I will never understand why people play games for achievements. What happened to playing games to enjoy the experience that the game offers? What is so great about showing a bunch of random people on the internet that you collected some achievements that hundreds of thousands of other people have also collected?
I could understand if you were playing a competitive game at the highest level and outranking most other people in the world, which would take great skill and I would consider a real achievement, but just collecting achievements that are meant to be collected by just about everyone that plays the game seems pointless.
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I like the achievements because they give me the incentive to complete the game 100% and platinum it
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I don't understand that either. I have completed almost every game I have started, but I don't want to go back through the game and try to collect achievements that I missed for doing mundane things that will add no enjoyment to the game. That just seems like a frustrating waste of time when I can move on and start enjoying a new game.
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For me at least achievements give some sort of guide points on finishing the game. Especially for open world games. They give me first impression without downloading the game how far I got in it. Its mostly for myself to see that I did something more in the game. Like in Witcher DLC - I by accident killed a giant with arrow to the eye. I mean without achievement I wouldn't have even noticed I did that and would have forgotten it.
I think you are looking at them with a bit twisted perspective. You are concentrating on showing them to others and 100percenting the games. While IMO the actual value for them is for the gamer himself to see in one localized place what is your progress in all the games. And frankly for me at least they give me a bit more incentive to finish the game. I sometimes tend to lose interest due to lack of time. Especially when it starts getting repetitive. Any NFS game just gets fucking boring after finishing first chapter. But if it has achievements for finishing whole game, I might stick by it.
I understand its not for everyone, but I don't think you should view them as negative as you do. Think of them as something extra for the gamer. I dont care who looks at my achievements or if anyone notices them - I love to go back to my profile and recall how I did in some game for example.
But this is of course besides bambi350 ... that guy I think is doing some kind of social experiment with constantly ranting about achievements in games :D
ETS2 as well - its of course fun and relaxing game, but overall I dont really have anything to catch on and feel good about for wasting hours on it. ON the other hand I have achievement which states that I got to have 10 male and 10 female drivers with max level. And bam - I have mission for myself in the game to grow garages and to hire women. Gives a bit more life to sandbox type games.
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I don't mind achievements that show up when you do something special while playing the game. Letting you know that you did something out of the ordinary or found something like an easter egg can add enjoyment to the game. The thing I don't understand is why people feel the need to collect all the achievements in a game. Most people do this because they want to show other people online how many games they can get 100% achievements in and that makes no sense to me.
You say that you lose interest in a game because it gets repetitive or boring, but you will keep playing the game until you finish it because there are achievement for doing so. That sounds crazy to me. If a game is not good enough to keep you interested and you find it repetitive or boring, why are you playing that game? You are wasting your life to do something that you don't want to do in order to get an achievement that means nothing.
Edit: I recent completed "Call Of The Sea" and one of the achievements I don't have is "You have found all the murals on the island". So I probably forgot to click on a single mural somewhere throughout the game. It's a linear story game and I saw everything there was to see in the game. I got all the enjoyment I am going to get out of the game. Should I waste time going back through the game again and maybe follow a guide to click on every mural to get an achievement? That sounds insane to me.
I didn't play this game because it has achievements, I played it because I enjoyed my time playing it. I have moved on from this game and now I am playing a new game that I am enjoying. I don't see why I would want to continue putting more time into the games I have already completed to collect achievements that mean nothing to me and if I got bored of the game and didn't want to complete it, having an achievement for doing so would not have made me want to keep playing it.
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If a game is not good enough to keep you interested and you find it repetitive or boring, why are you playing that game?
You misunderstood me a bit. If I don't find the game enjoyable of course I will drop it. Achievements or no. Its more to do with just losing motivation despite being interested in the game. I mean adult life is already constant grind of work, hobbies, self improvement. I personally have problem with losing enthusiasm to do something when I get overwhelmed with stuff. So NFS or ETS2 - I like the games and I want to finish them, bet if I lose interest despite wanting to play, achievements for me play motivators role.
I'm not sure what to comment on those who 100% games.... If you have to specifically grind for god knows how many hours, then there probably are some issues and I find it weird as well. I have only 34% achievement rate. So in no way I obsess about getting everything or even less to show it to someone. Its a bonus
But you are still concentrating on showing it to others, which even though is reason for some, I don't think defines achievements. You have to look at how achievements apply to generic gamer. I mean I see it a bit like cars. Its needless to have several cars, its needless to have expensive car, its needless to have a two door car, since you can easily get a budget 4 door car for getting from point A to point B. And while there are some selfcentered morons who only care about what others will think of their car, majority of people who actually obsess over their cars do it for their own fun and enjoyment. My project is sitting barn for 4 years already. Just like achievements are there in my profile for me to enjoy and give more guidance to playing a game.
My intention was only to give you a different and less negative look on the achievements, since I believe majority truly do not obsess over them just to have something to show off.
Should I waste time going back through the game again and maybe follow a guide to click on every mural to get an achievement? That sounds insane to me.
