Achievements
I don't remember if we mentioned it, but a few weeks back we auctioned off an episode at extra credits for charity
Well that day has come
Thus begins the auctioned episode
So who won you ask?
What misterious dark figure from out the shadows has emerged to decide the fate of this weeks episode?
The winning bid was place by none other than
Sparrow the cat
Yes Sparrow cat and game enthusiast send two humans to the Child's play auction to bid on our episode
And the cat wants to know about achievements
So today we'll be talking about trophies and achievements at the behest of a cat
-beep- Achievement unlocked
But you know what?
The cat's right
It's something we gotta talk about
Achievements fall into 3 categories
The unavoidable
The optional
And the inspiring
Unavoidable achievements are the ones you get simply for doing what you would've done anyway
We've all seen them
You put in the disk, achievement unlocked
This type of achievement is just the result of lazy design
There isn't really any excuse for them
-beep- Achievement unlocked
It's like giving a kid a golden star just for showing up to school
It's an arbitrary and meaningless reward for an action that should be inherently rewarding
A game should be good enough on it's own merit to make a player keep playing
It shouldn't need any additional incentive
If you already watched our skinner box episode -beep- achievement unlocked
You'll probably reconize this meritless award system
There is really not much that needs to be said about these type of achievements
The only arguable value they provide is to let you know which games your frieds have beaten
Which can easily be achieved with the other two types of achievements
Which brings us to optional achievements
These are basically mini quests
These are the sort of things that would've been integrated directly into the game in the past but can now be delivered via the achievement system
These involve achievements like:
Get 8 Septillion gold
Find 12 hidden do dads
Romance so and so
There is nothing really wrong with these achievements
Yea they're still arbitrary, there strictly there to extent play length
And to give the player things to do without having to create more content
But they're totally avoidable
If this is your thing, go nuts
If not, don't bother
When used well these can create interesting questing experiance for the player
And offer the dedicated player challenges too hard to actually intergrate into the core gaming experiance
Optional achievements are also a great mechanism to make the player aware of the replay value built into the game
And hint it what else might be out there
Overall nothing wrong with this type of achievement
They are generally geared to the type of player who already loves the game and simply wants a reason to play more of it
The rest of us can simply ignore them
The main reason why they are sometimes viewed negatively is that they are often tagged on as an after thought
And in those cases they tend to be
Well...
Boring, forgetable, just all around bad
But that's the fault for the achievement maker
Not anything inherently with this type of achievement
But the best achievements are the ones that are inspiring
Inspiring achievements are those that suggest an alternate, engaging way to play
That the designers didn't want to make the main focus of the game
The most common of these are those pacifist-style achievements
Achievements that suggest you try to play the entire game without attacking anybody
But these can also range from vehicular jump challenges in games like GTA
To all those awesome achievements that get put into the HD remake of Deus Ex
You know if they were actually making one
Sorry that was kind of mean
-beep- Achievement unlocked
Seriously though these achievements, the ones that get us to reconsider to play how we play
The ones that get us to think through what the ramifications of the mechanics really are
And understand just how much we can get out of the rules of the world that had been set up for us
These are what make me say with certainty that the idea of having a simple, universal system
For achievements is actually beneficial to games
And there are other cool ways that achievements can enhance our game experiances too
Like for narrative purposes
Take Bioshock for example
-beep- Achievement unlocked
Look up the secret achievement called irony some time
It actually forces you to concider your actions that you're taking in game
Rather than simply being removed from it and seeing it purely as a part of the mechanics
It's a small touch but a nice one
But like with Skinner box techniques in general
It's easy and tempting for game developers to take the low road
And provide us with achievements that do nothing but offer us false rewards
In a vain hope to get us to think better of poor games
This makes Sparrow cry
Don't be fooled by such tactics
Don't play games for the achievements
Play through the achievements because they improve your games
-...-
Wait hang on
Addendum
I know some of you have actually made a meta-game out of finding the optimal way to rank up the highest number of achievements and trophies possible
And that's totally cool
It's a fun challenge to find it satisfying
More power to you
That is all
-beep- Achievement unlocked
-...-
I guess that about wraps it up really
Eventually we're going to have to come back to this to talk about gamification
The use of game systems to make real world tasks more engaging
It's going to become a big part of our lifes in the next 10 to 20 years
For better or worse
But for now I think we've done all we can for the fight against bad achievements
For gaming!
For Sparrow
Alright see you next week