Xbox 360 Achievements: A Blessing and a Curse
By Jonathan on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 10:37 PM PST In Editorials, Gamer Life, Microsoft
Loot-Ninja.com put up an interesting article today about how achievements can take some of the fun out of games on the Xbox 360. Their main point is that the achievements kind of trick players into playing games they normally wouldn’t or trying out game modes they would usually ignore. I can see where they’re coming from, but I don’t think that’s the reason achievements can take the fun out of a game. As someone who has only owned an Xbox 360 for a month now, I kind of see achievements as a blessing and a curse.
I actually like the single-player achievements in games for that very reason: it can sometimes make you try things you might’ve either ignored or just not thought of. Recently, I finally played through Crackdown and made sure to get the achievement where you basically climb the tallest building in the city and just jump off. It was pretty simple and fun, but not something I had thought to do until I looked through the possible achievements to unlock. Sometimes though, the achievements do seem to make you do some pointless things; particularly the ones that require you to play through the game’s slow, boring tutorial. I felt kind of stupid after I played through the tutorial for the XBLA version of Worms. Seriously, I’ve played the game since I was ten; I don’t need a refresher. But its such an easy achievement that its hard to just ignore.
When you go online though, achievements become more of a hindrance than anything. For example, the first game I got for my new 360 was naturally Gears of War. I played through the single-player campaign once by myself and then again with a friend. Then I decided to try out the multiplayer. The first thing I heard the minute I entered a room was someone yelling “WTF!? NOOB!” through my headset. Then he started ragging on me for my Gamerscore, which, considering I’d only played one game on the system at that point, was naturally low. I took it in stride, because, well, I really was a noob. But now it’s almost a month and dozens of matches later and I still hear similar exclamations whenever I enter a new game. People will then usually start bragging about how they’ve gotten almost all of the achievements for the game. This doesn’t impress me; it just makes me think they have way too much time on their hands. I’ve once encountered a person who seemed to exclusively use his pistol, which puzzled me until I realized he was just trying to get an achievement for doing so. I wouldn’t have minded too much, except he was on my team, and he wasn’t doing so well. Of course all these taunts tend to stop about the time I slice through one of them with a chainsaw. But still, I get this every time I enter a new match. It’s a continuous annoyance, and it just makes the game (you know, the thing we’re all supposed to enjoy) less fun. I just don’t feel that I should devote hours and hours of time into playing a game just to get a handful of points added to my Gamerscore so people will shut up and let me just play the damn game.
Achievements are a great addition to most games. They usually can expand the playtime of a game even after you’ve beaten it and give you a little something to remind you what you’ve accomplished. Leave it to the online community to take something nice like that and turn it into a cock fight (you know, like roosters, and not the other thing since this is a mostly PG-13 site).
Nice article. I totally agree. I don’t think your gamerscore is totally to blame for the poor manners of LIVE users though, but it doesn’t help.
lol @ the frottage reference
The virtual world is a place where socially retarded individuals can talk as tough as they want, and pick on anyone they want knowing they wont ever have to actually front up man 2 man for the stuff they say and do…I wouldnt worry about it too much.
Any gathering involving 7 million odd users, with a large contigency of smelly teens and middle aged men who still act like teens but whose stench has increased with there age. All of which, have a internet connection and alter-ego to hide behind…Your bound to run into an @$$hole somewhere amongst them…
You’re playing on Live – a place worse than the web. It’s notoriously full of thicker-than-a-plank console users with voices that obviously haven’t passed puberty yet. What did you expect?
i think acievements are a very good idea, i have certainly enjoyed getting several and i am proud of my 7,115 gamerscore.
they are fun, but that said, it has been abused and made a bad thing. whether it be cheating gamerscore whores or people who abuse you in light of your gamerscore, but inpsite of that i continue to enjoy the achievement system.