I have a feeling youre coming off as I implied that you should do that :D Of course you shouldn't. Of course the main reason is to enjoy the game. Where is the problem with having achievements that show the progress of game though? You are going a bit in extremes here. Just because the achievement is there and people like to get them, doesn't mean they are there to push you to play a second playthrough just for one missed achievement. What motivates some people to do that - no arguments against them being just crazy :D .. but then again - I do believe that is minority of players
btw - just a reminder my comment is totally unrelated to Bambis comment :D I agree its weird to refuse to get a game just because it doesnt have achievements. No arguments there.
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I still feel like if you need achievements to motivate you to play a game, you should not be playing that game. If you have a busy life, your free time is limited, and you want to play games in that free time, I would think you would want to play games that interest you enough to motivate you to play them.
You specifically said that some games get repetitive or boring, but you might continue to play the game if it has achievements for completing it. That sounds to me like you are taking your precious limited free time and forcing yourself to do something that you are not finding that enjoyable simply because you get an achievement for doing it. I would not choose to do that to myself.
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Lol, he told you he make him feel good but because you don't have the same satisfaction of doing it, you think nobody should? xd
I don't understand why you care so much about how others play and enjoy their games, why do you even care about the number of game people finish at 100%?
People can enjoy their games, they aren't not bragging about how many games they achieved... And even they can if they want, and they also can do even about games without achievements xd
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Any NFS game just gets fucking boring after finishing first chapter. But if it has achievements for finishing whole game, I might stick by it.
So the game itself is boring and they do not want to continue playing it, but if it has an achievements for completing the game, they might force themself to keep playing it to get the achievements. This sounds crazy to me.
Maybe they should add achievements to Netflix and other streaming sites. Will people then watch boring movies and shows through to the end to get the achievement even if they know there is something more interesting they could be watching? I'm on season 2 of this show and it's really boring. There's this other show I could watch that sounds interesting, but I already started this one and I only need to watch 3 more seasons to get the achievement. That is basically the same thing and I find it absurd.
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If achievement makes the game worthy to play for them, what's wrong? I really doubt people do that because they don't enjoy it, you're the only one to claim that....
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I didn't claim it, I quoted someone else saying that. They said the game is boring after the first chapter, but they might continue playing through to the end if it has achievements for finishing it.
That means if the game does not have achievements, they will stop playing the game because it is boring. Therefore they do not want to continue playing the game, but if there is achievements there is a psychological desire to keep playing this boring game only to collect the achievements. At that point you are no longer playing the game as a form of entertainment because you are enjoying the game, you are forcing yourself to continue doing this boring thing just to fulfill your desire to collect achievements.
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Who are you quoting? You're extrapolating a lot.... I didn't see anyone saying, "I only play game with achievements, it's boring but i like being miserable".... You imagine that people that 100%, just do that for fame... You don't want to acknowledge that some people do difficult stuff as challenges because it's self rewarding.
Like running a marathon, I'm the first one who would say "WTF running 42km are some kind of masochist, it's just pure torture, it doesn't have any purpose than showing off telling people you ran a marathon... I wouldn't do it but I can still understand why people would do it... Not everyone have the same logic...It's not dumb because you think different.... There's wrong ways to enjoy video games, like cheating, wanting to perfect their games is not...
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What do you mean who am I quoting? I quoted a person above in this thread that I was talking to. They said "Any NFS game just gets fucking boring after finishing first chapter. But if it has achievements for finishing whole game, I might stick by it.".
The game is "fucking boring", so they are not enjoying the game. They "might stick by it" "if it has achievements for finishing whole game". So, if the game does not have achievements, they are not going to continue playing it because it is "fucking boring". Therefore they are going to continue playing this boring game that they are not enjoying and would otherwise stop playing just because it has achievements they can collect.
Have you ever been to the Steam discussion for games that do not have achievements or cards and seen comments from people telling the dev to add achievements and cards and they would buy the game? These people clearly are not interested in the game, they are there to collect achievements and cards. There are groups dedicated to achievement hunters. These people will buy whatever game is available that has achievements, especially ones that are easier to get 100% on so they can display how many games they have 100% achievements in on their account. They will even use programs to get the achievements for them because like I said, they don't care about the games, they want to display how many achievements they have. They also want to farm the games for cards so they can level their account so they can display that as well.
It's why so many people on this site (probably the majority) are here to enter for any giveaway that has the best odds of winning without even looking at what game they are entering for. They will even use bots to just enter whatever has the best odds to win. They don't care what they are entering for, they just want to collect as much as they can to get a plus 1 on their Steam account and then use the game for farming so they can increase more numbers on their Steam account.
You say cheating is a wrong way to enjoy a video game, but I don't think that is true. There are a lot of single player games where cheating can make the game a lot more enjoyable, especially if you have already completed it and are playing it again. I grew up with a Game Genie for the NES and it was a lot of fun. It made a lot of games so much more enjoyable than playing them in their original state.
