You don’t need to have read Sun Tzu or Voltaire to have heard some people say that “Life is all about the journey, not the destination”. In fact, you could even hear me say it from time to time.
Recently I was having a discussion with a friend, trying to convince me to play a particular game with them. As I was explaining that the game loop wasn’t appealing to me, and was asking if there was instead fun things to work towards that could entice me, they summed it up into “the game is the game, you know”. And I instantly thought it was a really interesting point (although not appropriate or able to convince me). Do we play video games because of core fun mechanics we enjoy, or do we do it in fact to reach a goal we aim for? Are video games about the journey or the destination?
When I started playing games at a young age, I never considered that question. Playing was the point of the game for me and there was nothing else. But the games were so much more simplistic, there often wasn’t even an “end”. Or if there was, almost no one was expecting to reach it anyway. I’m talking about the 80s; about Invaders, that had no story; about Impossible Mission, that was so hard; about World Games, that was just a bunch of mini-games; about Bruce Lee, about Centipede, about Kings of the Beach. And that’s why I remember being a bit confused when later on, as we were all growing up, I read more than one gaming article talking about how in the old days we used to work so hard to reach the ending cutscene, which was shitty back then but we so wanted to get to it!? Well, no, I didn’t. We did see some evolution with point & click games first, where we wanted to get to the end indeed, but those articles never mentioned anything about that, overlooking a very important changing context and therefore mixing things up and missing the whole point. Because as I can see the picture being drawn, it would seem the industry and its player base changed multiple times in its history. It started with a focus on the core game mechanics, designed to make you have a good time (or waste your time if you saw it as a parent), but then shifted to making it only a means to an end, and then maybe changing back again.
Because many modern games (or maybe we should concentrate on free to play Games as a Service) are designed to never have an end (if you ignore the inevitable server closures of course…). Their goal is to create a game loop so “good” that players keep coming back. Therefore, seemingly making it all about the journey, given there is no destination. And this is where it gets really interesting. Because if the end cinematic of older games were considered as the motivating factor to play a game, then we can think of the different unlockables in modern battle/season-passes the new motivators. And if they are, then we can consider them the end goal just the same, but with the difference of it being a movable “finish line”. The publishers of those games simply keep moving that goal post to create that loop they so want to create. Now if we only consider those external motivation factors, we are clearly in murky water with no clear way to differentiate between a game with an end and one without, as they all have one. After all, think of one of the former type that gets an extension that continues the story, or a sequel. It really is all the same in the end. So, let’s forget about those extrinsic factors, as they won’t help up answering the question at hand between “Journey” and “Destination”. Instead, now might be a good time to talk about my holidays.
My favourite type of holidays is Road Trips. I’ve done many of those and my best holiday memories all come from them. The type of holidays that is all about the Journey. I have many times asked myself why I like those so much. And I always end up thinking about the bonds that were built during the travelling, the chance encounters, the random events, the unexpected accidents and joy of discovery with zero planning. What is good about the journey isn’t the journey. It’s the time it puts aside that allows all the opportunities to occur, that cannot otherwise happen if you don’t take the time, give up control and let “fate” take care of you. On the other hand, I have also many times travelled to a place and hated the travelling bit. It’s always the return journey in particular that is so annoying. If my time off is over, why can’t I just magically teleport back home instead of waiting in this airport for my delayed flight? The journey really is the worst part of those trips!
How about running? I’ve been running regularly for several years now but before I managed to make it stick, I failed several times at my attempts to become a jogger. I wanted to do it to keep fit, a very nice goal indeed, but found the act of running boring and the end goal wasn’t ever enough to make me endure the “torture” for more than a couple of weeks. The way I made it stick this time was completely unexpected and was not because my personality changed so much that I now loved the act of running. In fact, I simply brushed aside the act of running and instead looked at it as a time to get fresh air and enjoy the city I decided to live in (I never run on a treadmill). It probably helped that this was during COVID and so it really was literally my only way to get out and get fresh air. All of a sudden, the running that I found so boring wasn’t important, and all I could see was how in one act, I both had a wonderful time rediscovering the area around me and was getting fitter again.
