Without the drive and desire to get this Achievement I would have gone out and bought another game. But I didn't. I stuck with Lego Star Wars II and got more out of the game than I would have done in the past. If this continues with the other games that I currently own (and I can already sense it starting) then I'll be buying less games per year and "replaying" the ones that I own a lot more.
This means less of my money will go to the game developers and the publishers. Now I'm only one person (I'm not predicting that I will spell doom for game studios single-handedly) however I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I can imagine that a whole generation of previously hardcore gamers now does the same thing.
With less money going into the industry, only the studios producing the best games will survive, and only the best games will sell in large quantities. As this starts to ripple through the industry the quality of games will start to rise to fight for the reduced money in the market.
Achievements are also starting to show themselves as the differentiator when it comes to multi-platform games. On many a podcast (The Hotspot being one), it is mentioned that, given the choice of multiple platforms on which to play games, the Xbox 360 will be chosen as the Achievements give that extra something to the game and extend the longevity of it. I completely agree, and with extra longevity for these titles comes extra value for money, but only for 360 owners.
The choice of what to buy has never been so great. I've never known so many great games available at one time, and long may it continue. Now all I have to do is find the time to play them all!
Article comments
1 - Matt Paprocki
I see it as the opposite. You play longer and buy more games simply for the points, especially for the hardcore set.
Not that I'm guily of this.
Never.
Stop looking at me kike that.
2 - Graeme Smith
I couldn't agree more Matt. For the hardcore gamer I'm sure that games with easy points (Madden 06 or King Kong for example) will be bought just for the points. However I think a lot of what were hardcore gamers in the past no longer are, and I do believe that there are far more regular gamers now than hardcore gamers. I guess we have to wait a few years and see how things play out...
3 - Ken Edwards
I think that well thought out achievements add to the game's experience. Dead Rising has some great ones.
Can bad achievements hurt a game? Depending on how good the game is, I think they can.
But to put it bluntly, we are all achievement whores one way or another (then there is Paprocki up there, well... nevermind).
Microsoft sure added a lot of replayability to games. I wish Sony and Nintendo copied the achievement point concept.
4 - Dynamo of Eternia
I have to say that I strongly agree with how this article describes the problems with labeling people as Hardcore or Casual gamers, and how this other set of 3 labels would work much better.
I, myself, would be a 'regular' gamer. I am someone who has many systems and the ability to purchase games, etc, but I don't play every day due to having other things within my life that I have to do.
However, speaking as an Xbox 360 owner, the achievements do little for me (infact, I kind of find them annoying), and I really hate the whole concept of the collective gamers score. I'm probably in the minority here, but they seem ridiculous to me.
Let me elaborate-
I look at it like this. I have Xbox 360 and Lego Star Wars II for it (amongst other games). I personally want to play Lego Star Wars II uninterupted. And to me, when this little system-specific achievement box pops up in the middle of my game, that's an interuption. It's something popping up and covering (even if only a small portion) of my screen that should be dedicated to this game with other junk that I personally don't care that much about.
It would at least be nice if the system kept track of the achievements without disrupting my game to tell me that it is doing so.
I guess I look at it like this-
playing Lego Star Wars II on Xbox 360, PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube should be no different than watching Superman Returns on DVD, HD-DVD, or Blu-Ray.
It should be as close to the same experience as possible from format to format when just watching the movie straight forward, with the only difference being a clearer picture for the high-def versions.
In the case of Lego Star Wars II, it should be the same experience, except for the graphics being a little better on 360, and the button configurations and in-game button labels being specific to the controller of that system (because you really can't avoid that). But, there shouldn't be little system-specific messages popping up, interupting my game.
I wouldn't want to have a notice popping up giving me a "Blu-Ray Achievement" for watching Superman Returns in that format, when I wouldn't have to put up with that crap on the other competing formats.
Now, as a gamer, do I like knowing what I've done and unlocked? Sure. But the game, itself, tells me what % of everything that I have unlocked, I don't need the 360 achievements to do that for me.
But all in all, if it wasn't for the little pop-up messages telling me that I've unlocked an achievement, then the achievement system itself wouldn't bother me too much.
But, I do strongly hate the whole gamerscore thing.
It's just such a subjective thing. How can you accurately say that playing one game equals this many points, and playing another equals that many points?
How can they say that you get this many points for playing Lego Star Wars II, and that many for playing Gears of War when they are two completely different types of games? How can you accurately say how many points out of a collective score each game (and how much you've done in each game) is worth?
Each person is going to own/play a unique combination of games, in many cases spanning multiple genres, and not always in equally balanced amounts in each of those genres. I don't think it's fair to say that the sum total of person A's overall 360 gaming experience is worth this many points, and person B's is worth another amount. It's very arbitrary. One person could play a bunch of easy games while someone else could play a handful of harder ones, and the one playing the easy games could have a higher score from just shear volume.
And what's worse, go to an Xbox specific web forum, and people get all elitist over these scores.
On Xbox.com, people can link up their Xbox Live gamerscore to their web forum screen name, and have it listed there. And if someone just signs up for the forum (and either doesn't have a gamerscore, or just doesn't have their system hooked up to Xbox Live), the others treat that person like they are scum or something. And over what? A collective number that in the long run means nothing.
It just creates an arbitrary and illogical cast system amongst gamers, IMO.
To me, it takes the existing problems of labeling people as Hardcore gamers or Casual gamers, and bumps those problems up to a much, much, MUCH higher level.
5 - Graeme Smith
Hi Dynamo,
thanks for your well written comments. They certainly throw up a few good arguments in there. I fully appreciate what you're asying about how subjective a gamerscore is. I guess these things can be as subjective as you want them to be. I'm probably 7th or 8th out of the 30 odd people on my friends list but I don't use my score as bragging rights. I actually find it's quite good in seeing how other people are progressing with games compared to how I am doing.
Also I think the fact that some games are well known for their easy points (King Kong and Madden 06 for example) means that people almost disregard the points in these games. If you then look at Maddon 07 the amount of gameplay needed to get a similar number of points is way more, and on this point I think EA have gone too far in the opposite direction. I guess it'll all balance out.
I find that achievements (if you know when they are coming in a game) add a certain amount of pacing to the game. As I've said I'm now a regular gamer rather than hardcore, and the 30-40 minutes a night I manage to grab always feel better if I can add to my gamerscore as I feel like I have, if you'll pardon the pun, achieved something. I'm currently playing through Marvel Ultimate Alliance and knowing when the next achievement is coming does help to keep the pace of the game and hold my interest.
I guess with this, like everything, it's horses for courses. I absolutely love the achievement system and for me this sets the 360 versions of games ahead of other versions, howvere I do appreciate that one person's hero is another man's villain.