Achievements are Lame.

[sukeban]

Dude David Brasher, I am with you on this.

 

I am not really sure when achievements starting becoming popular, but I'm pretty sure it started with the previous generation of consoles (probs like original Xbox, seems like a Microsoft-like thing to pioneer).

 

To me it just feels like an extension of the micro-transaction Weltanschauung that so dominates contemporary developers. I suppose that we have app developers, Xinga, and Facebook users to thank for the success of this business model (though is it successful? I could have sworn that Xinga stock was tanking...). Definitely related to the whole always-online bent, though whether or not this is for DRM purposes or to support the practice of "release half-finished game, patch later" I cannot say.

 

In any event, of those things listed above, certainly achievements are the least nefarious. I can live without them, for sure, and I don't particularly begrudge anybody else if they want to live and die over them either. It is, however, something that I just will not ever understand. To me, a game to me has only one real reason to ever be played: because you enjoy it. If a game needs artificial hurdles to clear in order for you as a gamer to want to actually play said game, then I'm just going to go ahead and say that devs definitely failed in creating compelling gameplay in its own right, which, IMO, just makes that game bad.

 

There is probably also a psychological element in this as well, as regularly reinforced stimulation tends to hold attention more than infrequent or random stimulation. Thus achievements, if spaced at manageable intervals, tend to keep players playing a game, a la as an addiction. That's nothing really new to games, but before achievements said stimulation was more organically built into games themselves rather than splashed across your monitor telling you "ZOMG u are amazing!" Achievements are cop-outs on game design, intended to extend replay value beyond the expiry of actual content and enjoyable gameplay.