bapenguin
04-21-2006, 07:00 AM
The Penguin Perspective - Confessions of an Achievement Whore
by: Nicholas "bapenguin" Puleo
Hello, my name is Nick and I’m addicted to achievements. Achievement Addiction is a disease affects thousands of Xbox 360 owners a year. There is no known cure for this it; the only way to satisfy it is to unlock more achievements. Do you regularly hit the guide button to check a game’s achievements? Do you constantly spawn camp innocent Mexicans to get 10,000 kills in GRAW? Do you continuously play Geometry Wars just to get 35,000 more points for that 500,000 point achievement? If you do, you may be addicted to achievements too.
When Microsoft announced the achievement system for the Xbox 360 nobody really seemed to care about it. At the time it seemed like a little gimmicky thing that no one would think twice about. 6 months after the console’s release the popularity that achievements and Gamer Points have gained is completely unprecedented. You will find dozens of websites that are dedicated to telling you what the achievements are and how to obtain them. On top of that there are numerous sites like Top360Tag.com and MyGamerCard.net that track Gamer Points and have compiled leader boards for numerous games and such.
So what is it exactly about achievements that are so damn addicting? What Microsoft has done is brought multiplayer competition to single player games. Competition drives people, and the achievement system is driving people to do things in games they may not have ordinarily done before. By opening up Xbox Live to everyone regardless of subscription level, there’s a much larger player base participating in this. And to put icing on the cake they allowed this information viewable by the world via the internet. So now there are many more players competing and a much larger audience watching.
For a lot of people there’s a ceiling in a game. There’s a point in a game where you may just get tired of it. For instance, in a game like Burnout there’s only so much racing and crashing you can do before you’ve seen it all. But create achievements, and it drives people to push on, and play the game from beginning to end. The good thing about this is it allows developers get to give a gamer the whole experience, and something that may have been missed if a user had given up on a game can now be seen. The bad thing about this is now gaming is becoming like an MMORPG grind.
At the 360’s launch there was an inconstancy with achievements. Some were incredibly easy to get, like those found in the sports titles. Others were incredibly difficult to get, like those in some of the arcade titles and racing games. But as time has gone on we’ve seen developers really start to utilize achievements to drive players to do different things in games. An achievement may have someone explore some little known side quest in an RPG, or it may have a player using only a certain weapon type to beat a level. These kind of things can change the experience a game has to offer, and in a sense enhances the replay value of titles. This is a good thing in the age of overpriced $60 titles.
I’m an achievement whore. I’m not even sure if it’s the competition that drives me. I’m sure on some subconscious level it is. But on the surface its drug like nature draws me back in. It has caused my other gaming to suffer. Most of us have limited gaming time. If given the choice: play a new game on the PC, or play an older title on the 360 for the achievements, I find myself more often than not choosing the 360. My rationale? That new PC title will still be there days or weeks from now, but if I get those achievements now, it’s one step closer to completion and then onto the next game for achievements. It’s one step closer to everyone seeing that little icon on Xbox.com.
On some levels the achievement system is like positive reinforcement. Once I accomplish some task, I get a nice little reward and some gamer points. I can then look at this anytime and anywhere and in a sense it brings some satisfaction. “Hey look, I beat that damn Battle of Caen mission on Veteran difficulty.” Now you have a written record of sorts of your gaming accomplishments.
I’m an achievement whore. And I hope that Sony, Nintendo and maybe even somehow on the PC we’ll see similar systems. Maybe even take the existing system and upgrade it, evolve it, and take it to the next level. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 25 silver treasures to collect in Tomb Raider.
by: Nicholas "bapenguin" Puleo
Hello, my name is Nick and I’m addicted to achievements. Achievement Addiction is a disease affects thousands of Xbox 360 owners a year. There is no known cure for this it; the only way to satisfy it is to unlock more achievements. Do you regularly hit the guide button to check a game’s achievements? Do you constantly spawn camp innocent Mexicans to get 10,000 kills in GRAW? Do you continuously play Geometry Wars just to get 35,000 more points for that 500,000 point achievement? If you do, you may be addicted to achievements too.
When Microsoft announced the achievement system for the Xbox 360 nobody really seemed to care about it. At the time it seemed like a little gimmicky thing that no one would think twice about. 6 months after the console’s release the popularity that achievements and Gamer Points have gained is completely unprecedented. You will find dozens of websites that are dedicated to telling you what the achievements are and how to obtain them. On top of that there are numerous sites like Top360Tag.com and MyGamerCard.net that track Gamer Points and have compiled leader boards for numerous games and such.
So what is it exactly about achievements that are so damn addicting? What Microsoft has done is brought multiplayer competition to single player games. Competition drives people, and the achievement system is driving people to do things in games they may not have ordinarily done before. By opening up Xbox Live to everyone regardless of subscription level, there’s a much larger player base participating in this. And to put icing on the cake they allowed this information viewable by the world via the internet. So now there are many more players competing and a much larger audience watching.
For a lot of people there’s a ceiling in a game. There’s a point in a game where you may just get tired of it. For instance, in a game like Burnout there’s only so much racing and crashing you can do before you’ve seen it all. But create achievements, and it drives people to push on, and play the game from beginning to end. The good thing about this is it allows developers get to give a gamer the whole experience, and something that may have been missed if a user had given up on a game can now be seen. The bad thing about this is now gaming is becoming like an MMORPG grind.
At the 360’s launch there was an inconstancy with achievements. Some were incredibly easy to get, like those found in the sports titles. Others were incredibly difficult to get, like those in some of the arcade titles and racing games. But as time has gone on we’ve seen developers really start to utilize achievements to drive players to do different things in games. An achievement may have someone explore some little known side quest in an RPG, or it may have a player using only a certain weapon type to beat a level. These kind of things can change the experience a game has to offer, and in a sense enhances the replay value of titles. This is a good thing in the age of overpriced $60 titles.
I’m an achievement whore. I’m not even sure if it’s the competition that drives me. I’m sure on some subconscious level it is. But on the surface its drug like nature draws me back in. It has caused my other gaming to suffer. Most of us have limited gaming time. If given the choice: play a new game on the PC, or play an older title on the 360 for the achievements, I find myself more often than not choosing the 360. My rationale? That new PC title will still be there days or weeks from now, but if I get those achievements now, it’s one step closer to completion and then onto the next game for achievements. It’s one step closer to everyone seeing that little icon on Xbox.com.
On some levels the achievement system is like positive reinforcement. Once I accomplish some task, I get a nice little reward and some gamer points. I can then look at this anytime and anywhere and in a sense it brings some satisfaction. “Hey look, I beat that damn Battle of Caen mission on Veteran difficulty.” Now you have a written record of sorts of your gaming accomplishments.
I’m an achievement whore. And I hope that Sony, Nintendo and maybe even somehow on the PC we’ll see similar systems. Maybe even take the existing system and upgrade it, evolve it, and take it to the next level. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 25 silver treasures to collect in Tomb Raider.