Are Achievements\Trophies important to a game?

[Aldurin]

Originally Posted by Jagos

It was summer! I was bored! I have a gaming problem! *sniff*

Gaming is NEVER a problem!!

[krogothwolf]

Originally Posted by EvilEarl

Gaming is NEVER a problem!!

That's not true, Gaming is a problem if you play to the point of exhaustion. Or the wife takes away your system because SHE IS EVIL!! EVIL INCARNATE!!! The gaming becomes a problem because you aren't gaming.

[Seil]

It's only a gaming problem if you're losing.

[bluestarultor]

Honestly? My opinion is no, Achievements/Trophies aren't important to a game. At least not a good one. As a recent addition, I think that they can be a nice thing to have, but I also think they can be used as a crutch. It's a delicate balance.

Achievements used to say you went out of your way and did something crazy are great in my book. Stuff like in Red Dead Redemption where you get one for throwing a nun in front of a train says you are one twisted hombre.

On the other hand, one for completing a level with no special conditions or for a first kill is vestigial. They're not bad, but what's the point? You're rewarding the player for not getting bored with your game and putting it down. Doing something once that you'd have to do at least once anyway is not achieving anything.

Ones that reward you for grinding stuff you'd be doing in any amount anyway are what I'd call a bad achievement. By making people do that, all you're doing is lengthening gameplay through repetition. Even then, I'd say there was a sliding scale. If it's a number one could reasonably get through normal play, it's pointless. If they have to go above and beyond a bit, I say they can get a nifty reward for it, and I'd call it a good implementation of a shaky system. If they need to spend as many hours killing the same beast over and over as you have in the main quest, I'd call it a desperate cry for help.

[Aldurin]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Honestly? My opinion is no, Achievements/Trophies aren't important to a game. At least not a good one. As a recent addition, I think that they can be a nice thing to have, but I also think they can be used as a crutch. It's a delicate balance.

Achievements used to say you went out of your way and did something crazy are great in my book. Stuff like in Red Dead Redemption where you get one for throwing a nun in front of a train says you are one twisted hombre.

On the other hand, one for completing a level with no special conditions or for a first kill is vestigial. They're not bad, but what's the point? You're rewarding the player for not getting bored with your game and putting it down. Doing something once that you'd have to do at least once anyway is not achieving anything.

Ones that reward you for grinding stuff you'd be doing in any amount anyway are what I'd call a bad achievement. By making people do that, all you're doing is lengthening gameplay through repetition. Even then, I'd say there was a sliding scale. If it's a number one could reasonably get through normal play, it's pointless. If they have to go above and beyond a bit, I say they can get a nifty reward for it, and I'd call it a good implementation of a shaky system. If they need to spend as many hours killing the same beast over and over as you have in the main quest, I'd call it a desperate cry for help.

I still like to think of the ancestor of the achievement, the skill point (Spyro 2, Spyro 3, and the entire Insomniac-made Ratchet and Clank series). The spyro ones were like 16 different things ranging from destroy all of one kind of decoration in the environment to doing to beating a challenge a little bit better than required. Those were extra things that took extra effort but did not require monk-like dedication to accomplish.

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by EvilEarl

I still like to think of the ancestor of the achievement, the skill point (Spyro 2, Spyro 3, and the entire Insomniac-made Ratchet and Clank series). The spyro ones were like 16 different things ranging from destroy all of one kind of decoration in the environment to doing to beating a challenge a little bit better than required. Those were extra things that took extra effort but did not require monk-like dedication to accomplish.

There were innumerable games before the Spyro series that used a non-reward reward system for collecting things and acomplishing goals. Some old NES games gave you badges or marks on your save file to note completion of the game or collection tasks.

If you really want to talk about the ancestor of non-reward rewards, then you should be considering the High Score lists in arcades. That is a real ancestor, Spyro and the games before it only built upon that further. Spyro certainly wasn't the first by a long shot.

[Jagos]

Just go here.

I dare you to reach the high score in Donkey Kong.

[phil_]

I went to your high score place, Jagos. My high score in Mars Matrix is 1,185,919,080 (I had to write it down because the cabinet I play loses the scores when it's turned off). The highest score they have for default settings Mars Matrix is 969,640,680. I can't even beat the second boss on one quarter. What kind of noob-scoring website are you linking us to?

[krogothwolf]

Originally Posted by phil_

I went to your high score place, Jagos. My high score in Mars Matrix is 1,185,919,080 (I had to write it down because the cabinet I play loses the scores when it's turned off). The highest score they have for default settings Mars Matrix is 969,640,680. I can't even beat the second boss on one quarter. What kind of noob-scoring website are you linking us to?

You don't know what Twin Galaxies is?

It's the organization that silly thing the Guinness book of world records recognizes as the official supplier of world records for video games.

[phil_]

So, if I get them to verify my score, I can be the Guinness world champ at Mars Matrix? I mean, I'm not even Japanese or particularly good at bullet hell games and I can beat the pants off of the top scores they have with a few months of playing once a week at work. That's just sad.

Seriously, I just had to get to the second boss on one quarter to get the score I showed. It's not that hard.