Nintendo Argument Against Achievements

[AdventChild]

It looks like Nintento have issues with Achievements

"We're not opposed to Achievements," Nintendo's Bill Trinen told me earlier this week, even as he confirmed that his company's next system, the 3DS, won't have one of the more popular features in Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC gaming.

Perhaps Nintendo has found a trend worth bucking.

Since the launch of the Xbox 360, gamers and game creators have appeared to collectively, if not unanimously, embrace the idea of associating certain actions in a video game with some sort of accolade or point value that can be added to accolades and points earned in other games in order to represent a player's overall accomplishments. Since Microsoft started doling out Achievement points on the Xbox 360, PC gamers have been able to do something similar with Steam Achievements, PlayStation users with Trophies and iPhone users with Game Center Achievements.

Nintendo has been the outlier, offering an Achievement-like system in its 2008 game Wii Sports Resort but declining to implement anything system-wide or even make the practice common in its games. Mario games don't have Achievements. Zelda games don't. Just about nothing Nintendo makes does including the Nintendo 3DS, which is Nintendo's big hardware release, coming to America on March 27."When they create their games, [Nintendo's designers] don't tell you how to play their game in order to achieve some kind of mythical reward," Trinen said, explaining his view of why Nintendo's top creators have stayed off the Achievement bandwagon. Trinen is currently head of product marketing for Nintendo of America, but has also long communicated with Nintendo's top development talent in Japan and would be privy to their design philosophies.

"Basically, the way the games are designed is they're designed for you to explore the game yourself and have this sense of discovery," he said. "To that end, I think that when you look specifically at games from EAD [the group long led by Mario and Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto] and a lot of other games that Nintendo has developed a well, there are things you can do in the game that will result in some sort of reward or unexpected surprise. In my mind, that really encourages the sense of exploration rather than the sense of 'If I do that, I'm going to get some sort of artificial point or score that's going to make me feel better that I got this.' And that, to me, is I think more compelling."

Trinen is aware of Nintendo's own exceptions. He recalled an Achievement-like bonus system in the GameCube's Super Smash Bros. Melee that rewarded players for doing specific, sometimes-unusual, things in the game. But he pointed out that even that game didn't tell its players in advance that they would be getting rewards and how to attain them.

Achievement-skepticism is not a Nintendo-exclusive philosophy. Plenty of other people have wondered what the worth of Achievements is, how they affect the way we play games that contain them and, ultimately whether they are good or bad for games and gaming.

It's not clear if Nintendo's top people would go as far as saying that Achievements are bad for video games, but Trinen articulates a valid wariness about what their cost may be. It's hard to imagine a Zelda game that contains Achievements. It's harder still to imagine one that feels as magical and surprising as the best of them do.

I have to agree with Nintendo here. I seriously don't care about Achievements and only play a game for fun since some Achievements are pointless such as getting one after watching a cutscene or reaching a certain level and stating the obvious. Unless completing or obtaining an Achievement unlocks something within the game like an secret char or level, then it is fine since it nice to be rewarded after accomplishing something most of the time. If not, they're just tasks for replay value sakes, nothing more nothing less. Also, I don't care about getting high scores as well.

However, this makes me mad at DLC. Why? Because some major Achievements or accomplishments should reward you with more features like chars and extra levels and options such as beating the game. However, instead of unlocking them in the game, it is now you pay for them for DLC, sucking up all the fun and your money. I don't do DLC or do online or have XBLA so it is unfair for me since I need to fork all my money to buy this and that just get a complete game.

You thoughts on the issue?

[Glenn]

DLC is evil. The unfortunate truth of 21st Century Britain is one of patchy broadband coverage and, unless you live in the middle of a city, getting decent-enough speeds for downloading videogame content is a challenge in itself. I also hate the idea of paying for a videogame twice: if all DLC were free to owners of the videogame it accompanied, that'd make much more logical sense... but alas, much less business sense. Finally, DLC is supposed to be "bonus" content and that it should remain. I can't stand it when big videogames like Tomb Raider Underworld, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, actually continue their storylines in DLC. That's just plain mean.

