Achievements Have Ruined Games

If you were alive and gaming sometime between 2001 and 2008 or are a part of the current generation, I want you to know that I despise something specific that came around that generation. I don’t hate you the Tiktoks I don’t understand. I don’t hate you for all those semi-formed words and phrases I have to research on Urban Dictionary and I don’t hate you for anything a grumpy old man (of 24) would hate you for. I am displeased with the malleable minds that allowed achievements in games to become a thing, and you’ve gone on to encourage them.

Someone thinks I am joking about that, but I am not, my blood is boiling just thinking about it. That probably leads to your first question: “How have achievements ruined gaming?” They have led to people placing value in something lacking so much in purpose and value, that you are obsessed with the damn things. I have never once, quote-unquote, “hunted down” an achievement in a game for one simple reason: 99.999% of them are not an achievement. This is where I point to the MMO crowds, with their facetious “grats!” at anything claimed to be a low-level achievement, you are just as much to blame.

There was a time very early on, where they made some sense. There were things like making 50,000,000 steps without stopping, running over 69 prostitutes in three-minutes, or staring blankly at this one piece of beige textured wall in the corner of an inconsequential room for forty-minutes. That made for the tiniest form of sense as something almost any normal person wouldn’t do in a month of Sundays. Now it is something akin to “You’ve moved the camera, have an achievement. You have moved the character, have an achievement.” Soon enough, you’ll get an achievement for being able to put in a disc properly. Given the current generation was born in the early 00s, there is a good chance you don’t know what a disc is in the first place.

Look, what set me off on this very angry rant were the people that seem to be putting far too much stock in casino mechanics. That’s all this is. It is a pop up telling you that you are doing good. In the case of Steam, it is in the bottom left or right. On Xbox it is in the top or bottom center with a sound, and on PlayStation it is in the top right or left, also accompanied with a sound. Every time you hear that sound it has become phonaesthetic, a short burst of pleasure from a sound that says “you did a thing!”

Gambling uses the same method: In Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and many other casinos throughout the US and elsewhere, they have smells pumped in. They void the place of natural light, and use visual and auditory stings to make you happy at tiny things. All of this is to keep you spending money. I’ve even seen more recently mentions of casinos streaming a large group of people (Americas) gullibly playing into this fantasy. It is hosted by a very showy bloke that failed to make it big in Vegas, all with the idea that you too could win $50,000 each. The chances are such that you won’t, but the optimism of Americans drives the fantasy and it fuels itself.

Right, why did I go on that tangent? Well, games haven’t gone to that same degree, at least not the few that are not live service gambling hubs. Those audible and visual encouragements to keep saying “you are doing great!” have made some perceive a value that achievements don’t have. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but they are not making you money and they are not advancing you as a person. For what it is worth, I don’t think there is much fun in them, especially when they are offered after every mission.

Believe it or not there is (surprisingly enough) a larger subtext to all of this long-winded ranting about gambler’s fallacy, every casino’s design methodology, and achievements. It is what we’ve done to the minds of players that bothers me, this misconception that if you got an achievement one way, everyone has to get that achievement and do it the same way. It is the idea that if you have used a bug to advance through a game, hopped over an invisible wall you weren’t meant to, or used a cheat code, and somehow got to the same point in a game, someone else’s experience is devalued. While I am verbally skewering everyone else, I might as well do it to Time Berners-Lee too.

Yes, once again, this “argument” has been kicked up. Recently Double Fine, developer of all the lovely games since 2005’s Psychonauts, tweeted: “If you beat Psychonauts 2 with the invincibility toggle on, you still beat P2;” Quote-retweeting the Xbox post, itself saying, “Beating the game on the lowest difficulty is still beating the game.” So, in short, take your “Git Gud” and jump head-first into the bin!

Of course, anytime you poke a bear you have to expect to get a bit of push-back or biting. This is where I am brought back to achievements. As always with these cat-fights/plate smashing contests, there are the people who run away in a huff claiming it ruins the game without qualifying any of their statements. There are those who think they are funny saying “journalism toggle,” from the same people that brought you so-called jokes about dead babies or children that aren’t funny at all. We might as well mention the ever so lovely people that say: if you can’t play the game on normal or hard “you shouldn’t be playing the game.” as well. They tend to patronize people by suggesting that you would be sad for using this feature.