And this can nicely take us back to our video game question of the day. Because the answer really is: it depends. The thing is, the better we are ready for something, the better we will take it. This is true for a ball someone throws at you, it’s true for a presentation you have to do at school or work, it’s true for the holiday you decide to take, as you need to know which mood you are in this time, either taking your time or on a mission to see and do everything a city has to offer. And this is true for a video game, that you will receive differently to another person because you have different taste or expectations.
This is why I play games for different reasons depending on how close to my personal taste they are. The vast majority of the time, I need the core mechanics to grab me and I couldn’t care less about a destination. In fact my favourite type of game is one with no end. The game is the game. Other times I play with the need to have a satisfying end. And while those may not be my favourite type of video games, they instead are the one that have the potential to generate the biggest pleasure and emotions when I get there. In those cases, the journey just has to be good enough to not make me drop the game before I get to the end. Personally, I like to have both types of games in my library.
And I believe all players are the same. We all have genres we appreciate more than others and that we’d play any day of the week for no reason other than enjoying the ride (the journey). And others where we are more focused and working on a goal (the destination), trying to role play or make our own fun on the way there. For anything in between, some of us will simply shut them down as “not for me”, while others will consider potential options that can still make it worth experiencing. And as much as I have had so many confirmations trying out “legendary” games that I knew I wouldn’t like, I try to keep an open mind. Because there is nothing like the feeling you get when you bump into Harrison Ford cycling in the park during your road trip via Austin.
Ker
NB: You might have noticed I’ve completely ignored the achievement hunters demographic who will only play a game for Gamerscore. This is deliberate and not because it’s uninteresting, but because I thought it wouldn’t add anything useful to a topic that started about “the game is the game” and would have risked moving the conversation too much towards Gamerscore value.
It was recently announced that Crackdown 3 was delayed until 2018. Or more accurately, it was being delayed again. The game was first announced during the E3 conference in June 2014 to great fanfare. It was hailed not only as a console exclusive, but also a vehicle to showcase the power of Xbox One’s Cloud. With so many successive delays, one can wonder if the hype was warranted, but more than that, if this is a practice that still has its place?
Conferences have always been used for big announcements that either create a buzz or build up excitement. In fact there probably isn’t another industry that relies on hype as much as video games. The practice goes hand in hand with that of pre-order culture as hype is required to generate or at least build up the amount of upfront sales through pre-orders. Crackdown 3 is a recent high profile example but not an isolated one. In fact, what happened to that Cloud’s unlimited power available at our fingertip? During the same E3, Cuphead was also revealed and has similarly been heavily delayed (but “only” until the end of 2017). Those are two cases that stuck with me because I was pretty interested when they were announced. Today, I hardly care. The hype machine is a remnant of practices stuck in the past. It is used as an attempt to differentiate games lost in the profusion of choice available to gamers in the current age, but it is actually hurting it along with every section of its target audience.
A good portion of gamers enjoy early announcements and following progress and further reveals until a game get commercialised. However having so much time to wait and long for it, often generate expectations that become too big to match. The most recent and now best example is No Man’s Sky. The game fell in the two biggest dangers of the hype train: Reveal too early & Overpromise. The result is a growing number of disappointed customers getting increasingly suspicious with publishers and the industry as a whole, which leads to shrinking sales & lower revenues, to lower budget games & lower quality products. It is in fact feeding a viscous circle.
Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone. There is a number of those gamers who do get excited with hype, that don’t get disappointed. But more often than not it is because they get so involved with the game that they cannot accept it doesn’t deliver. Somehow the industry managed to get some of their customers to accept or even ask for games to be delayed, as it’s apparently better to get a good game late than a bad game on time. Now I have been working on software delivery for many years and delays have never been seen as a good thing. 4 months delay is a pretty poor show so what do you think 4 years would be? In fact being forgiving is not helping anyone. Game developers should be getting better at estimating what they are getting themselves into and not bite more than they can chew. And sometimes scaling down is the right solution, or even delivering good rather than aim for perfect and never achieve it. The problem though is gamers have also grown tired of incomplete games being sold to them full price and day 1 patches. It is hard to please everyone and the industry is finding itself between a rock and a hard place. That being said, they put themselves there and still have the power to break the circle. And the same can be said about gamers by the way…
The final section of gamers, drops along the way and end up forgetting, moving on or not caring. Which is a loss for everyone, the industry losing on a sale and the players losing on a potentially good game.