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Okay Ubisoft, I got it, you know you almost have 1k unplayed games games in your backlog... That's a lot for someone complaining about how other should enjoy and select their games...
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What is wrong with having a big backlog of games? I think it is a good thing. I only collect games I am interested in playing and I don't just start a game, play it for a short time, and then move on to another game. I take my time and enjoy the games I play.
The vast majority of the games I own, I paid for myself over the past 11 years. I did this because there used to be amazing bundles and sales for very cheap. I would only keep the games I want to play from a bundle and then trade the rest for other games that I want or give them away here. I don't activate any games unless I am interested in playing them, even if they are free.
If you average out how much I have paid for all of my games, it probably comes out to be around 25 to 30 cents per game. Now that there aren't as many good game sales and the prices for bundles has gone through the roof, how is having a backlog of over 900 games that I want to play and acquired extremely cheap a bad thing? I basically have enough games to keep me entertained for the rest of my life and they aren't random junk, they are games I actually want to play.
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Exactly, but you can find a lot of people who would think that's hoarding games is not good, you should only play games that you will play instead of increasing your backlog overtime like you would suddenly will have time to play them later... etc... a little bit like you do with those guys that likes achievements in their games... You have a lot of good reasons that doesn't make sense for them... We are all different, and it's a good thing :p
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I am not telling anyone what to do, I am asking why they do what they do because it doesn't make sense to me. They can go on collecting all the achievements they want, that doesn't affect me, I am just trying to understand why they do it because it seems very odd to me.
You mentioned my big backlog of games and I gave my reasoning for why I do it to try and help you understand why I do it. I am trying to gather the same information about why people feel the need to collect achievements. Yes, I am replying to the people that respond to me and giving the reasons why it doesn't make sense to me, but that is how conversations work, that is how we learn. If you don't like the reasons I gave for collecting so many games, you can respond with why you think I am wrong for collecting so many games and that will give me something to think about. Then maybe I will learn something and change the way I think or maybe I will just disagree and continue doing what I have been doing, either way is fine.
There is no name calling or personal attacks, it's just a disagreement or a debate where both sides may learn something about the other side. Nobody has to respond to me and engage in a conversation. Anyone that replied to me chose to because they wanted to discuss it.
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+1 with you on this entire discussion. In the context of our limited time and excessive backlogs, seems like a weird mania to spend disproportionate time on getting 100% achievement ... that no one else cares or admires that you achieved.
It's odd by my own logic, but they, in the end if it brings someone joy, more power to them!
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Lets be honest - achievements won't do much for you since you don't even play games, much less finishing them.
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I could understand if you were playing a competitive game at the highest level and outranking most other people in the world, which would take great skill and I would consider a real achievement, ...
There are no achievements for those feats as achievement hunters would complain they can't 100% the game :)
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I will never understand why people play games for achievements. What happened to playing games to enjoy the experience that the game offers?
- You don't have to understand why someone likes something you don't, but you should respect it.
- You can enjoy getting achievements and experiencing the game at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive.
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This is a very good point. I believe this sums up my own feelings too.
As a completionist, I often feel the urge to complete the game fully and achieve 100%, not necessarily in terms of achievements but in terms of all the collectibles, etc in the game. I'm often limited by the time I have free to invest in games though.
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Yes, but there are a lot of people that will refuse to buy or play a game if it doesn't have achievements. I see these comments all the time in Steam game discussions telling the dev to add achievements to their games if they want the game to sell.
I am trying to understand why people feel this way, but I am having a hard time because it makes no sense to me. It seems like a psychological issue. It seems like they either need to show off to other random people how much stuff they can collect or they are a compulsive collector and just need to collect for the sake of collecting. Neither of these things seem healthy.
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Taking this much effort trying to understand this "issue" also doesn't seem very healthy.
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I disagree. Having a discussion and trying to understand why someone thinks differently than I do seems very healthy. Maybe I am wrong about the way I am thinking and I can learn something.
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I totally agree. Trying to understand something is healthy and it means you have a brain (or you have a empathy if it is connected with psychological part. not a brain part :) ) and you have curiosity in you (which also is positive). And you often learn something from it too. Nowadays too many people does not even try to understand many things:).
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Besides showing off, achievements are the game telling you, "good job! you did something! look at you go, ticking off boxes from a to-do list!", so for some it can feel like they're doing something useful maybe because they can see that they have achieved something.
I put star stickers on games I finished, multiple if I 100 % them (by my own rules anyway). Kinda the same thing. Easy to see at first glance. Sure, you could always tag the games or keep a list or whatever, just wanna mention this, because it doesn't only have to be about showing off to others, it can just be showing off to yourself.
I suppose if you wanna know more about the appeal of achievements to some, maybe hit up some research papers and game study journals. I'm not sure if there have been any psychology papers published on it but probably?
Also, what I can think of, that's not necessarily having achievements for the sake of other people, but, y'know how people sometimes count calories because they can't control stuff going on in their lives, so they try to control their food at least? You can do the same with achievements. Now, that is a psychological issue, but it's not about showing off. It's def not a simple thing to diagnose, have a throughout discussion with multiple people and they will all have different underlaying reasons as to why they like / prefer achievements, which would be interesting to read about for sure. Well, I hope someone already tried to figure it out.
