players did it; fancy stuff if that's your thing. Some games will just put achievements to be there, because it's something most devs does, but games put great care into their achievements, encouraging players to have perfect runs. If we return to Europa Universalis 4, we see the game is giving conflicting messages. The game is designed to embrace randomness but its lack of clear goals make achievements exciting, which might make said randomness a nuisance, rather than something fun.

(it ain't easy to create an empire, how many millions of random numbers needs to be defeated)

One of the more common ways of perfect plays in video games is completion. Completionism is a large topic in itself but often it intersects with perfection as well. For example, in Final Fantasy 4, players are rewarded additional items for exploring all tiles of the dungeon, on top of the items they get normally by exploring. Monster compendiums, percentage of quests completed etc. are all there for gently pushing the players to achieve the feeling of completion. The most glaring example is Pokémon series of course, completing Pokédex may very well be considering a perfect run, requiring a specific set of requirements and challenges that is different from just completing the game for seeing the credits demands.
But perhaps the best way of encouraging perfect plays is rewarding players in-game. In Trails in the Sky series completing quests perfectly including hidden ones earns you additional items. Or in games where being defeated causes you lose power ups, players is pushed into dying less, Dark Souls is a well-known modern example. If you can design your game right, you can make the players enter into perfection-reward-progress loop, causing both the player and the player character improve together more and more.

(me when I can get some kind of achievement in my life)

Why are we compelled to do perfect?

Developers don't push players to perfection out of nowhere, players do want to have perfect runs even when there is no clear reason to do so, often with self-imposed challenges. So, why are we doing this?

• I won't attempt to break down human psyche here but folks, we like big numbers, bright, flashy stuff. Achieving things feels good and what's better achievement you can get from a game than reaching perfection?
• The clear sense of progression. This is one of the things people usually crave for in real life, but in games, there are no unfair restrictions to gatekeep you and you won't get distracted with unrelated things just to get what you want. Games offer us clear goals, we can focus on it fully without worry, our efforts are usually rewarded fairly and in a short time too. Feedback towards your efforts is pretty high and being able to master that rhythm game or finishing that platformer game without single fail just feels empowering.
• The sense of creation. Being perfect feels like you are crafting something. One of the joys of watching speedruns is seeing how awesome speedrunners at playing the game. It feels like art. In a sense, perfecting games is a craft, virtual as it might be. Just like cooking, it is temporary but the experiences those who play it and those who witness it gets stays with them forever and it doesn't make the skilled person any less worthy of phrase.

Is pushing for the perfection good?

Of course! Giving people empowerment and confidence is one of the best feelings video games can give. Purely speaking from a gameplay sense, unless you want a chill, relaxing experience you should encourage your players to push for perfection in your design as much as possible. Even basic things like adding a speedrun mode -- like the one in Furi -- can help players a lot. Let your game shine into the hands of ambitious players, let them leave your mark in your work!
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