User talk:Gigathrash/Chevos

Achievements stifle creativity
Achievements don't encourage creativity. People went to the trouble to become level 20 in Pre-Searing before there were achievements. In fact, being creative and original means you're doing something that there is no achievement for for. Achievements encourage you to duplicate something someone else has done before (and, in the case of the little sisters, encourage you to even duplicate a moral choice. Think about how scary that is when you apply that to RL.)

Achievements convert intrinsic motivation to external motivation
Achievements often embody the goals that players used to set themselves. They're nice because they communicate those goals, but they're bad because they're now the "definitive" list of goals. Reaching one of these goals should be its own reward - you should do it because you decided it would be fun to try, not because you want the pat on the shoulder and "complete" the game.

Achievements make a mediocre game better
A good game is fun to play and sustains motivation even without them. (Does minecraft have achievements?) It provides you feedback about where you are and makes you feel good about your progress. This can be done via achievements (there are games on kongregate whose sole aim is to get the achievements associated with it, of which there are 100), but tacking achievements on to a finished game as an afterthought means that they're either not needed (because the game is good), or they remedy a flaw in the mediocre game (i.e. lead you to feature the game didn't expose, give you feedback about your progress, or motivate you).

Achievements are a meta-game
On steam, facebook, kongregate achievements are a meta-game. You play games to progress in the meta-game even if they suck individually. They can make you play bad games because you got hooked on the meta-game. (On the upside, they can make you try unusual or new game concepts -- if the guy who decides on the achievements liked it. If not, you will never try it.) The real question is, is that meta-game a good game? Is the social pressure it generates on everyone (not just those in the highscore table of a particular arcade machine) a good thing? Is exposing your gameplay habits to the world (or at the minimum, your friends) a "good" game, i.e. is it actually fun? Or is it merely furthering an unhealthy addiction? Steam's latest task-based lottery uses achievements to motivate you to buy more games.

Achievements increase competitiveness
Half-life 2 could be seen as an action adventure. Adventures is traditionally pretty much of the least competitive genre there is, akin to reading a book. Adding achievements to a book ("reached page 50") increases the sense of competitiveness. (Trackmania tells you how well you are doing with respect to all players in the world. Each time you complete a track, your position moves up a few ten thousand.) They convert any game you apply them to into a competitive activity (by introducing the competitive meta-game).

Achievements without the pressure?
A good social game would allow players to communicate about it, telling each other what fun activities they've come up with. A good game would allow players to extend it with their own ideas. MUDs used to do that (and still do). The kongregate interface allows players to create new levels for games that support this, and also supports rating these.

Invent non-competitive metagame?
When a game is understood not in the sense of "Olympic games", i.e. being the best or reaching a goal, but rather as being fun to do, flexing your mind (or muscles), and exposing you to something different in your life (games as art), achievements help by communication with other players about the game, but hinder by introducing the competitive meta-game. (The GW meta-game of rank and titles is not generally received well, and the PvXwiki people frown upon it as being seen as an indication of a player's knowledge or skill at the game). If you could invent a non-competitive meta-game and transform it into a game (site), you'd stand to make millions.

--◄mendel► 08:41, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Disconnect
Reading Giga's and mendel's posts makes me realise how disconnected I am from games. Morality? Meh. I'll murder you anyways. Task list, completion? Could be worse. Yay apathy?

Minecraft does not feature achievements, btw. Without a story or any sort of goal at all, they'd probably be uninspired anyways. "Eat 10 creepers" and the likes. --Vipermagi 11:29, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Achievements can turn failure into success
You fail at the game. In a sense, you lost. But the meta-game gives you a pat on the back and says: ''ACHIEVEMENT! You just discovered the catastrophic ending! ACHIEVEMENT! Catastrophic ending discovered again! ACHIEVEMENT! Catastrophic ending discovered 5 times!'' While you may not take this entirely serious (in the frame of the game, you still failed, and it was probably not your intention), the achievement helps to inject some humor into the situation and makes you take your failure less seriously. That's a good thing! Used to happen to me in Trackmania all the time. You miss a turn, flip of the track, turn the car over a few times, and the game says (paraphrased): "Awesome! Triple summersault with half-spin 360! Wooot!" I can't help but smile at this.

Apply this to Guild Wars: should be get achievements for posting to the chat channel for 30 minutes yet not making a single sale? For trying to collect a party for a mission and ending up not going? For being dead with your heroes still alive but res-less? For failing the survivor title at level 19? The possibilities are endless. --◄mendel► 11:32, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Userboxes
USerboxes are a self-made kind of achievement: they're completely original, but can be be copied if you like someone else's. --◄mendel► 11:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)