Anyway, the main focus of the article, Trophies. See, I'm split down the middle on them. Sometimes they can be laughably silly ("well done, you booted the game... well done, you cleared the first level... well done, you saved your game...") and infuriatingly impossible (case in point: there's a Trophy for Katamari Forever, which asks you to create a katamari over 2,000,000 kilometers in diameter, something I've tried repeatedly to do and something I think is actually impossible in the videogame's levels). Often they simply stand for bragging rights, like some interconsole pissing contest in which the gamer with the more Trophies can pee higher up the wall than his peers. Also, on a personal note, many are concerned with online gaming. As said before, not everybody is an online gamer and not everybody has high-speed broadband. Take my two James Bond videogames on PlayStation3. I have 66% Trophies for 007 - Quantum of Solace, and 83% Trophies for Blood Stone 007... and can never get any more, as they're all online ones (even if I did have high-speed broadband, the servers for those videogames are long-dead).

Some videogames, however, benefit from Trophies. I've recently been replaying Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, for Trophies, and it adds great replay value. Having seen the storyline conclude itself twice, I'd normally trade in or chuck my copy, but going back and hunting for those specific little challenges is quite entertaining and definitely adds lifespan to the (otherwise criminally short) experience. The danger is using Trophies to artificially pad out a videogame's lifespan, although this depends on your view. And at the end of the day, a videogame isn't made or broken by having Trophies or not. Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), on PlayStation3, has no Trophies and I still adore playing it.

Are Nintendo right to avoid them? I don't think it really matters, in the long run. If a videogame is a decent videogame, who needs a little box flashing up saying "well done, you changed the music volume" to keep you playing it, eh?

[Chooch]

This is stupid. Nintendo is stupid.

Achievements don't hurt anyone and often times they do encourage a person to play the game more or explore a certain part of it that they hardly touched. Take LittleBigPlanet's Play, Create and Share trophies. The typical LittleBigPlanet player probably wouldn't even explore much of the Create aspect, if only because of the incredible amount of tools at your disposal and the time it takes to make stages. Thing is, you simply cannot complete the game 100% without thoroughly exploring the Create aspect of it. There's a possibility that having said trophy/achievement hanging in the player's face will make then want to accomplish said task and subsequently, get more out of the game they just spent so much damn money for.

Nintendo just sounds pretentious trying to make a point against the 'mythical awards' they're addressing. The fact that the term 'mythical award' was even used makes it hard for me to take what they're saying seriously.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Nintendo are idiots.

The vast majority of gamers love achievmenets and trophies. Trophies are probably the reason why Valkyria Chronicles sold so poorly on the PS3 when it first came out and why Uncharted got a sequel with as much money behind it as it did.

In fact look at any game that was released during the month that the PS3 got trophies and you'll find that those which didn't get a trophy patch didn't sell too well, Quake 3 got a trophy patch months after it was released and suddenly the sales of it shot up.

How often does nintendo put it's own trophy system in it's own games, and now they say that people don't care about them? Are they that out of touch with their own media?

Edit:

Does this more or less confirm that Nintendos next console will also not include a trophy/reward system? If so... Bye bye! *waves* bye bye.

Edited January 23, 2011 by Hogfather

[Candescence]

Achievements don't hurt anyone and often times they do encourage a person to play the game more or explore a certain part of it that they hardly touched. Take LittleBigPlanet's Play, Create and Share trophies. The typical LittleBigPlanet player probably wouldn't even explore much of the Create aspect, if only because of the incredible amount of tools at your disposal and the time it takes to make stages. Thing is, you simply cannot complete the game 100% without thoroughly exploring the Create aspect of it.

That's... Incredibly telling, actually. Creation in games should be its own reward. If you can't convince players to use the creation aspect without using a carrot (a rather empty carrot) and stick, there's obviously something wrong.

There's a possibility that having said trophy/achievement hanging in the player's face will make then want to accomplish said task and subsequently, get more out of the game they just spent so much damn money for.

That, of course, implies that the tasks in question are either not interesting, tedious, and if the players don't bother with them at all, the developers obviously did not make them enticing enough on their own to actually interest the player.

Me? I don't mind achievements. If I'm bored and find said achievements reasonable, and I've already found the game to be quite fun, I'll go after them. Otherwise, probably not. However, if the achievements actually have something 'tangible' attached, like, say, Dead Rising's, or unlocking achievements in TF2 to get new update weapons, I will be much, much more eager to do them. Really, achievements are harmless, but they're bragging rights rewards/cosmetic awards at best.

Really, I actually kinda like how Ubisoft is doing it - the Uplay system has 'Actions', which award your Uplay account points which you can then spend to unlock in-game and outside-game stuff like costumes, extra ammunition, etc. It's a far, far more enticing system. Metroid Prime 3 (and the Wii ports of the first two Prime games) does something similar with tokens that you get from achievements that unlock neat stuff. Really, ANY achievements system that unlocks stuff will beat out achievements that get you bugger-all.

