Achievements - Hurting Games, or Helping?

Beast...

I find that acheivments have been affecting my choice on what console I nuy my games for, I wanted to get cathrine on the PS3 (for the lovely box-art) but I've been more and more considering buying it for the xbox for the achievments. I try my best to avoid buying a game solely for the acheivments but sometimes I just need something to keep me focused on completeing the game, I would have never solo'd halo reach on ledgendary if I wouldn't have got an acheivment. (Even though I solo'd Halo 3 on ledgendary.)

That's odd EchoOddity...
I am ignoring my Xbox360 and buy all games for my PS3 for the trophies.
But are you considering the Xbox version because you earned more achievements on Live, or do you just like the Achievement system more than the Trophies?

Call me stupid, but I see some slight difference in the two systems, and I prefer the trophies because of the PLATINUM trophies... I feel as if everything that I am doing will lead to the Platinum trophy.

I am working so hard on Assassin's Creed 2 just to get the Platinum trophy, for example, and I can't wait to be done with it eventhough I will just do the same things in Brotherhood and all the other games that I love!

These achievements are especially great for Game Collections like Sonic's Sega Genesis Collection, because you are forced to try out all of the games offered in these packs.

Nice article and sad to say it i am an achevo whore :)

I love getting achievements/trophies. I completely understand the rush one gets when you earn an achievement for a particularly difficult task (or for any task, really). Personally, I like playing terrible games anyway, even without cheevos, just to see how far I can get into it and possibly see the end. *shrug* Cheevos simply enhance that experience. But they are still quite motivational. To me, they give any game more replay value. I think that they help games, personally.

One great thing is that you can deactivate cheevo alerts, for those who don't like to see them. But unfortunately, this cannot be said for trophy alerts. I hope Sony eventually acknowledges that.

BTW, so glad to finally see a female writer here at 4PP. Way to go, guys! :)

ohai Scifi.
For the most part, I agree with Brad's opinion on achievements; they are bad because they are somewhat of a cop-out for developers. Instead of putting in-game unlockables, they just throw the player some cheevos and think that "all is good". It's especially horrific when the achievement is some kind of a collecting mission, like finding a milllion little orbs or something.
I've sort of weaned myself off of achievements over the last year or so and although I try to ignore them as best as I can, something inside me tingles with joy when I see a 100 point achievement pop up for beating a game on it's hardest difficulty or something.

On the positive side, I think achievements CAN lengthen the life of good games by giving you some, arguably pointless, reward for your time. Although I loved Portal 2, I was pretty much done with it until I checked the achievement list and saw they were all pretty simple. Then I played through parts of the game over and over until I got the cheevos, something that is obviously unnatural and would not have happened before achievements existed.

I think whether or not people like us stand up against achievements, they will never go away. They're just something we have to get used to.

The best times I have ever had playing a video game, came from Hunting Difficult Co-op Achievements with my Friends.

Achievements will never affect what games a I play, for I don't have the time or money to even play the games I WANT to play. I enjoy achievement hunting, it hasn't made me into a so-called whore. I still enjoy games, I've made a habit of NOT looking at the achievements until AFTER I've beaten a game.

I'll add my voice to the "I don't give a fuck" camp. That opinion might sound overly harsh but let me qualify it first: I will not play or complete a game I am not enjoying just for achievements. I will not even try to get all of the achievements in a game I do enjoy (i.e. Demon's Souls platinum trophy). I do, however, fully understand the OCD mentality of "I've gotta catch them all." The only games I really will go back and do _some_ of the achievements are the games that I do enjoy playing but don't really have anything better to do at the time. Achievements in WoW were very much like this for me when I played that game; I would reach a point where I could no longer progress outside of my weekly raiding and would just work on the easier achievements. I did not at any point, however, grind out anything that would take an inordinate amount of time.

In the end, Achievements can add a lot to an existing experience, but whether you feel compelled to get them all or not is dependent upon your own situation. I personally don't have a lot of time to be spending on just a single game so I am unlikely to even try and get most of the achievements. Do they add to my experience? They can, if I use them to give myself a meta goal in the game, but that is not my normal outlook. Are achievements a cop out by developers to artificially lengthen a game? They certainly can be abused that way, but adding achievements to a shitty game will never make it good.