If we want to buck that trend, we may already have a solution actually. Bethesda is an interesting example to look at and may be the leader to show a different path. When Fallout 4 was announced, its release followed only a few months later. The excitement it created was genuine and the experience that followed didn’t disappoint many. The game still had many (a lot) of bugs, and could have been slated as a big mess, but it didn’t. Gamers were only too happy to be able to play it, without expectations and only satisfaction. Gamers didn’t have time to build up unattainable dreams based on vague statements or pre-rendered trailers. They simply enjoyed the experience as it was available. And this is why if Valve is by any miracle working on the holy grail of gaming, I am glad the only times they talk about it is to deny everything.
If I was to give advice to the industry, I could say “Don’t make announcements if games are not at least in QA (Quality Assurance) stage” and “Don’t lie”. Not that much to ask. But I’d mostly say to stick to quality rather than quantity, and let it speak for itself. As a consumer however, I can simply try to ignore advertisement, never pre-order, and sample before I buy. Let’s break that circle.
There is no such thing as free lunch. So goes the adage. How about free beer?
If you know the history behind the saying, it comes from a time when free lunches were used to attract people in restaurants to boost activity and revenue. The reasoning was that offering free lunch would entice the customers to spend more money on drinks. When it comes to beer, caution would be well advised. Even if no money is exchanged during the transaction, someone is paying for it, and the end user always pays their due, in one way or another. (Providing an answer to your own rhetorical question has a unique charm) If you look at the Video Games industry, there is no reason why it would be any different. Every time something is given for ‘free’, there is a cost associated to it. And it is fascinating to see how the gaming community reacts in different ways to free gaming. No matter how it is received or given, the appeal of a free item is often too hard to resist. This is a well-known and natural reaction, but it is interesting to take some time and have a look at the costs associated to those decisions as they are hardly ever considered or even acknowledged.
1. It makes you play games you wouldn’t
Being given a free game you didn’t have before, more often than not makes you play something you didn’t plan to. It’s not necessarily a bad thing of course. There will be good surprises on occasion, plus a reasonable section of players can’t actually afford all the games they’d like to play, so having free ones provides more opportunity and variety. But it also increases the chances of playing turds. If we consider this cost being simply an increased risk of playing an awful game, it doesn’t seem that bad. But the real cost rather is being made to do something you didn’t want to, sometimes without realising it. Why are so many gamers building up a ‘backlog’ that they complain keeps on ever increasing but never stop adding to, and further exacerbate their self-made plight by creating events to force themselves even harder to play them all? Everyone these days would agree forcing someone to do something against their will is wrong; how do we feel about forcing someone to do something without them being aware of it?
An addendum to that is it can compel you to keep playing something you don’t want to. This only applies to freemium or trials that unlock achievements, and to people who are completionists. But in those cases, it can make you keep playing something you hate, or force you to find safeguards and use secondary accounts. In either case, it increases your legwork.
2. It affects your judgement
The recurring event of monthly free games with Games With Gold (GwG) is a great source of information and observation of reactions. No matter how diametrically opposite some reactions may be, there are common factors that trigger them, one being the emotions of the players are being altered by the freeness of the gift.
One section of the community will always say things along the lines of ‘Can’t complain for free’. What happens is they have lowered their standards to such a low level that they have disappeared. All simply due to the fact the game is free. Now let’s imagine the GwG was reducing games to $1/£1 instead, would the same people still claim you cannot complain no matter the quality? Would they themselves be closer to having the same expectations than at full price? Would the expectations be proportional? The answer is known and the 0 price tag is what creates the predictable anomaly. On the other end of the spectrum, some will always complain how the free games are ‘shit’ and some will demand a recent AAA offering instead. I could go with the popular comment of a generation of entitlement, but as much as it may be a part of it, the principal cause is the free price tag generated higher expectations. If they are promised a gift and don’t get one, they feel let down. Think about receiving a birthday or valentine present, would you feel different if you knew the giver got it for free as opposed to having bought it? If you knew the item you wanted just went on a 50% sale, would you now expect two of them? Price always impacts our judgement, and never as dramatically as when it’s free.
