do you believe achievements have taken away some of the fun of single player gaming?

Question

It used to be that people bought a game because it looked cool or the demo was fun and they wanted to play the game, now all people are concerned about it the co-op modes, multiplayer modes, how many achievements or trophies they can get from the game. One "could" argue that people enjoy achievement/trophy hunting, though I don't see how grinding for something to brag about is fun at all compared to, for example, a few hours playing Morrowind in your room immersing yourself in the fantasy world, now people just try to get to the end of the game as fast as they can. I guess I don't understand how people can draw enjoyment from something they've taken the enjoyment out of purposely, desensitized themselves from any fun or immersion, became pessimists, and basically move on to the next "title" as soon as it releases in stores. This is just a discussion, or a rant, please feel free to tell me how wrong I am, or how you kinda agree with me, as I have found, nobody ever 100% agrees with me on anything, either I'm crazy, or I've struck a nerve and nobody cares to admit it.

Answer 1

‘Fling Gaming’ people who go from game to game, based usually on popularity, never getting fully enveloped into the game. In most cases they grind out Trophies and Achievement points as a sign they ‘mastered’ or ‘beat’ the game.



Achievement/Trophy Hunting is still a valid argument. Not all achievements are simple grinding (example: “Get X Kills” “Get X Headshots” or something as simple as complete the story to the game). Some achievements actually require some since of understanding of the game and skill.



But I do agree with you that far too many people view achievements and trophies as the only thing of value in a game. That they never truly play a game on a level that really draws you into it and surrounds you.

Game Developers have also picked up on this and actually create games that lack anything except achievements, trophies, means to brag, and truly pointless gameplay.





Personally I am a Trophy Hunter, however most of my trophies aren’t actual in game trophies or achievements.

Most of my examples come from WoW - Soloing Lord Marrowgar (10) at level 80. Soloing Atramedes (10) at level 85. Soloing Heroic 5 man Dungeons at level. Even winning 9/10 of all my battleground matches and maintaining a 300K+ kills to <1K deaths on a level 60 (PvP k/d ratio).

None of which have any real achievements, but I do it anyways because they were challenging. My trophies are usually the video recording and/or the loot they drop which I never sell… wouldn’t be much of a trophy if I sold it.

And these trophies huntings often tie into my immersiveness of a story line. Whether it be the righteous defender of a Paladin who (as my RPing character) prides on survival. A blood thirsty brute of victory or death. Or a bounty hunting mercenary doing anything for the right coin.

Answer 2

Well as mentioned, many games for older systems didn't have achievements and were amazing and had such great stories. Now a days games are so short and are all about online play, that the story is short, so they need to add extra content in to make the story more interesting. I myself am not an achievement hunter. If i really enjoy the game i may try for some achievements, but i won't go out of my way for them. Like some games where it's like beat a mission in under so many minutes, no im going to take my time and explore the environment. Some games such as soul calibur IV didn't even have any trophies for ps3 yet it was still a good game. If the game is old fashioned and has a great moderate story plot and has hours of gameplay then no need for achievements. Before it would take me anywhere from a week to a couple months to beat a game, now it takes me literally a day or two. They need to focus more on the story of a game then anything else, guess that's my on personal rant. Achievements can be fun when there is nothing better to do in the game. Like an achievement for beating a game on the hardest difficulty, screw that i don't want an achievement, give me like an alternate outfit or a cool weapon, give me something in the game, not just an achievement.

Answer 3

To be honest, I'm not an achievement hunter. I know a lot of gamers, and none of them are achievement hunters. So I don't see the whole "all people care about is achievements and trophies" argument.



For me, and for the people I know, a game being good is more of a payoff then a game have easy achievements. And if the game is so good that it makes you want to complete it properly, including all the achievements, its because its a great game that I enjoy playing, not so I can go "My gamerscore is higher than your gamerscore".



As for multiplayer and co-op, well yea, that has kind of taken over the gaming world. Ever since CoD4 revolutionised competitive multiplayer, it has become something to put into every game, a box for people to tick when they review whether the game is worth picking up, and to be fair its not entirely crazy.



Because the economy is so bad and games are so expensive, gamers have become a lot more choosey about their gaming purchases, especially with brand new games. And so we have developed into a community with a rule that if a game is only going to last you 12 hours, then its "not worth buying". So games like Call of Duty and Halo and Battlefield get away with making short, 6 hour campaigns so long as the multiplayer is good enough to last. And when reading/watching reviews, the reviewer commenting on the multiplayer of a game being bad, for many people, means that the game is not worth picking up, regardless of whether the story is 6 or 12 or 20 hours long, regardless of whether the story is a rollercoaster of perfection or a slow repetitive drudge.



To give you 2 examples, Spec Ops: The Line was unanimously hailed by the media for its great story, it was advertised well, but reviewers commented on the poor multiplayer, and so the game did not sell well. In contrast Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was reviewed as having a poor single player campaign, but good multiplayer, and so the game sold like hot cakes.



Because story is something people generally go through once, while multiplayer can be played over and over, the general consensus in the gaming community has become that single player is not the most important thing about a game any more. In fact I've actually started hearing reviewers use the phrase "worth a rental" in a review, because the story was good, but the game was not worth buying.

Answer 4

i'm having the comparable concern on BT residing house Hub. approximately ninety 5% of the time i will pay attention the voice interior the foyer yet then get booted off. do no longer think of that its BT as my different online video games artwork nice. I stated as RockStar video games this morning and the lady I spoke to did no longer seem to know the priority an has escalated the priority to point 2 (in spite of meaning) besides, i'm waiting for a respond now so will could wait and see what Rockstar say? nonetheless a super game thoughand while multiplayer works it's going to be much greater ideal. will could be content with COD4 for my shoot em expereince on the instant

Answer 5

I actually think trophies/achievements are an enhancement to a game. Of course, there`s always people who go overboard hunting only for that, like everything else in life, some people are just off they're rockers....

But for myself, who considers himself a serious RPG player (Skyrim, Fallout, etc) I find that achievements help me locate certain important things I might miss out on if they weren't there. An example would be the Heartfire DLC of Skyrim; I did not know when I purchased it that you could have 3! houses, I thought it was just one. So after looking at the achievement saying "buy 3 plots of land", I went quest-hunting for it.

Achievements per say are not detrimental, like any game and anything else in the world, it's how people use it that take enjoyement away. It`s like people camping out or using cheap tactics in BLOPS 2 or other games, it takes the fun away from the rest, but people are people....

Answer 6

I think that achievements add extra gaming hours to short and boring games. Many of the best games on the PS2 didn't have achievements and yet there were 100+ hours of fun there. Is hours of fun too much to ask for?

Answer 7

I generally play a game through once, then do the trophy hunting. I'm currently going for platinum trophies on all 5 of my Ratchet and Clank games. I'm half way done with number 4