SAM is often the only way to get the description of hidden achievements to guess what the heck they are and to track the counters for the "do something X times" ones.

Only ever used it to drop cards, before IM and long before ASF, since it tells Steam client the game is running to be able to give fake achievements.

I only use it to farm cards sometimes.

Anyway that 0.x% most of the time is probably fake. I remember that when Yaluza 0 came out, in the same day 0 4% of players had already the 100% achievement. In a 60+ hours game. Yeah right.

artrasha and goleme, also sum tzenges. add 2tbs of pixord, while mixing uell.

Didn't even know this existed. So cheating on achievements ey... talk about defeating the purpose 🤣

Games are supposed to be played and enjoyed, not automated. Except for when they are Steam Summer Sale mouse-breaking clicker games.

Achievements are overrated, and some games don't deserve their achievements unlocked even with SAM. I don't use SAM, but not because of the reasons above - I just don't care about achievements.

I hate SAM tbh ! What is the point of even earning achivements anymore, i means they called ACHIVEMENT

which movie is the picture from?

I would say that achievements are mostly for you (seriously how often do you go to someone's steam profile and think "he got this rare achievement, he's so awesome), so let people screw with their accounts if that really makes them happy... but I guess SAM is a problem for your group. ;P

Although I don't really see the point of unlocking achievements with SAM (can't lie to yourself ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ), I think there should be more pressure put in fixing broken achievements before we can demonize SAM.

You can't really blame people for not sticking to the systems rules... when system is broken.

To this day I have a game on 99% because developers, instead of fixing or removing broken achievement, just posted some weird solution that works for some people and not for others. After hours spent on reinstalling game and moving files... SAM suddenly looks more attractive - especially since you know you deserved that freaking achievement.
I can live with game with 50% of achievements, but 99% always hurts...

There also should exist some rules regarding steam achievements.
Like "achievements can relate only to game you're playing". I can understand achievements for DLC but, I have game that gives you achievement for playing next game in series... that wasn't released yet (and maybe never will be).
Or achievement for backing game on Kickstarter
/o/ Congratulations! Here's an achievement for having enough money in the right time... You won't be able to fix it ever again and we don't car you were poor student at that time.

You can stop using SAM, but if you got broken achievements unlocked, you can get tagged for being a cheater on astats still.

If you regret it, then lock them back up.

Yea, I really hope such methods wouldn't exist... I'm an active achievement hunter and I know that people using SAM are usually banned from achievement related communities/websites if someone finds out about it, but it's still annoying when some other sites (and Steam itself) shows you totally inaccurate info about achievements...

I used SAM during the cleanup-missions (play the games, and I got like 10GB install size ones) and I think.. for nothing otherwise.

I don't have a problem with SAM, it's the achievement system itself, that raises my concerns. I don't like that Valve records my playing times and game process. Basically it's just spying disguised as a feature. I try to avoid those "features" by putting my Steam client in offline mode whenever possible. Call me paranoid, but "tell me what like to play, when you play it, how often and how much you're willing to grind for it and I can tell you who are". So if SAM messes up with their data collection by adding fake achievements, so be it. I just rather avoid achievements altogether.

I sometimes use SAM to unlock glitched achievements, ones that I'm 100% sure I met the requirements yet the buggers stay locked. And like talgaby up there said, SAM is pretty useful for checking the requirements of hidden achievs. Much better than trying to randomly figure them out :)

Cheaters will cheat if they have the posibility of doing it so the better approach is to feel good with your well earned achievements and forget about the rest of the world, there is a cheaters jungle out there.

your well earned achievements, some of them even being owned by 0.3% of people or even lower which should make you feel good.

I feel like stopping doing achievements to show off and starting doing them as a personal goals will fix this problem - that will make you feel good no matter how many people cheated the achievement.

People who demonize SAM are people who can't use it responsibly. Using SAM to unlock broken, glitched or no longer obtainable achievements is a completely legitimate reason to use it in my opinion. Even though my 100% profile might seem like I didn't, I have only ever used it for those achievements and have always been open about it. I don't see any reason why I should be punished for lazy developers who generally don't care about fixing their achievements.

Just because bad people use it to cheat doesn't mean it's a bad program.

Why you shouldn't use SAM ?
Because it can be detected years ago was that not possible, archivement cheat/hack are not allowed AND they punish people for using SAM.

So use it when you want risk your games... and need to cheat because you can't do it by yourself...

EDIT:
I reported, in the past, people for using SAM and so i know exactly that they punish people for using it ;o). Team Fortress 2 at 100% archievements in 70h... and such ones.
I know people at steam + sg that are archivement cheaters (yes the worst ones are on my BL :-D. Its a bit like a running gag with my BL).

EDIT 2:
I am (very) proud on the archievements i reached (when uncommon/rare) with my own skills. The cheaters/hackers are proud that there program "played" for them or what ? It's a sign of a weakling to be happy over anything that you don't reached by yourself.
To make it clear i don't speak from people that use it for unlocking a broken Archievement (but when enough made this, why should the dev fix it ?), i speak from people that get 100% in a few hours by games that other ones need 100's or 1000's of hours (and often not reach 100% -and that is ok because people are not perfect and they don't need a perfect archievement history....-).

like in life in general there's people with integrity and there's scum.
and scum always looks for shortcuts and the easy way in & out.

I honestly don't care about other people's achievements but I see some people really care.

Anyway your games, your way to play them

Still don't understand why bother with achievement
to show ppl You're really into the game that other ppl might not own?

I got 46/47 achievement from certain game and don't even want to complete the last achivement even though it's the easiest non-storyline achievement (fishing)

oh, wait, sorry. I live among pirates who doesn't know what's achievement

I'm aware of SAM but doesn't bother with achievements at all, so it is of no use for me.
The only thing I imagine it to be useful is when you want to reset your achievements and statistics for a replay from scratch.

Achievements are dumb and I'm glad of SAM's existence that makes them even more pointless.