I have been doing some work on Arcadian Rhythm, a new site that will be home for more ramblings on gaming. One of the pieces that was brought up was the Achievement debate. Having been a voracious consumer of Achievements I set about writing my opus, only for it to be pointed out to me that if each of us wrote a piece that long then it would be a 5-6 thousand word essay that no one would bother to read. So I cut it down the original to around 250 words.
The thing is I still had the original piece written and typed so I decided to post that on the Badger Commander blog so as to not let it go to waste. Yes, you get the long, rambling introspection.
At first, Achievements weren't important to me. Whether I got them or not did not matter, that all changed when I hit around the 8 thousand mark and discovered that a co-worker had 11.
It became a healthy competition between friends but quickly devolved into an unsavoury obsession for me. It took 2 years, 100 games and 30 thousand achievement points for me to finally realise that I was tired of constantly chasing those meaningless points. This was mainly because there was always someone on my Friend/Rival list that didn't share my same set of values as to what was acceptable achievement whoring. These people were (and some still are) happy to farm Xbox LIVE sessions, had no qualms in renting games for the easy 1000 points, nor did they baulk at grinding for the sake of 15g. All of these actions, of course, go against the code I set myself so as to be able to avoid falling further down the electronic rabbit hole. Even with my enthusiasm quashed, I still browse through achievement lists and see what ones might be fun to get. I sometimes replay a game on a harder level not just because there is 40 achievement points available but because I really have enjoyed my time with a game and I want to relive those moments while I wait for another good game to come out. I can understand how some might hate the existence of achievements, but it is a little late now to be throwing your toys out of the pram. Achievements systems are here to stay and to condemn the Cheevo-whores is to be a little closed minded about the types of people who are consumed by the pursuit to hear that 'plop' sound and that little pop-up message telling them they have played the same level 100 times. I've heard the arguments a lot and from the dev perspective it usually boils down to the statement:“Surely the simple act of progressing through the game should be enough in itself?”The short answer is 'No'.When Valve released statistics on how many people actually completed their games the percentages were staggeringly low. Blizzard statistics that showed the percentage of characters created in World of Warcraft (officially named most addictive game ever by me) that actually made it past level 20 was phenomenally low.Anecdotally, before achievements I can safely say I completed 10 games a year and that was when I was feeling particularly hardy. During my 2 year obsession I blitzed through 30 a year. Easily.It is in human nature to set themselves small targets within an overarching goal. This is just how the mind works, we are not facilitated by waiting a long time for our rewards and instead prefer instant gratification even if the task is relatively menial. As a developer, you should be tying into that and appreciating that a system has already been built for you to do that.
Players who don't like achievements and actively go out of their way to denounce them are a little harder to comprehend. I won't start slinging mud about E-penis jealousy (except by mentioning it I have now placed that as a point of contention with full rights to retract it if I am called on it) but I will say that their assertions are confusing at best.
I will be the first to admit that the 'Good night sweet Prince' toast message bounding into view as I mournfully closed the eyes of my dead partner in Far Cry 2 completely undermined the moment. I also shudder when I hear about people at work replaying the last level of Gears of War 2 “because you can rack up at least 300 kills” in an attempt to get the 10 thousand kills reward.However, I am writing this as someone who enjoys achievements, especially well implemented ones. Both examples used are invalid arguments for an achievement hater. It is only a short number of steps to disable the notifications, in fact here is a tutorial.
There, first problem solved.
The second shouldn't even be an issue, if you don't like people who crave hunting achievements then don't play with them. The thing is that before the achievement system existed these OCD'd completionists found other methods to 'ruin' games for themselves. I remember, in the days before Internet, before it was possible to show everyone how much time you wasted, that some of my friends would sit and exhaust games. They would positively beam as they explained that they had sat with a walkthrough in their laps and found every item, sidequest and secret. This behaviour has always existed and it is not something we should begrudge of those who exhibit it, it is simply how they enjoy the game. As long as these individuals are remembering to look after themselves in the meantime then it is perfectly fine.Achievements are here to stay, big companies from Blizzard to Sony like them and are introducing them to all the games they release. Rather than rail against them, we should just be looking into ways to make them more integrated into the games we are playing so that we stop hating them.
