Achievements and trophies are poorly implemented

You all know how addicting achievements can be. I, however, think it's a shoddy system lacking imagination. It could be so much better in every single way.

http://www.examiner.com/x-4157-Phoenix-Video-Game-Examiner~y2009m4d8-Achievements-and-trophies-are-poorly-implemented

What do you all think? I'd rather have achievements and trophies that actually meant something.

I actually agree,  I would rather get a trophy or achievement by doing something cool or rare.  Like alot of games have a bunch of "pass this chapter" type of trophies that you basically get without doing anything special to get them. then you got some like on Little Big planet that are pretty close to impossible to get. i.e. The ones where you have to have so many people like your created level....
I wish more thought went into them instead of the requirements being tacked on at the last possible second because Sony or Microsoft said that developers had to implement them into their games.

I'LL POORLY IMPLEMENT YOU!  Come on, it's just supposed to be a score for bragging rights and so you have proof when you brag to your friends that you wasted 2 days beating Bulletwitch on the hardest difficulty for one achievement point (holla)

I always think about them on a per-achievement basis. I don't really care how many points I have overall, or even per-game, but what I do care is that I have the Mile High Club Achievement on CoD4, as well as the achievements for beating the game on veteran (or whatever the hardest difficulty was called). Basically what I'm saying is, sure, I've got 1000 achievement points on halo 3, but the 40 achievement points for Mile High Club are worth so much more to me.

I dunno, I think you're being a bit elitist. I like them just the way they are.

Trophies still seem out of place. There is very little substance. Achievements are fine the way they are.

I enjoy hearing the "blip" that tells me I've unlocked an achievement/trophy, but otherwise I never care what my point score is or how many badges I've acquired.  It's like "blip! ~ oh, neat...back to the game."  I rarely even go back to see what was unlocked.  There is only one game I can recall that had me pursuing achievements.  Crackdown had some neat achievements that weren't just the "you've completed a level."

"Also, gamerscore as a whole is utterly pointless. Why not get creative and allow users to purchase themes, pictures, or in-game items with the points they earn from getting the achievements?"

A few easier achievements are fine, maybe 250 points for finishing the game (not all in one achievements, but staged through different achievements) maybe another 250 for completing it on the hardest difficulty, but there should be at least half of the points for doing interesting and cool things.

The comments at the bottom of that article are angry...

The link didnt work.
So anyway there are a lot of really well implemented trophies and achievements.Mass Effect that earned you in game stat bonuses,Noby Noby Boy if you get all the trophies youll see that they combine into one image all together and many more.
But most are "Play the game 50% and 50% do stupid tasks you wouldnt actually try" which is ok.It worked in Uncharted but in games like Skate 2 there were far too many stuff to do and you didnt really wanna aim for a platinum with that hard work.

"The link didnt work.So anyway there are a lot of really well implemented trophies and achievements.Mass Effect that earned you in game stat bonuses,Noby Noby Boy if you get all the trophies youll see that they combine into one image all together and many more.But most are "Play the game 50% and 50% do stupid tasks you wouldnt actually try" which is ok.It worked in Uncharted but in games like Skate 2 there were far too many stuff to do and you didnt really wanna aim for a platinum with that hard work."

Some games do it right, some do it wrong. The problem with trophies is the unsupported back catalog. Too little too late for Sony, I'm afraid.

I'm a casual gamer, so those easy, end of every chapter achievements are usually all I get....

Well the links not working for me....
Anyway, I disagree (i think?).  Many developers do it properly.  Look at say, Dead Rising or more recently, Banjo: Nuts and Bolts. Burn the Witch and make BBQ in Nutty Acres....

And I personally don't care about getting a high gamerscore but more so doing all the challenges for my favorite games.

Just depends on the game really; some are done well, others not so much. I like a combination of standard achievements for just playing the game and the achievements for going out and doing something unexpected. I really like the 'chapter' achievements (especially in RPGs) in that they help me guage how far along I am, and I might compare to a friend. The only achievements I really miss out on are the Live ones, for playing online, as I really don't play many games online.

Bioshock, Dead Rising, Lost Odyssey, Viva Pinata are a few of the title that I think did achievements really well.

"Trophies still seem out of place. There is very little substance. Achievements are fine the way they are."

The Orange Box has awesome achievments.

"You all know how addicting achievements can be. I, however, think it's a shoddy system lacking imagination. It could be so much better in every single way.

No they are not.

Trophies/achievements are a terrible idea."

"The Orange Box has awesome achievments."

Or poorly done, like Avatar?

I like them the way they are. At least achievements, as I have little to no experience with trophies. Some games have insanely hard achievements which takes you hours upon hours to get and those are the ones that means the most. Of course, I have nothing against easier achievements either since I like getting the full 1000 from a game that I like. So yeah, they're fine in my eyes.

Achievements and trophies serve to real purpose except to challenge yourself to get more out of the game you are playing. Achievements such as the ones you earn when you so much as to push start on the main menu seem a little out of place. It's nice seeing the achievement alert pop up but the knowledge that you did nothing to achieve it seems a bit odd. Achievements are meant to be something you achieve, not something you immediately get for no work at all.

In my opinion, all achievements and trophies should all be hard to get.