It’s been a few weeks since my last post. I was on vacation for a week and the new Summer semester started so there is work to be had.

But I entered into a discussion today with Simon over at Chungking Espresso about achievements in games. He had initially tweeted about this article over at Before Game Design. The article talks about two things 1) how casual players react to a games introduction (or tutorials) and 2) how casual or inexperienced players may not understand unlockable content (or achievements for that matter). This is a strange coincidence because I planned on writing topics on both of those topics this week. Though, per my conversation with Simon today, I will stick with the topic of achievements for now.

It is not hard to find achievements in today’s games. Windows and Xbox Live, Steam and PS Network all have achievement services. Game developers create achievements for their game, hook into one of the services’ API and anytime a player fulfills the requirements for an achievement they will receive that achievement as a prize. Players keep those achievements once earned and there are various ways to display online their achievements, scores , gamertags, what have you. This has also produced a series of data-mining services to come into existence, intent on capture this information from users and using it for various marketing (GamerDNA) and/or user experience services (Giant Bomb).

Achievements are used in a number of ways in games. They can be internal or external to the game world (or as Alexander Galloway would put it diegetic and non-diegetic but we will not go there) and have explicit or implicit implications for the player. Internal achievements are those achievements that are built into a game and have little, or no, connection to the outside world. Earning the right to move on to the next level in an FPS or beating the computer’s fastest time in a racing game are internal achievements. They may either be explicitly displayed to the player (giving trophies for winning a race) or can be implicit (where a new area is unlocked with little fan-fare). However, those internal achievements are never shown to the outside world, they are strictly for that game only.

External achievements are those achievements that can be displayed outside of their game. The achievement services previously mentioned are examples of how these types of achievements are used. Players earn achievements in games only to add those earnings to their growing wall of trophies. External achievements can have the same effects as internal ones: unlocking items/levels, giving in-game trophies, etc. . They even create a sudo-social experience between players, where both multiplayer and single-player games have the same relevance on a player’s external achievement list, making it easier for players to know who is playing what (as Simon pointed out there are communities like Achieve360points and xbox360achievements that focus on achievements too). The fact that the player can now display their winnings using a structured service, like Xbox Live, has pushed beyond internal game achievements.

Simon also pointed me to a new forum post over at GameDev.net about achievements that was posted today, go figure. As part of the Game Design Round Table 2 at GaveDev.net, Trent Polack asks,

“The current model of achievements allow for game designers and developers to implement a relatively simple, persistent way of rewarding players for in-game activities. That said, do achievements promote an undesirable play style (in single- and/or multiplayer)? How should achievements be paired with in-game mechanics and economies (if at all)?”

He mentions how Valve had recently implemented an unlocking system in Team Fortress 2 that made it harder to unlock weapons without resorting to exploitive behavior (such as farming the achievements on a separate dedicated farming server). Valve has since made the changes necessary to curb that type of gameplay but the affect of achievements on players is still in question.

I am personally all for achievements myself but not because I particularly like to achieve them. I believe that if a developer wishes their game to reach as wide an audience as possible then they need to provide motivation incentives as many different playing styles as possible. Achievements offer extrinsic motivations, meaning they give you candy (as Trent puts it) for doing a task un-related to that piece of candy. If you clean tour room you can have a dollar. Extrinsic rewards can be good motivators at times but in other areas, such as learning, motivating people in such ways can have disastrous effects. Motivating players in the same way seem to have mixed results as well, given the discussion around Trent’s post.

The other type of motivation is called intrinsic motivation, which means someone is motivated by something that relates to the area they are working within. I am intrinsically motivated to read a recreational book because I know I will receive a great experience from reading it. Extrinsic motivations to read a book include getting paid to review it or having to write an essay about the book for a final exam. Intrinsic motivations are usually personal, I decide the things I want to do for my subjective reasons. Other people can also affect your intrinsic goals too, as it is the holy grail of teaching to help a student get to a point where they are motivated intrinsically to learn. The problem that is being asked about achievements is not so much do achievements promote undesirable play styles but one that touches on the conflict between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations.

The main problem I see with achievements is that they are reductionist. They take parts of the gameplay and reduce them to single-serving instances for people to consume. Not to go Marx on your ass, but it really is capitalism at its finest. Achievements promote the alienation of players: (I’ll quote from Wikipedia because I’m not going to go in-depth)

“Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because [with] work each contributes to the common wealth, but can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not publicly(socially) owned, but privately owned, for which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social being” – source

It’s not that achievements are bad but that they are limiting. They are set, finite, an objective account of a player’s experience in a game. Some Gamedev posters mentioned that achievements could lead them to act in the game differently than what they normally would have done. For instance, Simon stated that the achievement to “complete Ravenholm using only the gravity gun” was something he would have never done without knowing about that achievement. But does that fact that he only completed that achievement because he knew about the achievement diminish the act of attempting to use only the gravity gun in the level? Should Half-Life 2 have made it clear enough where Simon would have been intrinsically motivated to attempt that achievement regardless if there was a reward for it or not?

Another poster, hallower, made a good point that achievements can symbolize “memorable moments” in the game. Similar to Simon’s example, the developers know that players will attempt certain things in the game so why not make achievements to symbolize those moments? I agree with this, however are we all doomed to only fulfill those precious moments that developers define as memorable experiences?

I would like to add to this growing argument of achievements one that focuses on player created achievements, intrinsic achievements if you will. These are achievements that players themselves create and can wear as badges of honor. Is this possible? Proponents of participatory culture would most certainly say yes.

In the age of everything personal, why not personal achievements? Maxis is probably the leader in allowing players to created subjective achievements, particularly in The Sims. Players can take snap shots or videos of their gameplay and upload them online. Memorable moments like sim weddings or funny events can be captured and put online. The Sims 3 should only make these operations easier and if you throw in all of the user-generated content experience Maxis has with both The Sims and Spore we are going to see a massive influx of subjective player achievements in the future.

Game portals are only going to inflate this situation. I have written about Onlive before for the purposes of exploring player experiences. Onlive lets players record gameplay clips and make them available later for watching and rating. I predict this will overtake developer achievements in the future; a streamlined creation process from exciting in-game activities and achievements, to outside-community bragging rights, ratings and discussions.

There may also be ways to combine developer achievements and player created achievements. Since games are inherently discrete, for the most part, then what is stopping developers from creating DIY achievement creation systems? What to kill 1000 zombies in 1 minute, make it an achievement. Want to kill 100 zombies with a shotgun, make it an achievement. Want to jump from point A to point B without losing health, make it an achievement. Each of those achievements can be created using the variety of primitive datatypes that players can use in their creations.

Game metric gathering is growing and recording information about players is a welcomed asset for most game developers. While there are drawbacks to collecting personal information about players it is important to find ways that users can take over and convert such information for their own use. Player created achievements could be such a thing.

The trick is promoting multiple player styles. What casual gamer is going to sit there and create their own achievements if they do not even know how to unlock the developer made ones? That’s where the progress achievements come in, the ones you get for playing the game. For others it will be the standard or ridiculous achievements that the developers create because those are the standard ones. Then there will be the player created ones, those that will virally spread and create stirs in the gaming community. But most will just be personal achievements that you made on a Saturday morning. The achievements that you were intrinsically motivated to do, the ones YOU wanted.