The effect can be slow burning and long lasting as well. Linked to the fact you may be playing a game you wouldn’t have otherwise, forcing yourselves through it may feel like work instead of fun. In the long run, it may burn people out, impacting the enjoyment they get from playing any video game. And as your judgement may have been impacted, it can be something that is difficult to fight against.
3. It makes you forgo boundaries
Sometimes to get a free game, you need to queue at a shop, or provide personal information. Maybe you’ve had to create an account to a new website, retweet a post or authorise a Facebook app to your account’s wall, or complete a survey for a chance at winning. In each case you disclose some element of personal information in exchange of the ‘free’ item, and although tech savvy people will know how to protect themselves, each occurrence is a new risk to make a mistake.
4. It makes you spend money
If you go back to the original saying’s history and replace ‘lunch’ with ‘game’ and ‘drinks’ with ‘DLC/microtransactions’ (which you probably did instantly then) it’s easy to work out.
This time it doesn’t only apply to hardcore completionists who have to buy the DLC after being given a GwG. An even larger user base is likely to consider that given they didn’t pay for the game itself, it is fine to spend a little on extras. Probably more often on freemium games and microtransactions than GwG and DLC, but in the end it is all the same. Spending £5 on extending an experience you were given for free may not sound that bad, but the reality is that it is money you wouldn’t have spent, had you not been given the game for free. The mistake made is comparing the money you have spent to the money you could have spent; so if full price+DLC was £25, it feels as if you’ve saved £20, and that sounds a lot better than realising you normally wouldn’t have spent any and actually wasted £5… To be clear, note I’m not assessing if the spent is worth it or not (remember my objective here is to discuss the impact of ‘free’), I’m merely acknowledging the effect.
Another expression of this effect is when a free exclusive item is offered with a pre-order. The incentive is meant to rush our decision into buying and losing the free item if we don’t, which could make someone pay full price for something they’d otherwise been happy for wait a sale for.
Some say it is up to each of us to make up their mind and that nothing is forced on anyone. I say if it rains, you will get wet whether you want it or not. But you can always get an umbrella. So next time something will be given to you for free, don’t forget to ask yourself one question: What is it going to cost me?
I have been thinking about writing on this topic for a while. It has become so much part of the gaming world that it’s soon going to be hard to find a game that doesn’t have any. But thus far I wasn’t sure I had a single point of view on the matter and thought I wasn’t in a place where I could talk about it meaningfully. Recently Wargaming released some new content for World Of Tanks (WoT) and that seemed to have kicked of some pretty strong conversations on the subject. So that sounded like a good time to write my piece.
The inception of the microtransactions is not hard to pinpoint. It’s impossible. It may feel like it started with mobile apps, but the reality is they were only popularised at that stage and the moniker created. If we consider microtransactions as literally transactions of small amounts, then tiny DLCs would qualify as ones. If we considered them to also need to have a repeatable aspect to them (i.e. consumables), we could still go back to the beginning of games and arcades, as after all ‘Insert Credit to Continue’ was nothing less than the same thing. Yet they didn’t outrage anyone at the time. There were the standard worries from parents of course, but in general it was accepted that this was how those machines worked. Also the fact that contactless credit cards didn’t exist, which limited your spend to the amount of coins you had, helped reduce that worry. And finally the fact that you had to pay to start the game, made the continue not feel any special or different. Now when you consider all of the above, it may sound like platitudes or small matters, but if you look closer they highlight important facts: we were paying from the start, we were paying for a service, we were re-buying the same service at the end because we liked it.
– Buying from the start and re-buying the same thing is a key principle that drives how our mind works. Once our brained has been trained to see something as the norm, changing it down the line will be difficult to accept and seem unfair. In addition, having to pay from the start and not having a potentially unlimited spend ahead of us, gives us more control on our money. – The purchase of a service is a very important difference too and where the struggle of our society gets interesting. When we pay for certain goods, we like to think we can use it as much as we want, without having to pay again later, otherwise we get upset or we rent. Over times however the difference is not so obvious, and depending on how it looks, we either accept with pleasure, or reject with outrage. – And finally the repurchase because we liked something, deserves its own bullet point. It is an important fact not only for the customer but also as a basic commercial mechanic (alongside having something customers have to buy)
The world has changed and generational differences exist even more prominent than before, as the pace of change and technology turnover is ever more quickly increasing. But there is one main reason why the topic is subject of contention: neither side of the argument is willing to look at the other side. Pretty standard and basic human behaviour. So let’s try to look at them both.
