game trophies

The ability to unlock achievements has become something of a phenomenon during this generation of gaming. Microsoft started this trend with the launch of the 360 back in November of 2005. Since that day, gamers have picked up titles with ravenous glee just so they can build up a gamerscore. Understanding the popularity of the feature, Sony adopted the system but allowed players to unlock trophies instead of achievements. Both systems are similar in practically every way and have kept gamers playing titles long after they’d typically forget about them. But what’s the purpose of these trophies and points? In a word: nothing.

For those unfamiliar with the system, achievements/trophies are unlocked when certain criteria is met in a game. For instance, completing a chapter in the main storyline or winning 100 matches online could unlock an achievement. Once the specifications are met, a message appears stating what achievement was unlocked and for how many points. After this, the points are then tallied into your overall gamerscore. Your gamerscore is the amount of points you’ve accumulated from achievements and is prominently displayed next to your Live ID for all to see. Trophies for the PS3 are not added to any kind of score. Instead you can acquire bronze, silver, gold, and platinum trophies, platinum being the toughest to earn.

Don’t get me wrong here; achievements and trophies can be fun to get and definitely add replayability to a title, but it’s a feature that’s weakly implemented. Adding a high score via the leaderboards for all your friends to view is nice, but practically every title already does that. There’s no real reason why people have to unlock every single achievement in a game. Yet, people willingly endure high degrees of gaming torture just to earn a few achievements they missed. Why? Mostly it’s bragging rights, sometimes it’ll net you a new gamer icon or even rarer, you’ll receive something to use in the game itself. Yeah, mostly it’s nothing.

It comes to no surprise that the games with the toughest achievements tend to be more on the competitive side. Business-wise, it’s a smart decision to implement hard to reach achievements for these games. Seeing how people throw away countless hours just to get a sliver closer to seeing that message pop up, it’s almost stupid not to. That means they’re playing said company’s game that much longer. The perfect example of this is from Gears of War 2, which is called Seriously 2.0. This achievement can only be unlocked after you’ve killed 100,000 people in any mode. It’s possible to get… if all you’ve been doing for the past five months is playing that game. And even when you do get it, there’s apparently no reward. But wait, I just got 50 more gamerpoints!

I think that the achievement phenomena could be significantly greater if developers took the time to streamline achievements with the actual game and reward the player. Let’s eliminate all this, turn the game on and press the jump button to earn five gamerpoints nonsense. Why not take the approach games like Mass Effects and Halo 3 did? In Mass Effect, once you earned an achievement it actually boosted your performance in the game. For instance, if you got 150 pistol kills, your shots with the pistol would become more powerful. In Halo 3, as you unlocked achievements you’d be rewarded with different types of armor and a sword if you achieved all 1,000 points. Developers, take some pointers from these prime examples.

Also, gamerscore as a whole is utterly pointless. Why not get creative and allow users to purchase themes, pictures, or in-game items with the points they earn from getting the achievements? We’ve already paid a premium price for the game. Oh that’s right, because you’d rather have players pay $2 for a pack of pictures or more for costumes. Having some kind of incentive to unlock achievements instead of just because would increase a game’s longevity tenfold. Imagine completing the 10 chainsaw duels in Gears of War 2 and being rewarded with different styles of the Lancer bayonet? The examples are endless and are only limited by the imagination of the developers.

Achievements and trophies are a great feature to every game, but with just a little more thought they could become something so much greater. I don’t want to look at a game’s achievements and find that I can only achieve one if I’m the greatest player in the entire world. Why bother with it when the only reward is a few more numbers attached to my Live ID? We’ve got the creativity people, time to use it.

Originally posted by Andrew Whipple III.