Achievements: Playing a Game ‘Their’ Way
February 8th, 2010 | Written by Andrew Giese | Topic: Social Commentary
Ever since Microsoft ingeniously infused their games with achievements that arbitrarily add points to an arbitrarily important gamerscore, gamers around the world have feverishly played games long after they had found a powerful item and defeated the final boss. While a big gamerscore can be fun to show off to your friends, are you really enjoying the process? Or are you a metaphorical marionette, manipulated to play your game in a way that feels unnatural, boring, even wrong?
Nick Simberg at VGChartz seems to think the latter:
“…I’m not playing the game how I want to play. I’m playing the game how I’m being told to play.
You know how some revelations are incredibly empowering, the kind that make you feel like you can take on the world, conquer any task before you, save the day, and win the girl? This revelation is the opposite of that. I usually sit on chairs. This time, Chair sat on me.”
Achievements can be a fantastic way for a developer to put a carrot out in front of gamers to lead them to novel, niche, and most importantly enjoyable ways to play their game. Whether it be something ridiculous like putting a garden gnome in a rocket and sending him to space in Half-Life or an indication of your skill progression like getting an Overkill in a ranked free-for-all match of Halo.
But tell me that I need to get 10,000 multiplayer kills (Gears of War) or win (really high number) amount of online multiplayer matches and now I feel like playing is a chore, not a joy. There’s some really simple rules developers should follow to make achievements fun:
1. Make them attainable – If an achievement will take 5 hours or more *outside* regular play, that’s too long.
2. Have them reveal some novel aspect of your game – Finding a clever Easter egg is novel. Finding out that you still have 9,000 wins to go before you unlock an achievement is not novel.
3. Make them comical – Jumping on an enemy’s head is funny. Keeping a car in the air using explosives is funny.
4. Allow the player to feel as if they’ve accomplished something – this is a little ambiguous, but if I unlock an achievement just for booting the game up, the only accomplishment I feel is how far my power-button-pushing skills have come. If I unlock an achievement for winning my first online match, I feel like I’m getting the hang of a game.
5. Finally, Quality over quantity – Having six separate achievements for 3 mini-games is not quality. If your game has a narrow scope, don’t try to force players to do the same thing a little differently just because you want more achievements, just have less achievements and make them worth more.
If a game’s achievements don’t meet at least 3 of those rules, there’s something wrong.
In closing, achievements are a great way to keep players twiddling their joysticks for your game. There is a point of diminished returns though. Achievements can have this negative effect on your game that actually takes away from the overall experience.
Now how about having achievements in demos? Hmm, that will just have to wait for another day.
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Comment by Danreb V. on the February 8th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Good feature. Sometimes I find myself playing through old PS3 games just to get some useless trophies. I don't know why, but it's always made me feel better–although knowing that you'll be playing for an eternity kinda sucks.
Comment by TheForgotten0ne on the February 8th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Well, Trophies, achievements. I don't really care so much about them, because I play games because they are fun. Not because I want to brag to my friends that I play more then them, if I want to do that I just show my steam account and how much I have played CSS xD
I think Trophies are stupid, when I played Assassins Creed 2, I laughed from almost every Trophie I got, because I didn't do anyhing special, I killed some guy that I was forced to kill (assassinate). I escaped from a place, and I got a Trophie, and I killed the final boss, and I got a Trophie.
Sure, I can show them that I have actually completed the game, and wohoo for that. But if my friends don't belive/trust me, well why should I care?
Trophies is a way to get people to think a game is longer then it actually is, they make small extra levels or details, things that don't really take long to make, but gets the players to play the game way more. But doing the same over and over again. Where is the fun?
Comment by Cody Hargreaves on the February 9th, 2010 at 2:38 am
I mostly agree on all counts, though I'm finding it difficult to see the difference between earning an achievement for booting up the game, and earning one in under 5 hours. Under 5 hours? Really? What does 'Achievement' mean again? Oh, right. To achieve. I think you may have your dictionary definitions in a twist.
Where's the "Make them challenging: although most kids these days wouldn't know a challenge if it crept up and decapitated them, there are older gamers out that that appreciate it when they earn an achievement they really feel they had to work for" section?
Comment by Andrew_G on the February 9th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
When I said "outside of regular play" in that point, I meant you've played through the game as you normally would have, and are now trying for the achievements you didn't already get. If it takes 5 or more hours at this point, then that's too long.
I agree with your point "Make them challenging" this list is by no means comprehensive. I feel like this is related to point 4, "Allow them to feel as if they're accomplished something." You don't feel as if you've accomplished something if it wasn't a bit challenging.
As far as really hard "old school" achievements, I think it would be okay to maybe have one (maximum) in a game. In this way, most players can achieve nearly all the achievements in a game, and only the select few have bragging rights to that one. More than this, though, and you're alienating too many people. After all, the point of the article is that achievements should make a game more enjoyable, and not feel like a chore.
Comment by JoshS on the February 9th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
I like achievements, they give me something to look forward to when I replay a game a second time. I beat Hitman Blood Money once than I went back trying to get the harder difficulty achievements, which forced me to form new strategies and such to win. It was quite exciting trying to achieve all 1000 in that game.
Comment by Cody Hargreaves on the February 13th, 2010 at 4:33 am
While I take your meaning, Andrew; I simply disagree. Achievements earned for completing a quest that 'must' be completed in order to progress through the game, aren't, in my humble opinion, achievements at all. I'd accept an achievement as 'earned' for defeating a difficult boss, or for killing a number of players in an online match within the given time limit ( though I also disagree that killing 10,000 players is an achievement, as it seems something more likened to a test of endurance), as both of those actions require skill; though even then the line is thin.
I only make such a point of it because if achievements aren't challenging, then then they lose their value. Your 'gamerscore' on Xbox Live, for example, is nothing more than a definitive list of the games you have played, and how far you progressed through each. I have no problem with that, but I do take issue with calling them 'achievements'. They are nothing of the sort.
And too, allowing a person to feel as though they have achieved something is nothing like offering them the chance to actually do so. Though, I will agree that the large majority of people would take your side on that. People love to feel like they have achieved something, and so, those in power offer them the chance to do so almost daily. But you see, once again, this depreciates the value of the achievement. Completing a task a monkey with a typewriter could achieve if given a long enough period of time isn't worthy of even a mention, let alone a gold star – yet today's society feels that it is. How long before we no longer care about achievement? How long before the bar falls so low, that merely turning on your games console awards you the 'Began Playing' award? Not long, I imagine. Not long at all.
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