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I personally don't like things like Steam cards, badges, achievements, account levels, and microtransactions because it all feels like things that are used to take advantage of people. A lot of humans have a desire to collect and compete and I feel like these things are carefully designed to take advantage of us on a psychological level to try to extract as much money as possible.
There are always comments on Steam games that don't have these features. The commenters tell the dev to add achievements or Steam cards and they will buy the game. These people are just looking for games that have Steam cards and achievements that they can collect and have no interest in the game itself. They aren't even gaming, they use bots to pretend to play the games for them and are basically playing the social media Steam account game to show off to other random people. They want to show everyone how they have 15,000 games and their account is level 800.
I would imagine 10 years goes by and these people stop collecting games, look back at their Steam account and ask themselves, how much money did I waste collecting all this and what was it for. They talk to someone in the real world and realize none of those things they spent years and tons of money collecting means anything.
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Well, I don't use steam as social network, so cards, badges and levels go over my head. I know that higher level = rep in the trading world, but, eh. Cards are kinda weird, because you can sell them for "real money", so if you have a lot of card games, you can probably keep on buying cheap card games to make money for more, which is kinda weird, but oh well.
I also kinda lost my mind when I discovered steam ladder or whatever is that site and found out that the people with most play time have play time that's higher than the time they've been having the steam account for, which is so pathetic, tbh, I can't even be nice about it, that's just plain sad.
I would also add that we live in a world where everything is carefully designed to take advantage of us on a psychological level, as you put it, I mean, have you ever been to a super market or shopped online? Of course the fact that everyone does something that feels bad doesn't make it right, but it does make it a bit redundant to say.
As for your imaginary scenario, that's probably very likely that there will be people who will regret their steam networking days, but then again, it's a networking thing, you're bound to meet many people and make friends and learn new things doing it, so I'm sure there will be people who will maybe regret some of it but not the whole experience. There's so many people of many personalities, and while there's probably a lot of people who are more likely to be influenced and to spend money (that they may or may not have) on digital things (be it levels on steam or badges on different sites), it's definitely not all of them. But then sure, these people should probably be protected, it could be kids, it could be adults who don't have a financial knowledge. And they're probably best protected with education? It's possible that steam has the MLM stats of only 1 % of people being happy (happy people now are most likely to be happy 10 years from now too), but maybe it's a bit better. No way to know without a study. Maybe there is one done. Who knows.
I also don't think achievements belong to the same category as the other things you mentioned, because it's not just a steam thing, it's been there before steam and there's different MO in collecting cards/levels x steam achievements. You could probably argue that steam achievements are a bit more iffy than others because they don't separate base game from DLC, which I suppose makes people spend money on things they wouldn't buy otherwise. There's also achievements for playing for x hours, which is artificial way to get player retention and if it's a mmo you'll probably get bombarded with ads, sure, that could also be a bad thing.
As I already said, not everyone collects achievements for other people, just like not everyone dresses for other people etc., either you use them as a check list, as notes, as a way to feel good about yourself, on the "showy side" it's to brag about your achievements, to make a pretty profile, there's a lot of reasons one may have for achievement collecting,... and you keep going back to the "they just want to show off something that doesn't matter"... And nothing matters until you make it matter for yourself and the "why" is different for everyone. Now, this discussion started because you wanted to know a why of a specific person, who already told you their why. It wasn't the deepest look into their psyche, sure, but you got what you wanted and now it's time for you to try to understand, bug them more or let it go, I suppose.
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I think most people that collect cards do it to create badges that help you level your Steam account. I'm not exactly sure how that works. I just list them in the market when I get them to get some spare change to buy cheap games in the major Steam sales.
As for having achievements in games, I don't dislike the idea of having them. Like I said earlier "I don't mind achievements that show up when you do something special while playing the game. Letting you know that you did something out of the ordinary or found something like an easter egg can add enjoyment to the game."
So I don't not want to have them, I was just trying to understand why some people seem to refuse to collect or play games that don't have them. It's like they care more about the achievements than the game itself. From what I have gathered it seems like it is just based on the human desire to collect things or the sense of achieving goals. It could fulfill the competitive desire as well because if you can get all the achievements that is sort of competitive because some of the other people that played the game did not get them.
I guess I just get enjoyment from my games in a different way. They may get enjoyment out of fulfilling the desires of collecting or achieving something while I like to just enjoy the game for the game itself.
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Minor side note. For a while it was more profitable to craft badges during the winter and summer sales to then sell the event cards than selling the sets of cards themselves, specially with cheap card sets (back when it was common to get free keys that dropped cards) and during the first couple of days of the sale when event cards sell like hot cakes, also that's the time when people really want to get wallet funds so the market is at its peak of activity. While this isn't always true anymore many of us continue to do it out of habit.
