Nintendo Belittles Achievements As "Mythical Rewards"

[katsabas]

It depends on what you like. I am not going after any MW2 trophy and I do not plan to.

Wipeout HD trophies on the other hand were one of reasons I bought the game. It pushes me to my limits and I love it when a game does that. Achievements are a plus when they are correctly conceived and tough to do. Separates the dedicated from the slacker.

And yeah, they do not have trophies. They have 120 stars. Or 5 Dinosaur Coins in each stage. Or 250 missile power-ups. The concept of trophies and achievements has been in every Nintendo major franchise. The only difference is that it is not 'in your face' but it is still there.

 

[irishda]

"Nintendo is very good at rewarding its players in ways such as this, so I'm not sure why it wouldn't want to Nintendo-ize the current achievement system and make it something of its own that's less "mythical," and more substantial."

That's a nice thought, but as video games, nothing about their rewards are substantial. You can't feed your family by selling that nice trophy you got for getting a head shot without any bullets. Nintendo's right in that achievements are just false rewards, even in the WoW world I've yet to see anyone actually impressed by another person's achievements or Blizzard GMs running through the streets shouting his praise as the master of all that he sees.

On the other hand, achievements do help create games within the game as you struggle to accomplish what can be seen as a side quest. But then, in this light, it makes the game publisher lazy, as if he couldn't be bothered to give his game any substantial weight or replay value so he just tacked on some arbitrary challenges and said, "That'll amuse the little bastards."

 

[Del-Toro]

Yay Nintendo! Achievements are fucking retarded and every time I hear someone talking about trying to get one I have to resist the urge to punch them.

I second this motion.

 

[-Samurai-]

I find that most trophy's are for things I wouldn't normally do in games.

Going after certain ones add to the fun for me. They can be very challenging, and I love a good challenge.

Bad Company 2 wanted me to get a headshot with a repair tool. I would have never dreamed of chasing someone down with a repair tool. It isn't my style. Going for that trophy led to some of the most fun I've ever had in that game.

Trophy's like that only add to the fun. And it isn't like they're mandatory. Do it, or don't do it. It doesn't really matter.

 

[Rednog]

Meh, Nintendo will eventually do it, they always jump on a platform to say Gamer's don't want this or don't want that and eventually cave when they realize that gamers in fact did want it and they were wrong. For example, them declaring that people don't want to play online, gamecube falls on its face and gives the Xbox a huge gap to put its foot in the door. And then tries to shamble its own version together on the Wii and gives us the abomination that is friend codes.

 

[Professor James]

The only achievements I like are the unique ones like beat X level only using Y and I alsp ;ole the ones with clever names or descriptions, like some of the achievements in Call of duty World at War.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Achievments to me give me something to do after I beat the story missions. It keeps me playing a game longer then I ordinarily would because I have this extra set of goals to achieve.

Also I do like the unexpected ones, like getting an achievment for taunting a certain number of times in Saints Row 2 or mugging 50 people.

The multiplayer ones though, I don't do. Also if something is excessive I also don't do it like Party Like It's 1999 (Play 1999 rounds of multiplayer [any mode]) from Gears of War 2.

 

[UltraDeth]

I love the achievements! Think back to when on a PS2 game, blown up 4 enemies with one grenade and nothing. These days achievements pretty much test & reward gamer skill with these "Mythical rewards" and make the effort much more worthwhile

 

[Burningsok]

Umm, Nintendo, they aren't mythical. They give a sense of self accomplishment. I understand where they're coming from though. There has to be more to it.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

But you lose the ability to use a cheat device/trainer if you need or want to. Achievements take control of "how you play", out of your hands. Look at the Starcraft II mess where they were banning people for using trainers in single player mode because of achievements. Achievements were used as DRM in that case, they were the justification to encourage people to be connected to BNET even when playing Single player.

How do achievements control how you play? They're entirely optional, you can ignore them completely if you want to. And I don't know about that Starcraft thing because I'm not a PC gamer, but what's so bad about being connected to BNET? And again, it sounds like it was still optional.

Seriously, this isn't making sense to me at all. From what I understand, in Starcraft II, you have to connect to BNET(even in single player) to earn achievements, which is bad because you don't WANT to connect to BNET. BUT: If the only thing forcing you to connect to BNET is achievements, and you don't care about achievements, then you don't have to connect BNET, correct?

Again, entirely optional.

 

[Fangface74]

Who could disagree with Nintendo, love 'em or hate 'em... 'mythical rewards' is exactly what they are!

Well, sometimes their not even rewards, got to level 2? have an achievement!

 

[Jetsetneo]

I've never gotten this thing people have against achievements. Sure, there's really no tangible reward for getting them, but neither is there one for playing the game in the first place. Other then, you know, FUN.

But you lose the ability to use a cheat device/trainer if you need or want to. Achievements take control of "how you play", out of your hands. Look at the Starcraft II mess where they were banning people for using trainers in single player mode because of achievements. Achievements were used as DRM in that case, they were the justification to encourage people to be connected to BNET even when playing Single player.

You really have problems with the way SC2 works don't you?

Beating the campaign without cheating and getting points for it is OMG an ACHIEVEMENT. You played the game BY ITS RULES, and got some numbers, and maybe a portrait, for it.

Why should YOU be rewarded for breaking the rules when I worked so hard to unlock the various portraits?

The game doesn't MAKE you play it that way. If you want to cheat. Fine, go ahead, but you're CHEATING and the admittance of it means you don't get the stuff that I earned.

Oh and heres a fantastic nail in the coffin:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/285932/1/Jetsetneo/

All those beautiful campaign Achvs, all earned. admittedly I haven't played much of it in a while, and I haven't touched multiplayer beyond some compstomp, but heres the beauty of achievements in one place: I proved that I earned something.

 

[Grey_Focks]

Yea...every time I hear someone from Nintendo bashing something the other companies are doing, all I can think of is "People don't want to play online with their consoles", and then I laugh. Seriously, why no achievements? They really don't take anything away from the experience, and they can be pretty enjoyable when done correctly.

"You just killed that enemy with it's own ear lobe! TEN POINTS TO GRYFFINDOR!"

EDIT- Okay, the only real complaint I'm seeing against achievements is that...they keep you from cheating? Really? Yea, that's just silly. I'll take achievements over cheating, by a mile.

 

[Worgen]

this is kind of ironic considering that nintendo also has the coolest achievement rewards, Im talking about the trophies you get of chars in super smash brothers, if a console came up with an achievement system that gave things like that, that would be awesome

 

[Deacon Cole]

Achievements work because of operant conditioning [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2487-The-Skinner-Box]. As such, I find them uninteresting.