I'll also add that if getting an achievement or set of achievements provides an in-game reward that will improve my game experience, then depending on the reward I will be all on board. This, however, just works like an unlock in older games but is a much more modern way of that mechanic.

I wouldn't use the term "cheevo whore", but I do enjoy getting achievements. I always look at the achievements when I play new games just to see which ones I can strive to get on the first playthrough. And I always feel that achievements help with replayablility for more of the single player games. I always do find myself replaying older single player games just to add more cheevos. So I think that achievements are a good thing.

While I don't think cheevo/trophy hunting is necessarily a bad thing, I don't find myself doing it. I borrowed my friend's PS3 a while back so that I could play Nier and Bayonetta and when I got that first trophy, I turned off the notifications just because I didn't want them popping up on me during gameplay. I feel like every time one of those notifications pops up, it takes me out of the immersion of the game and brings me back to the real world (which is something I did not want to experience while playing Nier). Also, some people play games multiple times just because they want the cheevos, and I think that ruins the overall fun-factor of the game. I didn't play Bayonetta 3 times because I wanted the trophies, I played it 3 times because the game was awesome.

This article reminds me of an interview with one of Nintendo's staff members though. When they were asked why they don't have any sort of cheevo/trophy system, they said something along the lines of "We feel that real enjoyable games should be played for hours and hours because the player finds it fun, not because they can get some sort of award." Because of this, many Nintendo games still have something that I love, unlockables; something that can actually be used in game. Remember all of the unlockables you get when you first beat Devil May Cry on PS2 or when you unlock the many costumes that Ammy can dress as in Okami? That fantastic feeling? To me that's much better than a stats award that gets put to my PSN name because I can actually use them. Also, I've been playing Muramasa on the Wii and now I'm trying out Shigarui mode where you only have 1 hp throughout the whole game just because I find this game very enjoyable (and Vanillaware's artwork is always stunning). Nintendo may not be the best development company, but when it comes to the idea of what drives the real definition of a good game, I think they're on the right track. Yes, I have bought very few games on the Wii, but the ones I did buy were games that I played hours of because they're just fun.

I'm with Brad on this. Remember that highlight of him playing DMC 3? In the old days, whenever you accomplished something challenging in a game, they gave you a reward for it. Maybe a secret mode or extra weapons or something.

Nowadays they just give you a pointless achievement and force you to buy all the extras as DLC.

I, too, have the same dilemma. Though, mine is a little different than the one posted... It took me nearly six years to start actually playing my 360. I played it off and on, of course, but being only 17, I haven't experienced all the other games out there, the older games. Then, after I bought enslaved and played through that, I started going for the achievements... Ever since then, I've been glued to my 360. Lately, however, I have been pulling away from it, and going back to my roots with some old school tomb raider and original playstation games. :B

Don't really care about them, Being primarily a PC player, I don;t really give a shit about things like gamerscore, but some achievement can be witty and actually entertaining to read (like the ones you get in Magicka), but sometimes they can be bothersome. For instance when they ruin the atmosphere of a game, or when there are way too many of them clusterfucking the screen (Mass Effect 2). It's great when the developers add a feature to turn them off, but sometimes even going through the .ini file won't let you turn them off (Mass Effect 2, again).

So all in all, they can be a source of good puns and humour, but they start to get a bother when they interfere with the gameplay.

I believe cheevos are worthless. Instead of doing the best and beating the game on hard to get this secret stage or unlock some cool little snippets like back stage videos of the game or concept art I instead get this little tab appearing on my screen and telling me that I've got a number that gets added to a series of numbers that I can't do anything with besides show others how big my game cock is. Now true, old games often didn't give you anything either but not giving me anything compared to giving me nothing and telling me it's something is stupid. Also? If I need a meaningless number to continue playing a game then I shouldn't be playing that game to begin with.

Cheevos I see as a way of replaying a game that you liked again, if you didn't like the game then don't try for cheevos. Seriously don't bother playing Prince of Persia even if it has easy cheevos if you don't like the gameplay. That is my thinking on the matter.

Now if it hurts gaming or not, I don't think it is as long as good companies do give rewards for cheevos (Portal 2, Magic the Gathering, Doom 2, Super Meat Boy) and while these rewards may be just a shirt for your xbox avatar it is nice that they didn't charge you for it unlike a limitless number of games.

And lets be honest with ourselves, you probably won't go back to play FFX and get the ultimate weapons unless there was a cheevo behind it, that shit is crazy yo.