From the Industry standpoint
Mobile games are generally seen as having the most microtransactions; or more specifically, free games on mobiles. Microtransactions are then seen as having spread from there to F2P (Free to Play) games on consoles, and then onto AAA games (High production, high volume titles). I am aware using the word’ spread’ suggests an expanding disease but am using it on purpose to convey the general sentiment from the public perspective to introduce the Industry point-of-view. Many of the big players in the industry have actually speculated that by 2020 all games will have transitioned to the microtransaction model and/or will eventually be F2P. And from a business standpoint it does make sense.
1. Financially sound The concept not being new, there are plenty of statistics available on how successful the F2P with microtransaction model is, and it now makes up over 90% of revenues on some of the most popular platforms. If you have a business mind, it’s easy to understand why something that works and generates money is worth your time. In the meantime, the cost of AAA has been steadily increasing, much faster than the retail price (I’ve touched on that in a previous blog post). So in an attempt to not further increase the retail price, the industry has been experimenting with applying micro transactions to their AAA titles. From their point of view, it is a way to achieve further revenues from the section of their customers willing to pay more, without charging the rest of the players. If you think about it that way, it is a commendable objective, the implementation of which however is tricky and at risk of alienating a lot of those who made the game popular in the first place, so it shouldn’t be applied lightly.
2. More secure Microtransactions are seen as a potential response to piracy as is considered more robust and difficult to circumnavigate than DRM (Digital Rights Management). Of course at the end of the day this all comes back to revenues and also in some cases, even microtransactions have been known to be hackable via fake servers and authentication.
Of course the industry is not as simple nor uniform as this. But most companies are not in the business of making gamers enjoy themselves; they are in the business of making money. Making games is a means to an end for them and I cannot fault them for trying. It is then up to me to decide to jump on their train, or not. And then there are other companies who conversely are in the business of creating fun and money is either secondary or irrelevant. And that is nice to know too, as long as gamers recognise what they bring and know how to support and/or thank them.
From the Players’ standpoint
Players who don’t like microtransactions are so many different breeds that it’s impossible to make a sensible single generalisation. So for this section, I’m going to approach different types of microtransactions separately instead, so that any combination of them should be able to describe all different types of players.
1. Micro-transactions in F2P There are different types of transactions and I’m going to tackle them separately but in general the public accepts more easily microtransactions in F2P games. The main gripe seems to be when the push to spend becomes egregious with overly nagging messages or ridiculous wait times designed to push you over the edge. It is a fair complaint and I find it incomprehensible when an app that is not reasonable in that aspect, still gets 5* ratings. It usually is because they buy those ratings with a little in-game gift in exchange but why don’t people wise up and update it afterwards, or simply press the button as if they were going to rate but then go back to the app? The answer probably is a lot of people are easy to manipulate and lazy; but then such a lack of ethics from companies is disquieting and concerning. So as much as ultimately the power lies with the consumer, the knowledge and psychology rests with the industry and they should balance their act.
(Talking about F2P, where I find this practice annoying, is when it infiltrate games that used to simply be free and become F2P. Solitaire anyone? But this point is F2P in general and not microtransaction so let’s leave it there and for another time maybe)
2. Microtransactions in AAA titles Now this is an especially interesting one. Those do not simply raise eyebrows but uproar. If I was asked to shell out £40/$60 upfront, how dare the publisher charge me for anything else, let alone on a regular basis? It is of particular interest because it is the most insidious one, by which I mean it looks so simple to be against but it’s actually not. And as much as I am trying to see the player’s side, this is the one I find the hardest to get. Hear me out.
The reason I struggle with it is I do not understand the rationale. I could very well agree with the fact that asking for more money from players is outrageous (I’m planning to cover DLC as a topic in a future blog post), but even if I did, if you’d make the case that for AAA to do it is even worst, I’d challenge your view. As far as I am concerned, AAA have nothing special about them when it come to that topic. To start with, I’ve covered above the fact that in relative value, prices for full games have been coming down. Then, if we’d argue paying for a title should eliminate any other expense, why would we accept DLC, Season pass and multiple editions? And I include multiple editions because if you think about it, microtransactions is akin to having an unlimited number of Special Editions, each tailored to a player’s particular need. And finally, consider a high quality F2P game that sells a ‘Starter Bundle’ and then standard microtransactions, doesn’t it sound the same as a AAA title with microtransactions?
