As a concept, i think achievements are ok. Its just another way to reward the player for his time and taking risks. I think the issue with it is how successful its been and how it can sometimes feel like its being misused by developers as a way to artificially lengthen a game. Games are generally becoming shorter and shorter due to how expensive it is to make content, and even when they make games long with lower costs, it still expensive to test out that long content. Yet, it seems like some developers have been relying on the metagame aspect of achievements to make their 15 hour game, a 20 - 25 hour one. It almost seems disingenuous as the developers didnt decide to make the game 20 - 25 hours in the first place based on its own merits without the need of metagames. Taking Halo 2, its still the most played online console game. People are still playing it 3 years later that have completed every achievement, or playing it without any regard to achievements. Why? Because Bungie insured that the game, on its own, had great longevity via fun multiplayer. The achievements was just the cherry on top and not the crutch. Diablo 2, 7 years later, is still seeing alot of activity. Blizzard ensured the game's longevity with its randomized levels, loot, and simple mechanics to last years and years. You simply dont get that kind of long lasting when developers rely mostly on achievements to extend the games life. So the question: Do you think Achievements, not as a concept, but as the execution of it, has lead to more good things or bad things? I think im seeing it being used more as a crutch than a tool for enhancement, personally.

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly does "achievement" mean in this context? Reading between the lines I am guessing it refers to things like non-core unlockable bonuses such as "collect all 100 doohickies to see a secret video" or "finish level 4 in under 2 minutes to unlock Bobble Head Mode", but I could be mistaken.

Quote:Original post by JBourrie
Can you name an example of a game that has used achievements as a crutch?

Achievements are for the hardcore players to get more enjoyment out of the game. They are like easter eggs, in a way, since you can completely ignore their existence and your gameplay experience won't change.

If your game isn't worth playing for more than a few hours, having some unlockable achievement isn't going to somehow make a player decide to waste their time with it. If your game is worth playing, good achievements can continue to reward players who replay it just for fun and think they have already mastered the game.

Hmmm. The best example i can give would be the agility/hidden orbs in Crackdown. Its a bit difficult to explain if you havent played it. You need to collect 500 orbs in total to unlock the achievement. They are generally in out of the way areas and in obscure places. They can take an exhaustive amount of time to find them. Theres also games with annoying online achievements like get 10,000 kills or score #1 on leaderboards in a full game (in a round through matchmaking).

Im not really discussing the negatives of the idea of achievements, but rather the implementation of them for the sake of artificially extending the games length.

Gears of War, a 15 hour game, can be extended to about 22 with achievements. A good deal of people have tried it or have completed it. If Gears of War didnt provide online multiplayer, its a pretty obvious case of the developers trying to extend the game by dangling a carrot in front of you via achievements. But the multiplayer component doesnt make it so apparent given the amount of effort Epic put to make it a solid multiplayer game too. But same can't be said for some of the singleplayer only games with achievements similar to those i mentioned.

Quote:Original post by XaosII
As a concept, i think achievements are ok. Its just another way to reward the player for his time and taking risks. I think the issue with it is how successful its been and how it can sometimes feel like its being misused by developers as a way to artificially lengthen a game.

Games are generally becoming shorter and shorter due to how expensive it is to make content, and even when they make games long with lower costs, it still expensive to test out that long content. Yet, it seems like some developers have been relying on the metagame aspect of achievements to make their 15 hour game, a 20 - 25 hour one. It almost seems disingenuous as the developers didnt decide to make the game 20 - 25 hours in the first place based on its own merits without the need of metagames.

Taking Halo 2, its still the most played online console game. People are still playing it 3 years later that have completed every achievement, or playing it without any regard to achievements. Why? Because Bungie insured that the game, on its own, had great longevity via fun multiplayer. The achievements was just the cherry on top and not the crutch.

Diablo 2, 7 years later, is still seeing alot of activity. Blizzard ensured the game's longevity with its randomized levels, loot, and simple mechanics to last years and years. You simply dont get that kind of long lasting when developers rely mostly on achievements to extend the games life.

So the question: Do you think Achievements, not as a concept, but as the execution of it, has lead to more good things or bad things?

I think im seeing it being used more as a crutch than a tool for enhancement, personally.

Why is it that many people think a game needs to be long? I suggest you check out The Myth of the 40 Hour Gamer. Acheivements are for bragging rights, and that's all they should be for. It's like the old score board on an arcade game. I agree with JBourrie that a good game is a good game, and no acheivements will make a person play a bad game longer.

Now, I'm against side quests which unlock extra content. I think it's absurd to gamers who aren't hardcore (aka: people who aren't in school anymore where they can play games 40+ hours a week). It's one thing for a quest/acheivement to unlock a secret weapon, that doesn't bother me. But games such as Guitar Hero where you have to be good to get 20 extra songs, or to unlock a super secret ending as in Kingdom Hearts by spending an additional 200 hours... Those aren't trivial things, and you're denying many of us an opportunity to see them. If anything, games should be shorter. I personally feel that a good game should be able to be defeated in 30 minutes maximum, if you know what you're doing. (With a few exceptions. RPG's maybe can be 5-10 hours).

So to answer your question, acheivements lead to more good things in taken in the XBox Live Arcade fashion, and bad things if taken in the Square Enix fashion.