Achievements

I was reading a few blogs on Gamasutra.com yesterday. I don't understand all the hullabaloo over achievements. Game companies have really honed in on achievements. Why is it now that they focus on it? Games have always had achievements.

An achievement is just a goal with a guaranteed reward. Games have almost always had goals.

Mario has goals - Beat Bowser, save the princess, collect the stars.

Asteroids has goals - Survive. Blow up that Asteroid.

So then do all games have achievements? Games need a goal. An objective. Well can you play a game without a goal? How about chess? I think you can play chess without a goal. Have no opponent and just move pieces around. It's a game about a 8x8 field and movement. It's not a very compelling game, but it's still a game. This because I believe games are simply playgrounds. A place to play.

A playground implies a lot of things:

Rules. -Swings and slides behave in a certain way.

Limits - A playground is a specific area.

Safety - you shouldn't die playing a game. (Well extreme games can harm you.)

The heart of a playground is a place to play. The weird thing is, play can be defined at an activity without a purpose or a goal. I don't think play is useless. Play is how we learn and experiment. Which means *gasp* learning is fun.

A game is just a place which encourages play. Goals and Achievements are a simply method for encouraging play. They are a motivation device.

I have ADD. As such I've had many coaches and tutors who've taught me create my own goals, schedules, and deadlines. Finish this paper by this date. Go to this class then work on this homework. All these things are tools to get me to do something. They're there for the motivation. The difference between goals and achievements is that achievements have a guaranteed reward.

Just as a goal motivates without a guaranteed reward, you can have a reward without a goal. People can play a game entirely because they like collecting coins. Some people work at a job entirely for a pay check. I've worked a lot of shitty jobs. Fast food, paperboy, janitor (which is

literally a shitty job.) The work itself is not fullfilling, I just wanted the money.

Cary Zhang just gave me one of his books from his class - Everything Bad is Good for You: Steven Johnson. In the book Steven makes a case for popular entertainment. In it he uses an example of Troy Steele (which was taken from from Julian Debbel) Troy played Ultima Online. He played it a lot - he even was a grandmaster blacksmith. To become a grandmaster he had to grind the blacksmithing skill for literally months. (That sucks!) Steven Johnson asked the question 'why would anyone do such a thing if it is so mindless and unrewarding? Especially considering Troy had a fairly mindless day job - a carpenter building molds. Steven believes the answer is because of gratification, specifically delayed gratification.

I think a better question would be to ask, why does he work as a carpenter? What makes him do the same monotonous thing every day? Why would anyone work a mindless job? The only reason I can think of is for the paycheck. In other words, for the reward. If the task itself is dull and boring you create interest by adding a reward structure. In the case of Ultima Online the reward is building a bigger house or getting to a higher level. In the case of a shitty job, it's getting paid. Troy Steele is in it for the reward.

A paycheck, a quest for epic level gear, and a Star from Mario are essentially the same thing. They are a reason to play. What happens if you take that away? With a shitty job, take away the paycheck and people will stop working. Take away the Stars and no one plays Mario. Take away the epic level quests and people stop logging in.

Or do they? Will people play a game without a goal? Of course. They will do it for the fun of it. They like jumping around with Mario. They find their job fulfilling. In other words they have intrinsic motivation. They've set their own goals, and made their own achievements.

I think it's more important for a game designer to create mechanics and systems that are enjoyable for their own sake. Motivation is more of a symptom of a good game than it is a cause. I wish people would write more about what makes a good mechanic, instead of what makes a good achievement.