The fact is, where companies get this wrong is not in the concept, but in the messaging. And that is enough to be unhappy with. (But I think it would help the discussion progress if AAA titles wasn’t thrown in as an argument as it allows avoiding the heart of the matter)
3. Cosmetics Let’s now look at types of microtransactions that could exist in either type of games. And again I’m starting with the one that players have most leniency towards: cosmetic changes. If it doesn’t affect gameplay then it’s ok apparently, but why? At the end of the day it still creates a difference between players into the Haves and the Havenots that isn’t based on skills at all. Isn’t that enough to affect your experience? Don’t you feel teased, even coerced, to buy at least one? Cosmetics used to be rewards often unlocked after achieving something or beating stages and it’s not fair, downright greedy, to now put it under a paywall.
4. Time savers This is a particular type of consumable, mostly used in F2P although not exclusively, that allows skipping waiting times or remove the need to grind to progress. Some players accept this as optional, allowing everyone to eventually be able to reach the same level and be able to play according to their budget. Some rightly say their time is more valuable than the cost of those transactions and that they would earn more working than they would save by grinding and not buying.
The thing is, as much as those people are quick to point out ‘grinding is not free, it costs you your time’, they are just as quick to ignore an additional cost when they choose the paying option. Gaming has changed a lot in the new millennium. It got out of a niche, out of a kids entertainment, into a multi-million industry that is far reaching. Movies used to influence games, now games turn into movies. With the change, the average gamer’s age kept on increasing, and their time has become more valuable than a little spend on a shortcut microtransaction. The industry knows it. The industry plays on it. As a result, they are currently experimenting and anxious to find the limit to milking this new adult gamer profile. This can result in stifling progress in games on purpose. Ultimately this can be seen as a lack of respect from the industry towards its public that made it what it is, and it is encouraged by those types of purchases.
The cost of goods in the modern world is not based on production costs and profit margins anymore, and even less so when it comes to services; what your target market is prepared to spend is now what things cost. And by the way, in a game of haggling, when you tell your vis-a-vis how much you are prepared to spend, you are bound to leave with the worse deal.
5. Packs Not an easy one to deal with as packs are handled differently in different games, so let’s assume this is covering packs that are providing unlimited content. Those that are limited are actually pretty fun, it is quite exciting to open a secret box and slowly but surely build up a full collection. But there is nothing more annoying than getting something completely useless, for example an equipment for a character you don’t have, or something you have already and can’t use twice. The encouragement of gambling in those cases is also dangerous but I’ve covered this in a previous blog post.
6. ‘Pay to win’ Seems I’ve kept the most contentious one for last although it wasn’t a conscious effort. It’s probably the one that has the most consensus as being unacceptable and game-breaking. It can take many forms, either permanent (e.g. OP Character/Weapon) or consumable (e.g. Premium ammo in WoT), and can be difficult to talk about, as people may have different ideas about what is game breaking and what isn’t. But let’s leave that conversation aside and assume it is. From a player’s point of view it is very unfair and shows again the difference between those who can afford it and those who cannot. However if a game is broken, be it due to microtransaction or a bug, the cause does not matter, the developers should fix it; out of respect for the players, but also in their own interest so they don’t lose their player base.
That being said, I always like to do my comparison test and ask how or why is this any different to anything else? Microtransactions are only one way amongst others to obtain such advantage. Other times it can be an unlock after completing a specific objective, so why complain about microtransactions only (or the most)? Shouldn’t we campaign for a set list of equipment simply available to everyone from the start and do away with the new accepted CoD (Call of Duty) progression system where the better people are, the more powerful weapons and perks they have available to them? Microtransactions here are only the external layer of the onion and to really fix a problem it’s always best to focus at the cause, not the symptom. I do get that for someone who may have been spending a good amount of time and/or money in a game, seeing something new and out of their reach suddenly appear, may seem not only unfair and betraying but ruining all that prior investment to rubbles. But how is that different to a great gym you used to go to all the time that suddenly closes, or a TV show you love to watch that is suddenly axed?