However, what really tweaked my nose was the implication that this somehow demeans someone’s achievement hunting and lessens the experience overall. As I have said before and as many of us have said here at Phenixx Gaming: This doesn’t concern you or your enjoyment, so why do you care? The only way this does concern you is if you choose to use it, and only then do you get to say anything of detail on it. Otherwise, you have no say and your opinion isn’t wanted or needed.

Those people who are attempting to defend this idea in the metaphorical game of Twitter’s Battleships aren’t always doing the best job, nor are they maxing out all possibilities. It’s understandable, as Twitter only has a limited number of characters and to this point I’ve used about 6,662. I don’t mind when people hold up children as the example, use disabled people as the all-proof shield against anyone with a soul, or remind people there is more to a game than being impaled on the sharp end of a crescent ax. Though sometimes there are just other things, such as mobility hampered by age and not disability.

As you get into your 50s reaction times don’t get quicker, they get slower. If you are disabled you can have a plethora of issues including reaction times, but equally, you could have those who can’t hold down seventeen different buttons at once. Sometimes children and adults want to explore the world without the hassle of the enemies killing them every few moments so they can appreciate the beautiful world. Others just want the story, the puzzling, and the platforming in a single-player story-driven puzzle platformer. It is the same as those who want to focus-in on the challenge of the action, being able to turn up the difficulty and thus be embroiled in more of the action than is considered normal.

What gets me is the idea that an achievement (as they stand today) is somehow “earned.” That implies that pressing the same attack buttons, or remapped ones for that matter, does not earn you the same experience of beating the same enemies in the same areas. “Oh, but it is a hollow victory” they decry, claiming someone else’s single-player experience as something they can determine the validity over. Somehow, doing all these same things does not earn you the same adventure or enjoyment if you haven’t died 37 times to one boss. A boss that your body or your mind cannot and will not be able to “overcome.”

I don’t know exactly where it happened. I have a good idea, but I can’t say for certain, but every single person opposing inclusivity is stupid. I don’t mind the people who say, “it’s not for me. Don’t like it, but again it is not for me.” I am talking of the people who have never looked at the meaning of the phrase video game. A video game is defined as an interactive experience, done so by electronically manipulating images on a screen. There are people bickering somewhere along the lines that this is the equivalent of watching a let’s play (which it is not) and that it is paying $60 for a movie.

Ok, I have two questions on that last point: Where are you watching movies on the cheap? That aside, you are still interacting with it and it is as much a platformer and puzzler as it is action, so how is that like a movie? To clarify, by the time you pay for parking or taxi fare, have a meal before, buy the theater tickets, buy the $12 popcorn and two $8 big cups of juice, and possibly more, how does that not go over $60? This fickle little attempt at an argument is nothing more than it has always been: entirely useless gatekeeping.

I’ll raise the point that I’ve seen, bring up the counter, and bat that back down with the force of Poseidon’s waves. Not all games or game modes for that matter, feature death. To which I’ve seen “[I’m] pretty sure every game made has death.” That is incorrect. I can now say this, but can’t give a proper review until Monday. I’ve been playing Mini Motorways (the sequel to Mini Metro) for the past month and there is no death or anything of the kind. There is a failure state in the game, but that is not death. Death and failure never were and (more importantly) never will be synonyms for one another. Equally, many sports, racing and puzzle games don’t have you getting whacked by the mob either.

The truth is that this isn’t about the invincibility mode. It was never going to be about that; Celeste has an invincibility mode, and no one in their right mind moans about it. Those who know of these options, either in modern games or from those many years prior, don’t care because it has never mattered. It has never mattered until it can make some infantile believe they aren’t getting their super special achievement Reddit-scout badge for being a troll. Ok, you don’t believe it to be fair to have achievements enabled for those who “cheat?” How about we just get rid of achievements then? Not for those who use these modes, for everyone.

Then it is a level playing field. More importantly, I never have to hear, “Well, I platinumed it within the first 24-hours.” again. Well done! I have about 40% of the achievements of a game that has yet to release, but I don’t take that as a personality trait. These achievements mean nothing. Demanding that others playing the same game shouldn’t get the same achievements for doing the same thing, though slightly altered to their preference or need, should not make you this juvenile. If it is for “personal pride,” your pride must be like porcelain as to be so fragile that someone’s fun shatters it.