In short: 'Cosmetic' achievements? Eh. Achivements that actually let you unlock cool stuff? HELLS YES. The latter needs to happen more.

Edit: Note that this doesn't really confirm or deny anything, but I highly doubt Nintendo will bother implementing a system-wide achievements system - because it's quite pointless. It's up to individual developers to implement their own achievement systems for Nintendo systems. Which is perfectly fine, really. Nintendo themselves have only done achievements with two games: Wii Sports Resort, and Metroid Prime 3, the latter of which actually lets you unlock something for getting achievements.

Edited January 23, 2011 by Masaru Daimon

[-Mark-]

The only issue I have with achievements and whatnot is when developers use them as a cheap, lazy way to add replay value to a game.

I mean, how easy is it to slap on achievements like "Play for fifty hours" or "Get a hundred of item X"? The worst offenders are the "Do everything as every character" ones. It's nice that it gives dedicated players a bit more to do, but at the same time it's just plain tacky when they make overly fiddly achievements to make up for a lack of game content.

I don't think it's all that important that Nintendo are ignoring them, though. I mean, look at the Sonic games on Wii, the storybook games in particular. Both they and All-Stars Racing have basically got an achievement system built into the games themselves. The only difference it that they're totally independent to their respective game, and aren't part of some overall thing like gamerscore.

Yes, they can add replay value, but they're hardly important. As someone who generally likes to 100% his favourite games, I find some of them can be outright infuriating, when you're stuck with one pointless, ridiculous and near-impossible-to-get achievement holding you back from 100% completion (Sonic 4's 'Untouchable' comes to mind).

[Mollfie]

The only thing that annoys me about achievements/trophies is the people who buy shit games just to boost their gamerscore. I (personally) think it's pathetic, and I have friends who do this. What's the point???

I don't really care, I like getting them but I don't actively seek them out. If they weren't there I wouldn't mind. I don't buy games because they give me achievements/trophies, I buy them because I want to play them for fun.

[Solly]

The vast majority of gamers love achievements and trophies. Trophies are probably the reason why Valkyria Chronicles sold so poorly on the PS3 when it first came out and why Uncharted got a sequel with as much money behind it as it did.

If there's any truth to this statement, then it also serves as evidence of something else: people are fucking stupid, and achievements can be EVIL.

Okay, I'm not saying achievements are a bad thing themselves, but they've become a huge, unnecessary and stupid distraction if their mere absence is going to stop people from buying what is otherwise a great game. How superficial have we become when we stop playing games JUST for fun, and are just as concerned with shit like gamerscores that offer no rewards within the games themselves.

It's actually a lot like hats in Team Fortress 2, for anyone who knows what I'm talking about. Yeah, it's nice to have them but they aren't the reason you should be playing the game.

Again, achievements aren't bad, but people care about them too much. It would be nice to have them in the future, but we can live without them.

[Ekaje]

I'm not for or against achievements the way of Gamerscore, Trophies, etc, I personally don't care about doing random tasks to make a number go up/get a picture for doing said task, and I find it silly that whether or not a game will allow one to increase this number is the deciding factor in buying a game or not for people, but I don't really see much harm in it.

I am, however, all in favor for achievement systems that allow you to access new unlockables/features.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Ekaje

[JezMM]

I like achievements but can live without them.

It's funny, I was talking to Pooshoes the other day about how Left 4 Dead, a favourite of mine, is very reliant on the main game being replayable generally. But there are a few achievements 1-2 per campaign, that award you for playing in a particular way, for example one map filled with alarm cars rewards you with an achievement for avoiding them all.

I'd rather have that kind of stuff be in an interesting mission mode with lots of different scenarios and such to enjoy.

...But I guess I can't say I dislike them, it was a fun activity for me once in which I came up with achievements for several older fave games of mine.

[Agent York]

There is using Achievements and Trophies a right way and a wrong way. I like achievements, I do. They can be fun little things to challenge yourself with. It's when developers start using achievements as a replacement for a rewards system that it starts getting bothersome. The problem is I have played games that use them as a replacement for rewards. You'll beat a game and instead of getting some reward all you get is an effing achievement. There will be no rewards but achievements. Now I'm not saying all games should need rewards, for instance Left 4 Dead works on a gameplay system that I don' believe needs to support rewards but achievements make sense. That's a game I don't believe achievements are done poorly just because there is no rewards but achievements, in fact I think achievements are used well in the game. However, achievements should be used for extra challenges and rewards, not as the game's reward system.

