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[eva]

i like them. theyre just progress markers for me.. if i like a game i try to get more than half the achievements (assuming games with around 50 achievements each). i've heard silly bitching before like "IT BREAKS IMMERSION" or "IT'S A SOCIAL GAM BRAINWASHING ADDICTION MECHANIC" and thos sound like a load o bullshit. HOLY SHIT IT MAKES ME LOOK AT A LITTLE POPUP FOR 5 SECONDS AT THE END OF A CUTSCENE AND IT TOTALLY BROKE MY IMMERSION BECAUSE I WAS FOOLED THERE FOR A SECOND THAT THIS WASNT AN XBOX GAME BUT IT WAS SO IM GOING TO RAGE AND ALSO IM NOT GOING TO DISABLE THE POPUP BECAUSE I WANT TO CONTINUE RAGING ABOUT IT LOL

also the 2nd part about them i like is i can tell the dev group or individuals personality or humor from the achievement names. some are just boring standard names "winner: beat the game" where you can tell they just wana do the bare minimum, some go with references from pop culture or their past games, some do puns... i find them humorous, some go with the theme of the game itself which is clever, etc.

and for the devs themselves the benefit is tracking how everyone plays the game i guess

[eva]

There are unlockables that are challenging to unlock though, so they have the double benefit of getting new game content and bragging rights.

;/

You're missing the fact that achievements let your friends know you did "so and so"

[superflat]

The worst achievements are one that take no effort but lots of time to acquire, like "Kill 100 Rats" or "Play for 100 hours".

The ones I love are additional challenges you normally would not attempt, like "Beat level one by only running backwards" or "Get a goomba to the top of the empire state building".

this, completely.

I agree, but I'd far rather they were wrapped in the world's fiction / presentation, rather than share a uniform method (whose popups I find very intrusive) - the same thing could be done with in-game points, or cash, or items as a reward, rather than an arbitrary 'gamer score.'  This is my fundamental problem with achievements.

[s0]

"IT'S A SOCIAL GAM BRAINWASHING ADDICTION MECHANIC"

The achievements themselves aren't, but the Gamerscore (or non-XBL equivalents of it), which is basically completely meaningless, is. There are people buying (or at least renting) bad games because they have easy achievements that get your score up fast, like that one Terminator game where you get like 80 points per completed level or something.

It's all about giving you the illusion that you've "performed well" in your games when you actually haven't which is the basis of  all those social game scams.

[eva]

thats just the easy games fault then for not giving a fuck about placing decent achievements. and the whole it gets people spending a lot could be said about high scores at arcades. also if im not addicted then i dont giv a f u c k, and if u aint addicted idk what's up with you

o also the hurr "the score is arbitrary" thing. every fucking score in every fucking game is arbitrary and pointless, sorry

[s0]

Usually in an arcade game the score tells me how well I can can play that game. My XBL gamerscore tells me jack shit because achievements vary a lot between games.

[Lizardheim]

Decent achivements are those you wouldn't get on a regular playthrough, except possibly "complete the game", which doesn't really hurt much and gives the player a good feeling.

Stuff like finding all easter eggs, the gnome in half life 2 etc.

[superflat]

thats just the easy games fault then for not giving a fuck about placing decent achievements. and the whole it gets people spending a lot could be said about high scores at arcades. also if im not addicted then i dont giv a f u c k, and if u aint addicted idk what's up with you

o also the hurr "the score is arbitrary" thing. every fucking score in every fucking game is arbitrary and pointless, sorry

My preferred alternative is to reward players with cool stuff, a bit of extra story, character XP, cash etc. These rewards benefit them in a tangible way. Anyway, points can mean something in some games.  That depends on the individual design.  Points done badly can be as meaningless as achievements.  Even so, a high-score table of one specific game seems a lot more meaningful than a meta-score which couldn't possibly be balanced between all games.  

I've had to design Xbox achievements at work, and believe me there's no exact guidelines (there are general ones) or conferring between developers.

So, the problems I have are the immersion-breaking, and the meaningless score.

[HyperNexus]

Achievements are just bad. Straight up bad.

Achievements are just extrinsic motivators, they are not tied to worth of the gameplay experience itself but are used to bait you into playing more. Extrinsic motivation kills intrinsic motivation, that is motivation that comes from within. This occurs because the achievement becomes the means for play and therefore play is just an obstacle that gets in the way. They can actually make the player resent playing the game or as others have said "cheapens" the experience. In the short term extrinsic motivators work but over time research has shown that they don't. If you are interested in this then I highly recommend reading Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn.

To a point this is up for interpretation as it ultimately depends on how the player perceives them. If the player doesn't care about the achievements then they are not acting as an extrinsic motivator.

Many developers use achievements to control the behavior of the players. Achievements make the player feel good(until they crave their next reward) and make them play the game for longer. Feeling good about playing a game and playing it for a long time is what is often considered what makes a game successful. So when you look at it like that, developers should be doing this as much as they can. At least until people start to realise that these things don't actually matter.

Ask yourself some questions. If this game is so great then why does it need to reward me with an achievement, shouldn't the experience be inherently enjoyable? Why do I need to get a reward for trying out different types of play? Aren't there others way to show this to me? Or shouldn't this sort of play be rather obvious if it is so enjoyable? Would I still be doing this if there wasn't an achievement for it?

I think what Microsoft, Sony and to a slightly lesser extent Valve are doing with achievements is terrible. They are portraying them as some sort of reputation to be sort after. They aren't putting regulations on the types of achievements that occur and I believe they are also making them mandatory. The result of all this is that they are conditioning people to become dependent on artificial and fake rewards. The long term effects on society can't be healthy.