Achievements are a form of digitally rewarding you for accomplishing something, which can be compared to attaining digital 'loot' in those same games. You don't really benefit from accruing massive quantities of achievements, but it gives you a sense of accomplishment from the act of collecting. Achievements have permeated the gaming industry so deeply that some MMO's have achievement structures as a standard feature. Even games like Minecraft eventually added the pointless binary data collection practice known as achievement whoring.

In my own opinion, I enjoy seeing a little animation accompanied by a short but sweet sound effect 'blip' once and a while. It gives me the sensation of progression, especially if the game's story/campaign is failing to give adequate feedback in regards to how quickly one is moving through that game. With that, however, one could argue that achievements are a weak attempt to patch over flawed game design. A good game should give you a sense of accomplishment without blatantly saying "hey, good job, you did something!"

i think its a good thing overall....i mean look at all the stuff that got achievements now, its amazing. Sure many ppl dont care about achievements, buts its nice that its there....not only is it a good way to see what games other ppl are playing....you can also see how far along they got in that game. It also adds some value/replay to your game purchase for those willing to go back into a game "hunting" for "cheevos"

I believe that cheevos are both a blessing as well as a curse.

By example, when I played Nier for the first time, it bored me to hell. I was bored to a point where I almost stopped playing the game and eve planned to re-sell the game afterwards. But I found myself telling me: "Hey, at least finish this for the cheevos. 20 GS for defeating a boss, that is easy enough!". And I advanced through the storyline, finding a newfound love and respect for cheevos as I found out how perfect and well made the game was.

But then again, I remember the time when I played Crash Course. I fucking HATED this game, it wasn't funny to me at all, and the difficulty rised whenever I advanced in levels. But I continued playing it because I told myself: "Oh just keep going, you will have another 200 GS!". To summarize things up, the outcome of this was a lot of rage, mindless fury and one broken controller.

So I think that achievements, while fun and addictive to get but worthless and stupid, help in increasing the game experience for some games, and for other games they just earn you complete annoyance and time waste.

tl;dr: Cheevos good and bad. Earned me one broken controller.

I have the same problem, but with PSN Trophies, which is even worse... I think it may have even cost me a relationship simply trying to get a Gold Trophy and getting frustrated over it.

I don't buy games just for achievements, I just want good games that I enjoy, and if they have these things, then that's cool too. I find myself wondering sometimes if there is or should be an achievement for something, or forget that there's one for a certain action I just did for fun. Sometimes I see one and want to try to get it as a challenge, otherwise, if it's one of those ones that looks like it'll take many hours of tedium then I won't purposely bother.

I personally am a huge cheevo fanatic, the prospect of cheevos motivates me even more (mixed in with the actual storyline itself, granted the game has one). But I don't play games I find dull strictly for the cheevos, because I don't like the game, so I find no motivation to play. I have to truly like a game before I can go as far as to play through it all. To me cheevos are just a plus.

I love achievements, they add re-playability to the game.

When a video game's only plausible feature is the achievements you get, then there is an issue. I don't mind if I'm hauling butt in a game and i get a cheevo because the hauling butt part is the reason why I'm playing! If I ever play a game with the hope that I'll get a cheevo, then that is the bad thing. Sucking the life out of a trash game for the cheevo's is pretty low in my opinion and defeats the purpose of playing it.

So to answer the question it does in some cases. Some devs are incompetent of making a game worthy o playing, so they need to jazz it up with cheevos(disgusting)

Achievements are fun to obtain, but nothing to obsess over. I won't go out of my way to get useless achievement points that affect literally nothing if they are overly difficult to obtain or if I am not enjoying the game enough to want to collect them. I'm not going to buy or avoid a game because of the achievements. That's ridiculous. Achievements, when it comes right down to it, do absolutely nothing but give you points that do absolutely nothing. Now I can see people doing an achievement "race" for fun competition, but if you are avoiding games you want to play because of them or going out of your way to obtain them to the point where you aren't enjoying the game to its full potential, you're being a moron and I have no sympathy for you.

I vote for the third option of neither. i don't think they hurt or help games. i mean, they are fun to get, and i appreciate when they make jokes with the names or whatever.

it's not like they make me play or not play a game.

i mean, if i like a game i'll go back and play it for cheevos, but i'll go back and play a zelda and do the sidequests, too. they are basically extra objectives for me.
i guess i agree with guy above me; if you play a game, and keep playing, if only for the cheevos, thats just stupid.