Another common reason to want to level up is the extra friends slots, it's the only way to get more slots and crafting badges is the easiest way to level up past certain point. As someone who used to do plenty of trading on Steam Trades back in the day I can tell you that one ends up really wanting those extra slots to quickly add someone without having to worry about deleting someone else, and it can also develop into an habit that I continue to do out of inertia despite having stopped trading years ago.
In short, I used to treat Steam itself as a game with its own meta for a few years and I know for a fact that many users still do without realizing it, so it's not so much about showing off to others but rather wanting to see the numbers go up and min maxing it because that's what you do with games.
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I don't even know what the purpose of badges are or how to get them because I have never been interested. I have never purposely gained a level on my Steam account either. I think it is kind of funny that my Steam account level is almost lower than the number of years I have had the account :)
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To make it short crafting badges serves two purposes. On one hand they give you exp that goes towards your profile's level, which in turn unlocks some of the personalization functions in the profile but also give you more slots to add friends, and on the other hand they also drop items. Those items are: one profile wallpaper, one emoji/emoticon/whatever you wanna call them, and either one discount coupon or one sale event trading card if the winter or summer sale is currently going on (these cards actually start dropping a few days before the official start of the sale).
So while to some the only function of a badge is looking nice and pumping up their level, to others they're a reliable source of marketable items with wildly varied prices. If you play the market meta right you can in theory squeeze more wallet funds from hoarding complete sets of cheap cards and then crafting a bunch of badges all at once, so you can literally convert them into more games if you're patient and know what you're doing... or at least that used to be the case before almost every item in the market got its price tanked when Valve gave free items that could be transformed into gems that one time and it had a pretty wild domino effect in the long term.
Oh, and because I just realized I didn't explain it at any point, you normally get badges from having a full set of cards and clicking the blue button that says "craft badge". But there's also some badges that you get just by doing certain things, often as time-limited events, that can range from very easy to kinda convoluted.
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Yeah, I heard people collect entire sets of cards to get them, but that was all I really knew. And I found out that you can get them for doing things because I voted on a single game once for a Steam award and got a badge that caused my account to get bumped up a level. And someone posted a link here to see stats about what you played throughout the year and clicking that link ended up giving me another.
I still have no interest in collecting them, but now I know a bit more about how they work. Thanks for the info :) (<-- does that count as an emoji? That's the only emoji I need.)
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Maybe somebody already pointed it out but I think one important aspect why some people hold off playing games that don't have achievements hasn't been mentioned yet.
Let me paint you a picture 😅
In September 2012 Subset Games released Faster Than Light, one of the best Indie games of all times if not games in general which brought on a whole new wave of Roguelike and Rogue-lite games. I didn't have it on my radar from the beginning and didn't back in on Kickstarter but when I stumbled over it relatively cheap in a Steam sale it turned out to be the perfect game for me 😍
I played FTL obsessively, had soo much fun and unlocked most of the different ship types and got many in-game achievements. I think I had maybe 150 hours of playtime at that point.
Then in January 2020 the developers added achievements to their more than 7 year old game...
Luckily FTL already had an ingame achievement system in place and when I booted up the game all in-game achievements carried over and got unlocked as Steam achievements. There might have been some new stuff the the vast majority got retroactively unlocked.
I'm not sure how often that happens that developers add achievements after such a long time has passed but there's always a possibility and I think nowadays it's really rare that a "hot new" Indie game comes out without achievements - and if it does there's a decent chance they'll be added later.
I think for most people achievements are not about some worthless token that gives you a false sense of accomplishement or to inflate a meaningless number that's what the ZUP games and Trivia Fault are for but to showcase their love for a game and when it comes to Indie games or hidden gems are like a members card to a very exclusive brotherhood 😅
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But isn't that what I am talking about "showcase their love for a game". Isn't that still just saying to other random people on the internet, hey look at me, look at what I did?
I have played lots of indie games that I enjoyed a lot, but I don't care if the game has achievements, or if it does how many of those achievements I collected.
One of my favorite indie games of all time, which actually got me interested in finding great new indie games is Antichamber. This game has no achievements, but that has no affect on my enjoyment of the game and I could care less if they add them, Even though it is in my top few favorite games of all time, I wouldn't go back and play it again specifically to collect the achievements if they added them. If I do a search for the word "achievement" on the game discussions, there are 47 results and I think Steam now does 1 result per discussion instead of individual comments, so the results are bringing up 47 different discussion topics. I find it kind of odd that instead of just enjoying the game for the great game it is, people want to go collect achievements.
Side note: I don't know what Steam did, but when I view the full game list for a Steam account that has a lot of games, it no longer takes forever to load. I remember when it would time out on some peoples accounts and my browser would ask if I want to stop the script on the page from loading like 5 or 10 times before it would finally finish loading. It now loads much quicker which is great :)
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Ah, you get my way of thinking, good to know I'm not alone in this. I love the feeling of finishing a game, and getting an achievement that says "you won" can be really satisfying, they can also be a pretty good way of keeping up of when you started and finished a game without having to bother to take notes. I must say that many times the only reason why I bothered to go for 100% completion was to get all achievements, I never did that before achievements were a thing, I just played until I got bored and rarely engaged with any of the side/optional content.
