I like to think of this kind of game like dark matter. In some theories of dark matter, there are entire "dark sectors", families of particles that only interact with each other, that harmlessly pass through you all the time. Similarly, you have to care about prestige to get prestige -- but if you don't care, the loss doesn't hurt at all. It just passes by harmlessly, like so much noise.
It's been relatively agreed upon that dark matter can't interact with itself very much either, since it forms a spherical cloud around galaxies instead of the more expected disk shape, and dark matter clouds passing by each other don't seem to slow down or be affected in ways other than gravitation. More info: https://www.space.com/40219-dark-matter-feels-only-gravity-m...
Indeed, it's possible that dark matter has no interactions with itself. But also, a little bit of interaction makes the detailed galaxy stuff come out a bit better, so the jury's out on it.
