Rules of Achievement

In today’s episode, our hero picks a fight with Harvey Smith.

The Ellustrious Mr. Smith had a post up a couple of days ago in response to this article on the Psychology of Achievements.  I’ve written before about how achievements are essentially a psychological drug, but I happened to share Harvey’s preference.  When an achievement exists that highlights an unexpected area of gameplay - e.g. getting the gnome into space - I find that really interesting and exciting.

The problem I have with Harvey’s comments is that he sees any Achievement that doesn’t encourage “the right spirit of play” to be wrong, somehow.  It’s up to game designers to create fun spaces to explore, and nudge the players in the direction of the entertainment they’ve created.  Some people are going to do what you tell them to do.  Some people are going to build ladders out of proximity mines and escape your little world.  Some people are insane completionists and mostly just care about getting every achievement you provide them with.

And there’s a LOT of those people.

You don’t have to like that fact, but if you don’t cater to those people at all, then they’ll play something else.  Just because you enjoy open-ended game experiences doesn’t mean the entire world is looking for them.

That said, I think there’s ways to structure acheivements (or Trophies, or whatever) in a way that can satisfy most people:

The Rules

For the Explorers

• Force the player to change the way they play the game.
• Create a trail into a gameplay space that might go unnoticed.
• Example: Essentially any game by Valve

For the Achievers

• Reward completing sets of things
• Reward maximizing or minimizing variables (do this without dying, get the highest level in that)
• Example: Bioshock

For the Socializers

• Do Nothing!
• Socializers care about creating relationships, any little badge you put on that simply makes it seem trite.
• Creating “Social” Achievements will piss off your Achievers.
• Counter Example: Settlers of Catan’s “Invite X people to play with you” achievement.

For the Killers

• Do Nothing!
• Leaderboards serve this purpose already
• Creating “Killer” Achievements will piss off your Explorers.
• Counter Example: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

For Everyone

• Make some achievements easy to get, early in the game
• Avoid tedious achievements that require you to grind for hours.
• A single playthrough of the game should net the average player around 50% of the game’s achievements