Achievements and Leaderboards are a product of this generation of gamers as a whole, rather than just the developers. They're here to stay in my opinion, just like Titles are in MMOs.

As long as there's people on the internet looking for things to brag about and "set them above" others as far as status is concerned, then this isn't going to change anytime soon. This is a problem that wont be fixed, simply because nearly everyone contributes to it on some level.

I would consider myself a "Trophy Whore". This has been both positive and negative.

It's been positive because it gives me a reason to replay games, or play them a different way. Whatever the reason, trophies for me have been able to increase the replay value for some games. Sometimes, the trophies for certain games has made me play titles that most would avoid, which I managed to find fun, like "Saw the Video Game".

That being said, it's also negative because I would sometimes pick up games only because of trophies. Don't get me wrong, there are times that I play a game that people would avoid because I have strange tastes in games sometimes. But when I bought "X-Blades" and played it for the first time. I realized that I bought this game for the wrong reasons.

But in a general sense I really do enjoy collecting trophies. It's like my digital badge of nerdy honor.

I never owned a 360 but when Trophies came out on the PSN I was a bit tempted to go nuts and collect. It just never came to it. I, thankfully, didn't see the point of it at all.

Scifi knows how to write articles without typos or silly little faces? I'm impressed.

Achievements are just another part of the game I need to fully complete. Without getting those damn points, I haven't completed the game.I like my games to be 100% fully completed, and I even have a couple of games on my PS and PS2 memory cards that I refuse to delete because of the fully completed games.

However, players who want to find all the achievements and trophies in one game might use websites and manuals to help, which in a sense, can defeat the purpose of achievements. Hidden achievements go back to the olden days where secret levels, Easter eggs, or items might have been discovered by accident. Players should explore the areas instead of reading a guide that will tell you all the events that will occur in order to earn the achievement. Cheevo-addicts focus more on the outcome, than actually enjoying the game.

Achievements are a determinative method to push players to fully complete a game and to continue to buy or rent games AND the (typically overpriced) downloadable content. Numerous games have some sort of way to show off your length of gameplay or effort placed into games or characters (leaderboards, levels, percentage of completion, etc), so the idea of the achievement system slowly fading away in the future is out of the question. The system might even expand; Microsoft has Xbox, Windows Live, and Windows Phone Live. Hell, they might even start putting achievements into watching television.

I dont own a 360, but I can sort of relate when I play on my PS3. Sometimes trophies drives me to play cetrain games more than I should and sometimes trophies just aren't enough to motivate me to play a certan game cuz it's just no fun (at least to me). For example, I played FFXIII and got all (100%) the trophies, however I didnt like the game, but the trophies motivated me enough to keep playing. It goes without saying that once I got all the trophies, I immediately sold my copy of FFXIII.

No offense to David (according to what Brad said in one of the podcasts), but I don't play games for trophies. I play them because they are creative, challenging, and fun. Trophies come second.

I Feel that if used correctly Chevos can help play in a way that might not have been played , but at the same tie i feel cheated when I only get a arbitrary number of points, instead of say a cool weapon or any type of unlockable but this also has to do with the fact that DLC has all the good stuff ,while playing well gives only a meaningless score.

I have to say, this article intrigued me. I use to be all about the achievements in games. I'd play games that I didn't even like just for the cheevos. I think that's going too far with it. But, getting the cheevos in games you actually like, I'm OK with that. I do that because I'm enjoying the game while getting them.

But playing pointless games and wasting hours just for points or trophies? no thanks, I'll pass.

i find trophies to be the bane of gaming at this point.i have played about 35ish games on my PS3,about 30 of them had trophy support and i have the platinum in all of them.some where great games i still played after i got the platinum,some where just a time sink and i regret ever starting them(white knight chronicles im looking at you).some are great,like 9-irony in bioshock 2,some are stupid like lightspeed fighter in nier,beat the game in under 15 hours? so the trophy is to rush through the game....yea thats stupid. some i take pleasure to get like beat hardcore in dead space 2.i can say this id play more games if there where not trophies,but id also finish less.

achievements for me enhance a game for some reason. the pints dont even really count for anything but...idk

Ehh, I think it's sometimes good, sometimes bad. I like the fact some trophies/cheevos exist as a sort of message from the devs to the players, particularly in the case of indie stuff like Linger in Shadows.