@steve & penn
, but there are people who are there just to have fun, 
but theyre just harder to find than a loudmouth. i would be one of them, if i could afford to get broadband and therefor live but i only have a part time job.
not everyone one live is a complete idiot wanker
just keep hope, there are cool gamers out there.
also i would like to say i dont cheat to get them and i dont go out of my way to get them either.
@havoc,
7115? *&^%ing n00b.
achievements are fairly worthless if you ask me. It’s awesome on the part of the marketing team that came up with the idea though.
there’s too much variance from game to game, so actual game score has nothing to do with how much of an achieved gamer you are. Personally, I like the old school where high scores were everything. Achievements do cause people to play more of a game than usual and I know people who play games they don’t even like which is completely silly in my opinion.
I think that achievements breed poor sportsmanship in online multiplayer games. Some players will not help their team in any way if they are trying to get a specific achievement. Although the idea is novel, someone’s score doesn’t carry much weight in my book. I would support it more if there were less achievements requiring online play. The ones that do carry online achievements should be based around team wins instead of individual accomplishments which would really keep with the intended spirit of online gaming. Of course, the corporate idea behind this entire system I am sure is to find a way to keep you on the game as long as possible.. so we will never see these changes.
I think it’s a really simple solution for Microsoft, should they want to implement; give gamers the option to not show their gamerscore, really simple.
And yeah, I actually picked up a 360 and Gears on Saturday. I’ve seen people with scores such as 24000 + (and play silly games just to get them) through general browsing on forums and such and I just think “well…actually, I’m proud of my few hundred points, so far”.
The other problem is that to do with the internet gaming terms: noob, noobie (etc. there are so many variations for the same thing) and owned. Okay, so we light it when we d chainsaw people, but people shouting “oh my God, ****ing owned that son of a *****” is disappointing in fellow man, whilst being called a noob is rather insultory. Whilst I don’t mind being called a beginniner (we all start somewhere, right?) I don’t need someone of superior (and usually sadder) gaming skill to remind me of that fact with my abismal score. Heck, it took a month in CounterStrke: Source for me to finally get matches where at the end, my K/D ratio was above 1.0.
The thing is though, you’ve hit the nail on the head. What I won’t do though is play Gears all through with a pistol. No bloody way.
I agree that achievments are useless because you can play games like TMNT to get easy 1000. I enjoy it though because I want to beat my cousin who thinks he is the best.(he jsut plays more games… I actually go for the hard achievements in games) I REALLY wish Microsoft would make the online rank more important and visible because to me that is the true achievement. In fight night for example… I wish they would tell you the highest rank you have ever had not just if you are in the top 1000. In live arcade when you highlight a game it tells you where you rank against your friends… it should also tell where you rank in the world. If they applied that to each game it would be much more impressive to view my achievements because most games I play I rank very high online. They also need to crack down on cheaters and if you are caught take away your achievments. I really believe if they can do that then I will value my points.
I want to see in the dashboard my world rank on each game and have that compared to my friends list with their online rank. That is the more important to me.
There are all sorts of annoying people on Live and you really have to go through playing with a lot of people to find the older gamers or people you like and add them to your friends list and soon you won’t care about the others because you will have dedicated people to play with. Sometimes you might even meet them. I’m an older gamer hit me up “C DAWK”
acheivments are ok to earn, its nice to see them earned. I have never played a game with the purpose to earm the acheivment. Its always play the game and its good to get a surprise acheivment. Some are worthy many are usless. Like getting 5 kills in 30 seconds in GRAW 2, was a worthy acheivment for me. Beating the training mode in a game acheivment, is useless.
Dont let your self become an Acheivment whore. i personaly couldnt care for acheivments its only a marketing way to get u to play longer or try harder. 90% of my gaming is online, what few acheivments i get from online dont compare to offline play acheivments. if someone nags because your gamer score is low, prove them wrong, destroy them in multiplayer. Acheivments, Rankings, etc…. dont mean squat!!!
@used cisco
sorry to disappoint you BUT I AINT THAT SAD A WANKER!!!
just out of curiosity, what yours. so ridiculously high that you go too bed each night, your thumbs sore?