Conclusion
The topic has been the subject of conversations for a long time and it will remain for a while. For me, there are two main points that I reckon need to be considered to move forward. First an explanation, second a step towards progress.
The Why: People don’t like change It is hard to accept and is a long process. More than that, everyone goes through it at different pace, and that explains a lot of the differences in opinion. I spoke earlier about the difference of expectation when we buy a good or a service. In my younger days, I used to buy records and CDs, so that I could then listen to them anytime I wanted with no further costs. I haven’t been able to process the fact people now pay a monthly subscription for the privilege and are delighted with the concept. Music is changing from a Goods economy, to a Service economy, and depending on when you were born, you may have completely different point of view on what is ‘right’. The point is, we are living the change as it unfolds and it’s not easy, but rest assured things will be much better in 5-10 years time (of course there will be newer ‘issues’ to keep us busy..!)
The Progress: Industry needs to invest If they want to survive and flourish, the industry has in its own interest to avoid a complete backlash and crash of the market. One aspect they should pay more attention to and invest into is Matchmaking. Online gaming has exploded, yet matchmaking seems to remain overlooked and stuck in the past where all that matters is to find absolutely anyone and they’re then thrown together (pending NAT compatibility…). If actual smart matchmaking was available, where level/equipment/whatnot was used to create better confrontations, the difference in gear, DLC and microtransactions would all become moot. It could even create more fun and diversity: imagine a game where you fight on foot, then unlock ability to fly and get matched with people that can too, all of a sudden it feels like a new exciting game. Even better if you could activate and deactivate what you want, or like to use, at will. A second one is to be more mindful of their customers. Having become big business, so many companies want to have a piece of the pie and that generates harsh competition, financial pressure, stress, and it also means there will be many more bad apples in the bunch. Others will also get big headed and forgo their initial love that made them want to make games. But the industry as a whole needs to get better at dealing with players, listen to them, and adapt to their needs. Most of all, they need to respect their players.
I am a player, so I mostly side with the players’ best interest in mind, but I also am realistic and know companies have objectives and priorities. Let’s hope we can find a playing field where we can all achieve our goals for as long as possible. But let’s make sure it is a place that works for us, the players; and if we don’t want all games to be F2P with microtransactions by 2020, it is up to us to shape what the future looks like.
Recently I have been immersed in an old JRPG called Lost Odyssey. It was free for some reason a while ago and I picked it up without much expectations, leaving it aside untouched for a while. I remember when it downloaded, the one thing that struck me was the sheer size of it, which was huge for a 360 game. Since I started playing it, I haven’t been able to put it down. The story it tells is immersive, with characters you get attached to, and meaningful cutscenes. The gameplay is gripping too, nothing ground-breaking, almost the opposite actually, but full of options and very well done. And then there is the soundtrack. Sometimes I just want to stay on the ‘press start’ screen just to listen to a relaxing and amazing tune. It’s not very often that I can skip a travelling animation and choose not to, but in this game the soundtrack makes me enjoy everything that much more and immerses me in the experience. A few months ago Life Is Strange had a similar effect. I didn’t connect to the story that much, but the music that was supporting the game was very well thought out and appropriate, and made the experience for me.
When choosing to buy a game, I don’t think many people look at the quality of the soundtrack as a criteria, however as far as the value it brings or the rating is deserves, I believe a game’s soundtrack is at least as important as the visuals. I first realised how much soundtracks were important to me many years ago when I used to go to the cinema several times a week. Statistically I saw a lot of poor movies, but some were bearable or made better thanks to an amazing soundtrack. And I started collecting soundtracks to the point where those were the overwhelming majority of the CDs in my library. Music is not optional but sets the mood of a scene and it is no different in a game. It is even more obvious when it is absent. When you play a game with no music, you feel something is missing. And when it is there, having the wrong music can be disastrous. Gears of War is an example for me of a very specific moment when music was well used. [Beware, potential spoiler] The moment when Dom gets in the truck and ‘Mad World’ plays. The music is what made that scene work.[/potential spoiler] Soundtracks have evolved a lot since the beginning of games but one constant is its impact. There is a reason why themes like Mario’s have become iconic and so many people recognise them. Thinking about it, even something as simple as the ‘blip-blop’ of an achievement unlock, triggers emotions in many gamers.