I'm okay with platinum'ing things, I think it's alright to work to completely finish something. But the idea of an arbitrary number equaling your worth in a gaming community is silly.

I don't care in any way about achievements or trophies, for the most part. Well, especially beforehand of playing a game. It's more like a nice pat on the back after discovering something in a game for me, or a sort of recognition of something you did. Sometimes they even appear to be recognizing the humour of the situation, or adding in another chuckle with the cleverness of the trophy's title - which I like, as long as it's not too distracting or something that pulls you out.

I think they're a cool addition to games, because they're almost a way of showing how much time you've spent with the game, since usually they are indicators of how much you explored or took the time to go off the beaten trail.

However, I think it's ridiculous that someone is going into an experience merely for some 'achievement points' or whatever, as if the game itself isn't the purpose of taking the time to sit down and play. I think it moves us and video games away from being taken seriously...maybe serious isn't the right word...more towards being accepted as a medium of art like music and films, etc...if that's what we're aiming for, of course.

All I'm saying is, choose the games you play according to what piques your curiosity and your desire to experience something different- - - not for a little flashing message and numbers...

ima comment THEN read your post =p, anyways i was playing avp the other day and there were all these things, collectables, harvesting people, pressing wierd buttons. the game said they where "for a reward" but all these additions where for just "do and find all of them" chevos. i stoped carring about chevos about 10k points in, and im at 50k points beating every friend i have. so yes they hurt games =p, i mean come the fuck on, collectables? who the fuck enjoys having found 99999/100000 thingys and searching forever for the last one? you cant even use a guide. THE ONLY WAY to get those "get all the thingy" chevos is with a guide, meaning when you play the game you gota leave everyone where it is so when you go back through with the guide can be sure to get them all. its stupid and i hate it.

and why does every chevo whore i know have pitiful scores? *cough* david *cough*

Trophies/cheevos have their good and bad points, but their value depends on the personality of the gamer for the most part. For instance, I love video games, but I have only earned 2 platinum trophies (sadly, I don't own a 360). One was for a game that had easy trophies and another was for a game that I absolutely loved and was motivated to complete 100%. I'd probably have a few more if it wasn't for most of the games I own having an "impossible" trophy or two. Anyways, I do care about trophies, but not so much that it's the main thing I hunt for in a game. I'll earn some trophies just to earn bragging rights over earning them, but for the most part, I don't care about them. Anyways, great review, Scifi! Definitely gets us thinking!

Where there's a game I really completely get into, and enjoy playing more than once, then I like going for 100% if possible. Such as, the Mass Effect games.

Most of the time, I'll just pick up whatever comes along as I'm playing through a game rather than chase them. I've certainly never bought a game just for the achievements available.

Some games, like L4D1&2, have definitely had their lifespan extended thanks to the achievements as it's been fun to target different things when playing online with friends.

I blame David.

I dont play games just for the cheevos but their a nice bonus

I recently played COD Black Ops on Veteran just for some cheevos. I know that can be look at as lame. But i think that gave me some motivation to play the campaign again. I guess my opinion is that Cheevos can invoke the player to challenge themselves and do certain tasks or achieve a certain amount of "something". i dont believe its hurting or helping games, its just an addition to games

Eh, I get trophies cause they're fun to get. I enjoy the challenge to get some and the excitement to get others. Eww, but I won't play bad games I don't enjoy just to boost my level. It's about the quality, not the quantity for me.

(looks at friend who played Hanna Montana for the obvious easy platinum)

A bit of both. I like that it gives me a reason to go back have another go at games I've finished long ago but didn't get all the achievements. Then on the other hand I feel guilty replaying 100% games when I know there's achievements I should be unlocking elsewhere.

Then there's the bad games which throw achievements at you in the first ten seconds. Then if you take the game back you're left with those solitary achievements forever and are tormented into re-getting the game just to end the misery. I look forward to the day Microsoft lets us delete achievements. Then it's so long Golden Axe Beast Rider and suck eggs Army of Two! }:-D

I've kind of started to not even look at achievement lists before i play the game, so i focus on the game itself more. If i like the game, i will go back and try get some cheevos, but its not my main priority anymore.

I toughht I'd have to read a book for a discovery like this!