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Yes, definitely! Sometimes the achievements are also funnily designed, like in Portal 2, or they have puns etc. that are funnier when you get through the story. I also relate to doing more things in one game because of achievements, which I think is pretty good thing, because games aren't cheap (well... depends), and this way I get more playtime for my coin, right. It's handy little checklist of optional things you can do you'd miss otherwise, without using guide or something.
Although sometimes the need to have 100 % makes games a bit dull. I remember Assassins Creed, I don't think that had achievements, but it had the flag tracker, right, and I wanted to collect them all before moving somewhere else and I just spend all the time collecting flags and got bored of the game. So I learnt not to, like, force the 100 % quite early on (although I did the same thing with Saints Row IV haha, but I realized early I might be making my fun less funner and I took a break)... Everything needs to be in moderation, right, haha.
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Oh yeah, Saints Row IV is a good game but it's definitely not worth going for completion, too much boring fluff (copy-pasted optional missions) added for the sake of padding. I remember towards the end I was running around with the huge anime sword because it was a single hit kill and it trivialized the combat, that was when I decided I was bored and stopped.
When it comes to funny achievements that are really well tied to the game itself my favorite is the Stanley Parable, even the old demo integrated its achievement into the narrative for the sake of a joke. Although I must admit that the "this is the part where you die" scene in Portal 2 and how it's punctuated by a title card and an achievement is one of the most memorable meta moments in gaming.
TBH the only time I was legitimately annoyed by achievements was when playing Valiant Hearts, that game's story was very heavy (I couldn't finish it) and getting notified that I got an achievement by Steam, Uplay, and the game's UI itself in rapid succession was very distracting.
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You don't recognize the person you were replying to, did you? He is just complaining for the sake of complaining. If it did have achievements, he would have complained about something else :D
He is often a common feature of the EGS free game post where he complains about how they suck there compared to the game on steam for the lack of certain features like achievements or cards. Amusingly enough, he himself doesn't seem to be that invested in gaining achievements in the games he owns. He hardly plays them either. Like he mentions achievements as an incentive to finish games but he himself has never bothered completing any games in his collection :D
It is entirely an amusing and ironic thing about him.
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I saw comments from this user on multiple previous free game threads saying that they didn't want the game because it doesn't have achievement on whatever platform was giving it away. I was hoping to figure out why they care so much about achievements when you can still enjoy they game without them, especially if you are getting the game for free.
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For me personally I really liked them because I can always check when exactly I have played the game, how much have I progressed, have I returned to it much later etc. Also for some games I really love I'll try to 100% them if they are reasonable or try to get as much as I can for some harder ones (Super Meat Boy and The End Is Nigh for example). So they mean a lot to me for these reasons, not for others to see my 'accomplishments'. :)
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I guess being able to track progress could be a benefit. That isn't something I have considered because I don't play my games that way. I like to focus on one or two games at a time and prefer to finish them before I start another. I don't like to stop playing a game and then continue it after a long time. If I was going to do that, I would probably start the game from the beginning again.
Also, another reason I haven't considered this is because I have a text file that I keep notes on every game I have played. I just write down general notes that I might want to know if I was ever going to play the game again and also how long it took me to complete the game. Then once I am finished, I move the game into a list that is simply ranked based on how much I enjoyed the game. This makes it easier to find a game to play if I am looking to replay something from all the games I have already completed. It is also very useful for finding games to recommend to others.
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I'll never understand people who keep notes on every game they have played and even go so far as to rank that list. What a waste of time when I could be playing a game instead of writing a book! And who in their right mind would replay a game they've already finished with all the games that are out there to be played? That's crazy. It makes no sense. It's absurd. Maybe I should take notes on every Netflix show I watch so I can rank them to later help me decide what to watch again.
See how that works? You play the way you want, and let everyone else play the way they want. You don't need to understand it, but as I said, you should respect it. And you've certainly not been very respectful of those who play games for achievements in this discussion.
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I am not telling people what to do. I am trying to understand why they do what they do because it seems bizarre to me. I can help you understand why I do what I do.
I take notes because it only takes a very short amount of time and saves me time in the future. I don't take long notes. Everything usually fits on one line of text, maybe 10-15 words. When I am done playing a game, I just simply write a few descriptive things of what I thought about the game and copy the time from Steam for how long it took me to do a single playthrough. I may also add something about a mod or a fix to get the game to run properly. Then I just copy that text and drop it into the list of games I have played where I feel it fits based on how much I enjoyed the game. I add the play time and rank all the games I have played, but I don't add notes to every one, only if I feel that it is necessary.
This probably takes less than a couple minutes, but is a very useful reference in the future if I want info about games I have played.
