Game developers debate Xbox achievements

[Raptor]

From joystiq.com:

Love them or hate them, those Xbox 360 achievements have become a staple of the system. The little blips of joy are so annoying and addicting for some that we're shocked the PS3 and/or Wii didn't implement them. There's an interesting thread going on over at the International Game Developers Association forums started by Raphael Van Lierop (Relic, 3D Realms) where he believes the achievements have taken gamers off course.

Lierop writes, "I have many friends who LOVE achievements. They love the bragging rights, they love being able to compare achievements they obtained to other people ... Personally, I dislike them...a lot. I find they are changing the way we play games, and the focus of the games we play, and make. I feel that games should be crafted to have enough intrinsic reward, that a secondary external reward system should not be required... was it really necessary for us to go back to the old 'High Score' system from the days of arcade games? I would have hoped that the gameplay and immersiveness of the 'next gen' gaming experience would have been enough reward, and that we wouldn't have had to fall back on cheap gimmicks."

Full Story: joystiq.com | gamesetwatch.com | igda.org

[BBK]

For me, this guy doesn't understand gaming how I personally like to play it. For me, being "old school", I love having a constant challenge in a game, a reason to go back to it. High score tables were great for this, back in the old 8 bit and 16 bit days, trying to beat my previous score was why I played those intinsically simple games. Why else would someone spend hours on end playing Chuckie Egg FFS? Achievements go someway to recreating this - they encourage you (IMO) to play a game more, or to play it again once you've finished. I'm sure for some people its all about the online experience, but I'm more of a solitary gamer, and for me a high score or an achievement that I don't yet have is an incentive to play on, to get more achievement points in a game than my friends is something I want

[Junglist]

Jesus, how far is he (Lierop) up is own arse. Admitidly there are certain games which could probably get away without achievements because of the way the game is played (i.e Oblivion, PES..) but hes sadly mistaken if he thinks just because were "next gen" now that all games are suddenly massively immersive, most still only really offer prettier graphics and rely on either a good MP mode or the achivements to hold an audience

[Simate]

The bloke does sound like a nob. The achievements system on the 360 does nothing for me.
I'll play a game to death because I like it, not to beat lap times, high scores or get achievements.

[Fearless]

Finishing a game on 2-3 different hardness levels suxs imo, collecting 100 items all over the game is for people who dont have any other games to play imo.

[rIKmAN]

I like the achievements, but as above I fuckin hate where they have seperate achievements for difficulty levels, who the fuck wants to play through the same game 3 times (unless it`s a classic).

I know it kinda defeats the object of the system if you got the same achievements from easy as you did for hard, but they have to come up with a better system than "play through it again".

[maltloaf]

i played thru prey last week and it definately was a good feeling knowing that at the end of each section i would get another achievement. It would not have stopped me playing the game as i loved every minute of it, but it definately added to the experience and helped me slog through the more dull sections.

Achievements are great when they come steadily and regularly through a game. Irregular and unrealistic and they become irrelevant

[BBK]

Achievements are great when they come steadily and regularly through a game. Irregular and unrealistic and they become irrelevant

Now that I agree with. I picked up Brian Lara 2007 on Weds, 3 hours later I had 65% of the achievements, and the rest are crazy like winning the ICC with 8 different teams, something that would take a long time and be incredibly dull to do.