This piece at IGN has an intriguing look at the world of Achievements from a sales perspective. It seems that games emphasizing various levels of accomplishment (and containing a higher number of varied accomplishments) tend to sell better at retail, are better reviewed by whoever it is that does that sort of thing, and generally are better liked by peers, classmates and that cute blonde girl who lives down the block. To hear the article tell it:
"Consumers want their games to include both variety and abundance of Accomplishments," said Geoffrey Zatkin, COO of [Electronic Entertainment Design And Research]. "Our research shows that incentives such as Accomplishments impact sales choices such as which game title to buy and which platform to buy it on; they also extend the replayability of a title.
So why is this? While the article doesn't attempt to conjecture, it has long been known that -- even in the world of gaming -- completing "fun" objectives releases a burst of dopamine into the brain. It shouldn't at all be shocking to see the sales numbers reflect customers gravitating towards the greatest source of this "high".
I'm sure Microsoft isn't about to start sending off Press Releases proclaiming their games get you "higher" than those found on the Wii, but it's quite obvious that their calculated move into the world of Achievements landed them directly in the land of addictive MMO titles, along with their insane profitability.
How long will it be before Chinese post-teens start dying in front of Madden 08, and the media decrys the entire industry as the new meth epidemic? Maybe if we turn off all the lights, they'll think we're asleep and leave us alone!
Contest:
11:13 PM on 10.16.2007
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I would say the reverse is true, that games with easy achievements would sell better at retail. I have read on many forums of people buying EA titles and King Kong for easy achievement whoring.
I thought the Gears of War achievements were pretty spot on personally.
LOL, the day China has clans for Madden is the day I stop watching pr0n.
I can definitely attest to the replayability aspect of them, too. I just recently replayed Rainbow Six Vegas for the 3rd time (once solo normal, once co-op realistic, once solo realistic) and I've had it for almost a year. As someone who rarely replays games once I've beaten them, I truly felt compelled after playing co-op finally with my buddy to play solo on realistic since I had gotten so much better. It was VERY satisfying to get those 100g and make my experience worth it.
Whether it truly counts for anything or not, I don't care. It's still cool. It's a great way to track your personal accomplishments within a game and I like it. I'm glad to see there is a record of me beating the game on that difficulty.
People who play games JUST for the achievements, however, are lame as shit. Cool renting Open Season, assholes. You know that shit makes you look more like a tool than a badass, right? If you have the time and money to waste on gamerscore boosters like that, you fail instantly.
"It seems that games emphasizing various levels of accomplishment (and containing a higher number of varied accomplishments)"
Not flaming mate, I enjoy reading the Dtoid crew's articles, i;m just answering your question ;)
it doesn't explicitly say hard achievements, but "varied" does imply that they would be harder than "easy" achievements, like King Kong, or Enchanted Arms, where you just get the 1000 points for clocking the game.
microsoft is a joke. awful customer support, horrid built electronics. awful os.
40 gb ps3 is the future..
I dunno, i understood "varied" as, for example, not having "finish level X" achievements only, but maybe things like "kill a person from 20m in distance", "eat some cake", "jump 23 times in a row". Although i do think like you do on the easy achievements causing more sales, i know a lot of people that are achievement whores and will buy, or at least rent, easy titles for achievements.
If only I was blessed with such a radical mind.
But seriously, didn't you die?
yeah its all good man, it was just a comment, lol. My point was it's the spirit of the quote, not the letter.
I wasn't after an argument, i'm happy to chalk it up to semantics on this one. Sorry if the original comment came across as antagonistic, it wasn't meant to be... ;)
yeah definitely. I loved the crackdown achievements too, I think there was one about pinning 6 guys to the side of a vehicle with the spike gun? awesome ;)
I haven't gotten my 360 yet, but when I do, I fully expect to want to get all the achievements of any game I play due to OCD-ness. We'll see how long that lasts.
Crackdown is a good example. I know many who bought the game for the Halo 3 beta and returned it, disappointed because the game had little meat to it. I would always tell these people, start going for the achievements. Doing something like diving a car off the roof of a building, pinning dudes to a delivery truck with a harpoon gun, and leaping around rooftops looking for precious orbs add much fun to the title.
I'm not one of those people that is obsessed with my Gamerscore. Rather, I enjoy the extra challenges that Achievements represent, and the metagame-like aspects it adds. I have actually chosen the 360 version over others purely because of Achievements, so I definitly fall into the category of gamers the article seems to cover.
So, from personal experience, I think the article has a lot of merit.
Still, if you have to choose between a game that gives you a free ePenis extension and one that does not... it's an easy choice.
I can be an achievement whore with the games I have, but I never buy games just for the easy achievements, I mean my games have to be playable lol.
Also, I dont really care for achievements, they dont matter to me... its nice when I get one, but usually I dont bother to go "achievement hunting"
It's probably true that games with many achievements get better scores, but it's probably not true that they receive better scores BECAUSE of achievements.
Games with more achievements tend to be more lovingly created, detailed or offer more content.
Mediocre license titles tend to have a small number of no-brainer achievements (TMNT and King Kong both give 1,000 points just for beating their short campaigns). But games with an assortment of multiplayer options and replayable missions (halo 3, the orange box), tend to have a longer list.
One way to disprove the conclusion would be to compare scores of cross-platform games with and without achievements in their 360 versions. I'd bet you dollars to donuts that games with more achievements on the 360 also have high scores on the ps3, where there are no achievements.