However, honestly they're not that important. I may get super annoyed when a game tries to add depth through achievements with no other content, and I sometimes really do enjoy doing achievements for certain games. However, I think other reward systems are much more worth it. I also think achievements and Trophies would work better as a reward system, like if you could actually do something with those points. But nothing really comes up.

DLC is evil. The unfortunate truth of 21st Century Britain is one of patchy broadband coverage and, unless you live in the middle of a city, getting decent-enough speeds for downloading videogame content is a challenge in itself. I also hate the idea of paying for a videogame twice: if all DLC were free to owners of the videogame it accompanied, that'd make much more logical sense... but alas, much less business sense. Finally, DLC is supposed to be "bonus" content and that it should remain. I can't stand it when big videogames like Tomb Raider Underworld, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, actually continue their storylines in DLC. That's just plain mean.

I'm not going too much into detail over this, but like achievements there is DLC done right and done wrong. I believe DLC should not be things cut from the story. However, honestly if DLC were free, a lot of developers wouldn't do it. It's a blessing and a curse. DLC takes money and time to develop. Some developers may need to make them cost money since they aren't as good financially or can'y afford to spend time and money on something that is free. Making games is quite expensive these days. However, I think DLC that does it right is exactly as it says, additional content. I don't believe DLC should be cut content though.

My main point is, Achievements and DLC are not by default evil or great additions. It all just matters how a developer uses them. It's good to have the option to use it, but then it's up to developers to use it well. I will be honest, I love DLC when used right and achievements. I hate it when the achievements are making up for some other element in the game or when DLC doesn't feel like additional content at all.

Edited January 23, 2011 by Dusk the Horror Keeper

[SuperStingray]

I don't like Achievements. If anything, they depress me. There are better ways to convince players to do things in your game than making an icon appear that tells reminds you you once did something. If you offer someone a million dollars to look at the Grand Canyon, doesn't that just make it harder for them to appreciate it when they're focused on getting the money? I like getting rewards, I like discovering new things, I like unlocking secrets, hell I like just getting easter eggs. I understand that games still do those things. Achievements can never replace them, but it's just harder to appreciate them when they have to be qualified by some universal metagame. Perhaps the worst use is in Heavy Rain where a game that relies on choices asks you to play the game again and again to see where all those choices lead, thus eliminating the point of HAVING the choice in the first place. I guess I'm okay with the kind in, say, TF2 or the contracts and challenges in COD: Black Ops where you have ingame rewards for accomplishing those goals, but TF2's item acquisition mechanics have become such a clusterfuck at this point that it's hard to attest for them. I have to applaud Nintendo for not succumbing to this grinding craze and making games stand up on completely on their own content rather than trivialize them with superficial rewards.

Edited January 23, 2011 by SuperStingray

[Patticus]

I like Achievements, but at the same time I wouldn't go massively out of my way to get them if the task wasn't fun.

Some of them really are genius though, like the Back To The Future one in PGR4, and it's the good ones like those that extend replayability. So yeah, I mostly love them 'cheevos.

[Saint Nathan]

Ugh, Achievements. I really dislike them. Okay, I like hunting for them and I do like how they give me goals for things. I like that. I hate it when it gives you a pop-up telling you that you just did it, and it's one you get for just playing through the story.

What's that? You just beat the final boss and had to sacrifice one of your party members in order to seal him forever in a heartbreaking, tear worthy scene? Nope, all atmosphere has to be broken by a "beep!" and a bar at the bottom telling you THAT YOU JUST BEAT THE GAME.

They'd be a lot better if they either A) Weren't stupidly placed and take no effort to get, or don't give you the achievement until you hit a point where it won't completely displace you from the game. It's so fucking nerve grinding when they're not either.

[Octarine]

Ehh. I generally get some enjoyment out of achievements when they're present, but I've never really missed them in a game that didn't have them and it's pretty rare for me to really go out of my way to collect them. About the only game that's ever had me seriously achievement-hunting was TF2, and that was a pretty short phase.

So yeah. They can be satisfying sometimes, but they're never going to factor into any of my buying decisions or anything.

[sjmaster92]

While I have have nothing against trophies, I can't stand trophy/achievement whores. These are the people who make gamers look bad imo.

[SuperStingray]

While I have have nothing against trophies, I can't stand trophy/achievement whores. These are the people who make gamers look bad imo.