I’ve said it before, accessibility modes/cheats or whatever you want to call them are only there to level the playing field. To make sure as many people enjoy the game how they want to as possible. You are still playing the same story, you are still experiencing the same peaks and troughs, but you are equally having fun however you both want. “Gaming is for everyone[, but] not all games are for everyone” is a stupid argument. Yet nonetheless it is the core of many of these vocal complaints. Complaints, that it is once again worth stressing, are over a toggleable option.

If this was a discussion over genres, yes, it is a valid point. However, only if you allow people to attempt these genres they may not enjoy. This is not that discussion, plate smashing session, or whatever else I have called it throughout this article. It is on a single game with a story that some would prefer to experience while playing the platforming and puzzle sections, without so much of a hassle in the realm of milkmen. One can not say, “not all games are for everyone” when you are not allowing the “everyone” to try and enjoy it how they feel comfortable in the first place.

Some happily argue that this is similar to cheats, while the detractors of this option claim it is nothing like cheats for one simple reason: “Cheats were hard to find.” I don’t know what realm you live in but cheat books, online forums, notes taken of cheats, and other little things like that have been around for a long time. Often the books would be shared around playgrounds and friends. I find it hard to believe it was always that hard, but let’s take the togglable option away and put it behind a code you have to now input, what does that do? It is adding extra steps that aren’t needed, especially in the modern-day.

Let’s say you have to complete the game once to unlock the mode, what does that do? Well, it defeats the purpose a little doesn’t it? If this is a mode for those who simply want to take away one part of the game’s cumbersome aspects to allow for enjoyment of the story, puzzles, and platforming, there is no purpose in it being there once you’ve completed the game. “Oh, but that’s how it was done before,” I’m sorry to tell you, but when you see those charts of evolution, you don’t read from right to left. We move forward, we grow, and learn to remove the useless aspects that no longer work for our goal: Inclusivity.

“Wouldn’t it make the game boring?” If you are looking for challenging combat that has you on the edge of your seat, probably, yeah. The difference is, if you want that, you don’t have to turn the mode on… I know! A shocking revelation, it is almost as if they should be using a term for your ability to switch between this option or not, like a toggle of some kind. The thing is, whoever uses it is going to enjoy the game with it. Those who don’t enjoy the mode will enjoy the game (probably) without it. Which once again, leaves us on the issue of achievements.

No one’s experience is heightened by hearing that onomatopoeic sound. In fact, it has ruined more moments than it is lifted. You’ve just killed the first colossus in Shadow of the Colossus on the PS3 or PS4, Ōtani Kō-san’s “Sosei” (translate: “Resurrection”) plays as the beautiful colossus tumbles to the ground, dead. A black ooze is coming towards you. The music captures the moment of sadness and despair, setting the tone as you are possibly killed by the blood of the creature(?), and BING! “Well done! Have a trophy.” It kind of kills the tone there, doesn’t it?

They are not only ruining those moments, but they are also ruining discourse among those who get them. A very small (but vocal) bunch perceives them as a great reward for their service. You have done nothing, you have sat in your underpants like the rest of us, making Arthur Morgan march along with every stupid plan. You have punched a tree in the thousands you are going to continue to deforest in the name of survival. You have, in 99.999% of the cases, done the bare minimum to achieve a special little sound that will continue to condition you like a lab rat in search of cocaine.

If you want to sputter, “well, it is just patronizing to the disabled to include this mode,” take a long hard look at yourself. While you are looking, find a dictionary and some manners. This is an option: A thing you may or may not choose at your own will. Something you can toggle: A quick and easy switch from one effect to another. If you believe an option to toggle something in a video game is patronizing, you are a moron.

You are a missing the point entirely if you think hiding behind achievements is worth anything, and there is a special place in hell for the people that believe the only challenge in games comes from combat and death. By all means, enjoy Dark Souls, I do at a great deal. However, understand there is more to every game than the possibility of high-difficulty combat. There are more disabled people in this world than that one bloke Danny O’Dwyer spoke to about Sekiro (I like Clint). There are more disadvantages than simple reaction times, and there are more preferences in how one plays a game than your narrow-minded little perspective is willing to comprehend.

I say we get rid of achievements and that should sort this mess out in quite a few ways. Then we’re only left with the mindset of as Double Fine put it, “uh, excuse me I beat Sword Guy Serious Time on a no[-]hit hard mode and if didn’t do that I don’t respect you. and like, can you even comment on things if you’re not diamond six rank in shooty mcBlam? I don’t think so.” I think from then on, we’ll all just have to link to a video of John Oliver saying, “Cool.”