Does anyone really cares about in-game achievements?

Dunno, at first it looked like an evolution of an already existing concept, something thats as old as online gaming itself, with XBAND and other early game modems having score leaderboards and such.

But now I play a game and I get a medal for any shit I do, including stuff thats vital to get anywhere in the game, stuff that belongs in a game tutorial, like jumping over a fence.

Sure some are hard-to-get, but more and more it seems like an e-Dick kind of thing, something to show off in front of other people, and I ask: does anyone cares?

I dont, maybe I'm getting older and I dont really care to swing my e-Dick in front of a bunch of nobodies showing them I completed every mission in GTAIV. On the other hand I didnt care to when I was a kid either, so maybe thats why.

Discuss

 

Looking at it from a different angle (actually it's more a kind of UI rant than an opinion about achievements, but here goes anyways):

So far I just didn't give a damn about them either way, until last weekend, when I happended to play Limbo. For those that don't know, it's a game that doesn't have any text, voice overs, HUD etc... just lots of awesome atmosphere. Until one of those damned "achievement get" popups comes up and completely ruins the mood! What the hell? I'm positive the devs only put that crap in because of MS regulations ("have to have n billion points in achievements in every XBLA title"), so fuck you (once again) Microsoft!

If there's people that think their epeen matters, fine, let them have their "achievements" - but why do we all have to have forced popups for them? At the very least let us turn that shit off somewhere!

 

The earliest games were the worst for this. Like King Kong which has no achievements outside of just playing the game through once.

As far as I'm concerned, they're only really welcome if they challenge you to do something interesting that's outside of the scope of the game proper.

 

The fact that MS can't seem to stick with one standard for how the points can be allocated for a title before/after DLC is just a pain in the fucking ass. They just need to make it so it's 1000/200 GS for retail/XBLA at launch and just have the limit of 250/50 GS per quarter...without the upper limit...and forget the achievement # limit. Also, the bullshit achievements shouldn't ever be allowed (Press START to Play achievement on The Simpsons, anyone?).

I honestly don't care about achievements or trophies anymore. Good for the gamerscore whores, but I'm not one.

 

I think they are a big milestone in gaming.
When you think about it gaming has always been about points. You beat someone in Pong well what was the score? You are really good at Galaga well what is your high score?
Then as games got more advanced tricks became a big goal for gamers. Easter eggs and performing tricks that were really hard to do. Examples would be the hidden Reptile character at the MK arcade or falling off the map or finding the hidden areas in Sonic.
Stories of high scores and hard accomplishments became fish stories. Now sure you can cheat the system if you try but among friends it keeps things pretty honest. I may be a horrible gamer compared to world's best but after working hard at it for a week have the highest score on my friend's list at Geometry Wars along with an achievement no one else was able to get.
By taking all these "points" you get from each game and combine them for one total score. I think it was ingenious. It is far from perfect and as stated it is hard to make the system fair for everyone but it is just a game. It is a way to add points to a game where none existed before. Obviously a player who only plays COD online will care less than a player who plays 2 games a week. I think system achievements would be nice to see. Achievement put out by Microsoft not attached to any specific game.

 

Oh great, we're in epeen territory already! Let me just shamelessly take this bit out of context:

So someone that's rented a lot of games just to get the "low hanging fruit" low-value achievements (Limbo: start game, walk a little to the left, ta-da: "achievement get: wrong way" - all in less than ten seconds, I kid you not!) that nonetheless add up is a better person than someone that has collected the very last achievement in every one of the few games he owns? Shouldn't we want to play a game because it's entertaining, not because the "awards" are easy to get?

 

You can turn off notifications.

 

There's no right or wrong reason to play a game. (imo)

 

Surely this is only an issue for people who care about achievements? I mean, what difference does it make to you if the awards are easy to get? Presumably you don't care about them anyway.

The ones that I think really take the piss are the "get ranked first in the world" achievements. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect achievements to be achievable.

 

If the achievements are fun to do, and add something extra to a game then yes. Geometry Wars 2 for example - Wax On/Wax Off, Surf, etc. were good fun to get.