[XRA]

you've watched half of this movie, good job! the award will be printed on your parking voucher!  you've watched the movie, good job!!! compare your awards on your parking voucher with others, who is the truest film-goer this summer?!


I like the achievements that track masterful feats, like 1 credit clears and stuff like that.  Unfortunately most modern games are not designed with that sort of mentality, because they are supposed to be accessible and appeal to the widest range of abilities and make the most money and be filled with "replayability" which means collecting everything in sight and unlocking more features and abilities over time, which means your gameplay is deep and full of value.....

[s0]

This occurs because the achievement becomes the means for play and therefore play is just an obstacle that gets in the way. They can actually make the player resent playing the game or as others have said "cheapens" the experience.

You can still ignore 'em though, I've been doing it ever since I bought an Xbox 360 some 5 years ago. Half of the time I don't even notice when I get one, my mind just filters out the little popups. And even when I do notice them it's usually more like "Oh I got an achievement [move on with game]". I don't think I've ever tried to get achievements consciously. I made seem like I think achievements are the devil in my last couple posts, but really, I just don't give much of a fuck about them.

But yeah, it might be abusing players who are more psychologically prone to compulsive behavior than me.

[HyperNexus]

Can you even disable achievements on XBox Live, PSN, or Steam?

[eva]

hurhur you're the one who said theyre straight up bad LOL, u should know if you had any actual experience with em 

answer: you can turn off the popups on xbl and steam, i dont own a ps3

[eva]

Achievements are just bad. Straight up bad.

Achievements are just extrinsic motivators, they are not tied to worth of the gameplay experience itself but are used to bait you into playing more. Extrinsic motivation kills intrinsic motivation, that is motivation that comes from within. This occurs because the achievement becomes the means for play and therefore play is just an obstacle that gets in the way. They can actually make the player resent playing the game or as others have said "cheapens" the experience. In the short term extrinsic motivators work but over time research has shown that they don't. If you are interested in this then I highly recommend reading Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn.

To a point this is up for interpretation as it ultimately depends on how the player perceives them. If the player doesn't care about the achievements then they are not acting as an extrinsic motivator.

Many developers use achievements to control the behavior of the players. Achievements make the player feel good(until they crave their next reward) and make them play the game for longer. Feeling good about playing a game and playing it for a long time is what is often considered what makes a game successful. So when you look at it like that, developers should be doing this as much as they can. At least until people start to realise that these things don't actually matter.

Ask yourself some questions. If this game is so great then why does it need to reward me with an achievement, shouldn't the experience be inherently enjoyable? Why do I need to get a reward for trying out different types of play? Aren't there others way to show this to me? Or shouldn't this sort of play be rather obvious if it is so enjoyable? Would I still be doing this if there wasn't an achievement for it?

I think what Microsoft, Sony and to a slightly lesser extent Valve are doing with achievements is terrible. They are portraying them as some sort of reputation to be sort after. They aren't putting regulations on the types of achievements that occur and I believe they are also making them mandatory. The result of all this is that they are conditioning people to become dependent on artificial and fake rewards. The long term effects on society can't be healthy.

everything in a videogame is an artificial and fake reward and every single thing in here is wrong

[mirosurabu]

I wish they were simply called "records" then I think I could say I like them because I like when a game keeps track of records. I like to see how many people I've killed, how many times I've died, shooting precision stats, weapon usage stats and so on and I also like ranking lists and that's all fine and that has been used in games ever since.

However, achievements are, um, some different sort of weird shit I never understood. It's like some silly programmers idea "hey why not make to-do lists in video games?" which brings no value other than to keep you wasting your time after you've done with the game.

[knight]

I agree I like stats but not achievements. The exception would be kongregate badges because those unlock as you progress through the game rather after you've finished it.

[Chipacabra]

There's room for achievements to be useful in a game design sense, I think. You can use them to hint at things that are possible that the player may not have thought of. For instance, maybe your game has rocket jumping. A player that hasn't read the manual may not even realize this move is possible, but could see that 'rocket jump onto the factory roof' is an achievement. Or if your game has branching plotlines, you could use achievements to provide hints on the branch points.

[X3N]

There's room for achievements to be useful in a game design sense, I think. You can use them to hint at things that are possible that the player may not have thought of. For instance, maybe your game has rocket jumping. A player that hasn't read the manual may not even realize this move is possible, but could see that 'rocket jump onto the factory roof' is an achievement. Or if your game has branching plotlines, you could use achievements to provide hints on the branch points.

Yes, I think that's how they should be used. Encourage creativity.

XRA: that's how most of them are, unfortunately. Consider the "average gamer" playing games actually appreciates / likes those..

I kind of like how TF2 used them. Some of them were easy (do so much total damage), others were difficult (get X kills/damage/captures on 1 life). Enough achievements and you got a new available weapon.

[baconman]

They started off being cool things you could discover about a game, or nifty challenges. This was when gaming was about gaming, and social networking embraced that. But that time is being eclipsed very suddenly with viral sales techniques; which is exactly where all of this "you beat the first level" and "you played this new song on GH:WoR!!" is coming from. In fact, GH:WoR basically marketed itself on this fact.

Now the GamerScore and these pop-ups and Facebook integration create this huge advertising disasterpiece that focuses on two goals: getting you to spend money to grow your e-penis; and getting your FB-friends to shell out in competition. All the while, turning your activity stream into a perpetual commercial that also broadcasts pop-ups from your friends list.

The cake wasn't a lie, but it did get replaced with one. I fucking hate the mentality that financial results } real results.

Acheivement unlocked!: Not So Smart After All!
Discover that your smart-phone has no Greater Than or Less Than keys.

[baconman]

(/char limit)
...and aren't on the symbols input, either.