The Addiction of Achievements
By Spence_5060 4 Comments
Today's topic that I wanted to talk about is something that I'm currently suffering from as well. What I wanted to talk about is being rewarded in games. I wanted to talk about the kind of rewards we receive and the ways that rewards have made games successful today.
N ow rewards I think have evolved over the generations of gaming. I can remember back in previous generations that the best reward you can have is the feeling you get when you beat a game to it's end or beating your friend's high score in a game or even just beating them in a versus match in a game. But over the years these rewards have changed. I think that we (the player) have demanded more rewards from games. We want more to shore for our achievements in games. Now I just used the best word for these rewards, "achievements". When Microsoft implemented achievements into their console and games, it became a hit. Now at first most developers didn't think much of achievements. It was mostly because it was still a new feature and they thought of them more as an added annoyance of a requirement. But eventually they caught on to them because so many people were valuing achievements as a part of the game. So over time achievements became an addictive part of the game. And eventually Sony caught on to the whole achievement craze and patched into the PSN their own achievement system, trophies. And finally steam is the big gaming source for a sort of PC achievements. And now today we have whole sites focused on getting achievements and guides on how to get them.
What I hate about achievements though is that it has tainted my mind to playing games When given the choice to play a game I always choose the Xbox 360 be cause of the achievement system there. Now I know that the PS3 has this as well but for whatever reason I prefer the numbered point system better. It may be because that system was implemented in long before the trophy system and I've just become accustomed to the achievement system. But now I've just become accustomed to being rewarded for gaming and I hat that it has come down to this.
Now I know that I am not the only one who has this problem. So my question to you is why do you try and get achievements? I hear some people say that it's to extend their play with a game. Others say the same thing I said with completionism. But I wanna hear what you have to say.