As for replaying games. With my backlog as long as it is, I very rarely ever replay a game, but there are some really good games I have played that I know I will want to play again some day and it is nice to have a list to make it easier to remember and identify them. And like I said, it is also a useful reference when trying to find games to recommend to other people.
As for movies. I do keep a list of all movies I watch and do sometimes takes notes on those as well. I do not rank them though. I wish I would have ranked them because there are so many good movies that I have forgot about and would probably watch again. I have thought about starting to rank them, but it doesn't seem worth it now after having seen thousands of movies throughout my life and not having ranked them.
Edit: Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to tell the person above that they should take notes instead of doing what they do. I was just trying to explain why it never occurred to me to use achievements in that way because of how I do things. I don't think there is anything wrong with them using achievements as a way to look back at a game they have played to see their progress. They explained what they do and now I understand that, so I was just explaining what I do.
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I will never understand why people play games for achievements.
Your opening statement. I think we can both agree that's a terrible segue into rational discussion.
So, from the very start, it certainly doesn't look like you're open to understanding, and your comments since have done nothing but reinforce your opening statement, often including rude or insulting statements (crazy, absurd, etc) when an opinion is contrary to your own. That's not understanding at all - that's dismissal.
So instead, I decided to provide an example of your own behavior and how ridiculous it looks to someone else. I'm not the only one pointing it out, but you just keep doubling down on it, so it appears I am wasting my time.
To be perfectly honest, it looks to me like you wanted to take a pot-shot at bambi350 (like so many others do), and got all caught up in the blowback. shrug
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I specifically replied to bambi350 because I have seen numerous comments from them recently in threads for free games that are not on Steam saying that they will pass because the games do not have achievements. I got responses from other users and have been having what I would consider fairly calm and rational discussions. (I feel like rational isn't the word I am looking for, but I can't think of it right now. The type of discussion where you don't start calling eachother names and throwing around personal attacks. Something similar to civil.)
I do not understand why achievements are such a big deal to people that they would not want a game because it doesn't have them. I have also seen numerous comments from other people on Steam saying that they would not buy a game because it does not have achievements.
This baffles me and I am trying to understand what people see in achievements because it doesn't make sense to me. I started out with "I will never understand why people play games for achievements." because I have had this discussion in the past and read other peoples discussions of this in the past and it never makes sense to me. It seems like they care more about achievements than the actual games. This is why there are thousands of really bad games being added to Steam on a regular basis, because if they have cards or achievements, people will buy them.
I don't feel like I am being rude or insulting, I am just stating how I feel about achievements. The reasons people give for wanting achievements does seem bizarre, absurd, and crazy to me. I am not saying that they are crazy, I am saying that the idea of forcing yourself to play a game to collect achievements seems crazy to me.
I used the word crazy and absurd when referencing this quote: "Any NFS game just gets fucking boring after finishing first chapter. But if it has achievements for finishing whole game, I might stick by it". I responded saying "that sounds crazy to me" with an explanation because that does sound crazy to me. If a game is boring and you want to stop playing it, but you will force yourself to complete the game to get the achievements, why are you playing the game? Why would you want to knowingly waste your own time doing something you are not enjoying just to get a digital thing that says you did it?
I don't feel like that is being rude, I am just trying to explain how I feel about achievements. I also wrote about how some achievements can add enjoyment to a game when I said: "I don't mind achievements that show up when you do something special while playing the game. Letting you know that you did something out of the ordinary or found something like an easter egg can add enjoyment to the game.". What I don't understand is peoples desire to try and collect all the achievements or when they refuse to play games that don't contain achievements.
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Maybe getting those achievement scratches an itch, and your note-taking scratches an itch... and it may even be the same itch.
You said you 'probably didn't click a mural' in Call of the Sea, but maybe you missed one, missed an area. For me, the Riddler trophies in Arkham Asylum were a way for me to know I had missed a place, but that game has lots of backtracking, so it's not a chore to look more carefully your next time through an area.
I think there's a pride-of-ownership that goes along with all collecting. I recently asked someone when they listen to their game soundtracks, but that, too, was more about collecting.
On the psychological level, the collecting of achievements probably gets some players through a dull bit, to the next bit where the game is exciting again. So, yes, it's a crutch, and ideally the game or the gamer shouldn't need it, but it results in stronger player satisfaction, more positive reviews, longer play-time, and more revenue for the company.
On the other hand, in support of your original statement, I, too, find it baffling when someone scoffs at a free game for being on a non-achievements platform. I'm definitely going to play the 'new' Tomb Raider games on my Epic account (one of these days // one of these global lockdowns), rather than buy or trade for those titles just to have them in Steam.
P.S. I would not be at all surprised if Netflix started awarding series-completion achievements, where you lose the achievement when a new season drops.
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That makes sense. From what I have gathered it seems like it is mostly based on the human desire to collect things or the sense of achieving goals. It could fulfill the competitive desire as well because if you can get all the achievements that is sort of competitive because some of the other people that played the game did not get them.