I personally don't bother going after the ridiculously tough ones ie: complete game on extreme difficulty in less than 1 hour without dying or using weapons.

That's the type of shit that would make me smash my controller.

 

This

 

So I can. Never noticed that option before, d'oh! Guess I can go back to not caring about achievements now.

This got me thinking... Didn't we already have (a kind of) achievements for quite some time? They were just called differently: Unlockables. For example, I recall collecting stuff (gold cards, costume parts) in Bomberman 64, but couldn't be arsed to get every last one of them. Racers had additional tracks, etc... Nowadays it seems you get only get a tiny icon on your profile instead, and the concept of "unlockables" has been replaced by DLC (ca-ching!).

 

Achievements are cool. They can add a lot to the replay value of some games, but the effort involved in getting some of the more difficult ones is only worth it if you want to gloat online (which I personally don't care to do).

I could easily live without them, though. So I voted for option 4.

 

Man, some of you guys are whining fannies and by that I mean the British term for a fanny not the American one. :lol: If you don't like the notifications then switch them off in the 360's options. That way you'll never be troubled again by them but I bet you'll still go and have a look to see if you unlocked something.

Originally before I had a 360 I thought achievements where a load of crap but I've changed my mind. To me they are a way to keep me playing a game. A way for me to get my money's worth out of a game. Currently I'm playing Ninety Nine Nights II and under normal circumstances I probably wouldn't bother playing each characters story but due to the achievements I want to and I'm glad for this. I'm getting more out of the game than I normally would have.

Yakumo

 

To me achievements are, together with absurd difficulty, the cheapest ways a dev has to add stuff to a game.

Anything else, unlockables, hidden levels, special powerups, etc... require extra work and design.

So while those I mentioned are actual "prizes" for playing the game, achievements are like a carrot hanging from a stick: you waste your time chasing for something and get nothing in return.

nuff said

 

I become uninterested in a game if it has millions of achievements, simply because I know I won't have enough time to 100% a game, so it just puts me off.

Maybe if it has like four different achievements, one for each difficulty level, then maybe I'll bother. But frankly, I don't have enough time.

 

Yes, that's true if you're an idiot I go for the achivement because I want to, NOT because I have to. For example, I need one more achivment on Omedious G for a perfect set but will I bother? No, because the goal to receive it requires about 50 hours of game play. Fuck that! It's just a shame that it is worth 200 points. The target is very easy too but it just takes far to long to make it worth it. Now, if someone loves the game that much to go for the final achivement then that's great but if someone forces themselves to do it just to have the full set then they are an idiot in my eyes.

Yakumo

 

I like achievement's in games but not them all.

A negative for me for example is that if i complete a tutorial level or create a male/female character (Tiger woods) then i don't expect/want to get anything for that although i do and they don't mean i've done anything special in game.

On the other hand if i'm playing a game and i do something special like pull of a hard manoeuvre or whatever then i would expect/prefer to get an achievement to show what i've done and the fact that i didn't just do something simple.

Sure achievement's shouldn't all be hard but i can't stand when i get a game and it gives me an achievement as i started a certain game mode or whatever.

 

I wouldn't cry myself to sleep if they disappeared, that said some of them are quite fun to work towards, especially if it involves doing something you hadn't really thought of yourself.

They pissed me off in Heavy Rain quite a bit, can you turn off notifications on the PS3?

 

Achievements don't really interest me, but for some reason trophies on the PS3 do. I don't really care about the bronzes and silvers, but the Platinum draws me in like a sweet shop to a 10 year old.

I've always been really arsey about getting 100% on games, I like to know that I have done everything there is to do and really got my money's worth. Platinum's are just an extension of 100%ing a game I suppose, after you've finished it you have to go and do stupid stuff and search for boring crap until you get a trophy! Yes it's ridiculous and yes it can be a bore, but I need the platinum if I start a PS3 game.

Some of my friend swon't buy PS3 games if they don't have trophy support, now that's stupid...