I do have a competitive nature and I know how good it feels to win in multiplayer games because I was addicted to Counter Strike for many years, but I have never had good psychological feelings like that towards things like achievements, Steam cards, steam account level, microtransactions, or any other kind of collecting like that. Just the opposite actually, I usually have negative feelings towards these things because I associate them with psychological manipulation by the game creators and distributors to get people to spend more money.
Because of how I feel towards these things, it baffled me how others can actually get enjoyment out of them and want them, but I guess it is just down to it not having the same affect on me on a psychological level.
As for me taking notes on games. I don't consider that scratching an itch in a similar way because I don't do it for that reason. I don't get enjoyment out of it, it's actually a bit of a hassle even though it only takes a very short amount of time. I do it as a tool to benefit me and save me time in the future. After spending many hours playing a game, I spend just a couple more minutes to takes some notes and rank the game. This tiny extra bit of time now provides a very useful resource that saves me a lot of time every time I use it in the future and I have used it countless times since I started creating it.
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I dunno. I think we're being conditioned to see achievements as additional content - something extra to do that makes us feel like we got more out of a game than we actually did. I remember when games didn't have achievements. In olden times, the game itself provided the only sense of achievement we needed by killing the boss, solving the puzzle, executing the platforming perfectly etc etc.
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Yeah, I don't like "additional content". I enjoy the games I play for the main content of the game. If I do something out of the ordinary and it recognizes that by giving me an achievement, that is fine, but I have no interest in seeking them out or trying to get more than whatever I get while playing through the game.
I don't really pay any attention to things like achievements, cards, badges, Steam account levels, DLC, wallpapers, emojis. Just give me a good game that i can enjoy for the content of the game and I will be happy. I have no interest in the extra stuff or the social media aspect of Steam.
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Remember bumper stickers? "Proud owner of x" / "Our child is x".
It's social media now. MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.
No matter how fake or fleeting or meaningless it is, i need that validation from unknown people/bots in the internet.
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I have never had a social media account, other than Steam, and I want to keep it that way.
Wow, MySpace. That reminds me of Ebaums World back before Youtube existed. I may have never had a MySpace account, but I remember MySpace Tom :)
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THIS. It is all about validation. Today a hobby seems a complete loss of time unless the proof is auditable and comparable to others. We somehow switched from "what I want to do" to "What I want others to know I did" Anyhow I still play for the joy of playing, maybe because I'm too old and never were a skilful hardcore gamer. But if someone considers or needs the achievements to enjoy their hobby it deserves respect too because their hobby is collecting them. Games were made to be enjoyed in many ways, let's keep cool with all the ways to do it.
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i bought undertale a couple days ago excited to finally be able to play it.... then noticed it doesnt have achievement.... now i cant ever play it... whats the point of playing a game if you cant achieve anything by playing it? thats the same as playing a game for no reason because you get nothing for playing it. at least with achievements you have a goal and can get satisfaction for achieving something in the game.
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Appears too fitting and well written, which usually is meant as a joke.
But with age I'm kinda drifting towards a similar feel in a more generalized way, that 'RL tasks' despite being not fun at all, lead to a real, tangible result/reward.
While anything achieved in a game is virtual and as such effectively worthless, however that also includes achievements.
Or maybe I'm not playing the right games, I certainly do need a new PC to replace that 12 year old thing and run all the new nice stuff xD just bsod'ed twice within 1 hour of Diablo4 beta T_T, which otherwise was running fairly fine though.
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I was wondering the same thing, which is why I didn't bother replying. I read through it a couple times and couldn't figure out if it was a serious comment or trolling, so I decided it would be easier to just not engage.
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very. i have over 250,000 hours of confirmed game time in games. im at the point in life where i dont see a point in playing a game if it doesnt have achievements.
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A sense of accomplishment, perhaps? A way to track progress? Wanting to show off? Collectathon mentality? Ingrained playing habits that make playing without them "weird", like if a game doesn't have them, then something feels incomplete? Having more fun collecting them than playing the games? (yes, that can happen, and it's OK to seek your own pleasure in ways that don't exactly fit into the pre-defined purpose of playing games.) Or maybe any other reason I can't think of because I personally don't really care about achievements.
I mean, I can understand it logically, but I have not experienced what it feels like to have an achievement-focused mentality so I also understand why you're perplexed. In the same way I logically understand that some people enjoy extreme sports, but I can't really fathom it. Different people enjoy different things differently, that's the crux of it.
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With gog there is still a chance a game might receive achievements later on.
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But you have only 2 games completed on Steam, so...
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You have 5k games yet only 2 perfect a.k.a platinum games, so what's even your point? I see you everywhere commenting the same thing in non-steam games discussion.
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Достижений нет где? В игре или в Лаунчере? Потому что Steam это лаунчер, как и GOG Galaxy и в GOG есть достижения и даже профиль.
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Thank you very much, it's nice enough to try, and with its mixed reviews I didn't plan on buying really.
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Thank you for the heads up (and InSpec for the direct link, you should add it in the OP).
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https://www.gog.com/en/game/neurodeck_psychological_deckbuilder
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