Amongst my favourite soundtracks in games, I’ve come to realise Rockstar are pretty good at it. They understand the importance of a good music and Red Dead Redemption is a good example to start with. LA Noire had an original soundtrack of amazing quality too. And I could also name all GTA games in general, that have some pretty good radios for every taste and are always a good pick. Probably my favourite of all time would be Outlaws from Lucasart however. This is an old PC game and the original western FPS. Now I could talk about how amazing it was, that the FPS genre never had a good western themed game before this one, or how fantastic the gameplay and humour was, but we are talking about the music here. Well let me tell you that the game’s CD-ROMs were also playable on a CD player; and mine got and still get played quite a lot. It says it all I reckon. Also, the composer’s name was Clint. (Seriously, if you can grab that game somehow for any kind of money, go for it) Otherwise games that come to mind when I think about music are Wet, which has a great soundtrack that I recommend to anyone not opposed to some good old rockabilly songs. And The Saboteur, for those who love good old and jazzy types. Of course I could also name Guitar Hero (mainly World Tour and 5), but that’s a bit cheating since they are music games.
Visuals often take too much importance in discussions when I think sound should be treated just the same. If reviewers and ‘experts’ talk so much about frames per second and resolution, why not talk about sample per second and frequency too? Actually, all the technical bit doesn’t matter, it’s how we feel that counts. And I love a good soundtrack.
The length of a game has always been a difficult if important matter. Not least because how it is measured or perceived can vary greatly depending on the genre of the game. But in general, how long should a game be, to be satisfying? Or maybe more appropriately, how long can you spend on a game?
The perspective we take when considering the length question is important as it can unearth different problematics. With the game industry becoming more mature and having evolved from a kids field to a cross generation hobby, the average gamer is now a working adult. This means that the behaviours and expectations are different now from 20-30 years ago. Which could mean a shift in the game length paradigm.
If we leave aside the gamescore hunters, leaderboard chasers or other completionist enthusiasts (who would all prefer if every game could be completed as fast as possible), there is often a feeling that ‘short’ games are a rip-off. As I write this, a particular YouTube reviewer, known for being Angry, comes to mind as a good embodiment of this view. He often complains, shouting in slow motion, when a game is only ‘4 HO-UR-S’. At the same time, it is well known in the industry that players hardly ever finish a game, even story driven ones. Some may be surprised but on average, a game is only finished by 1 in 3 players. This has been going on for several years already (you can find some stats in this article). And it is not an old phenomenon either but still very much current. As I thought about this topic as a blog post, I went to check three story driven games. Thanks to the global numbers now being publicly available, here are the number of players that completed the story as of today (03/12/2016): – Grand Theft Auto 5 (2014): 16% – The Witcher 3 (2015): 20% – Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016): 35%
The fact that the average gamer is now a working adult, has most likely a lot to do with those numbers as we all have less time to dedicate to this hobby. In addition, the world today has changed in many more ways, and the amount of distractions we are all exposed to, is far greater. Which does leave only a limited amount of time allocated to each.
Back in the earlier days of video games, there wasn’t as many new games being published each year. The games were also more expensive in relative value (can find someone’s data here if needed). This meant that each game was properly evaluated before being purchased. But also each game had to last enough time to entertain, until the next ‘good’ game became available. And the length of a game was hence used as a criteria to define how ‘good’ it was, if it was worth the investment. And such length was sometimes factored as a ‘replayability’ criteria for those genres that weren’t purely story driven, or ‘lifetime’.
With the rise of sandbox and open world, all this changed dramatically. It became less clear how long was required to finish a game and instead multiple times started to emerge (Just the Story, All mission, All Achievements, 100% activities, Real 100% everything in game, …). In the old days, adding more length would have been seen as positive, but the times have changed. Furthermore, the length of a game that is experienced started to depend on the content: when enjoyed, more content doesn’t necessarily feel longer. Long doesn’t mean boring either. Repetition however can feel long winded. So the length of a game that used to be about a single player story, became more about variety.
Now if publishers know only a third of players finish games, why do they keep making long ones? Why is the number of DLC adding more to a game keep growing every year? The length of a game has moved on. The industry is now more focused on retention. They want to keep the players involved for as long as possible. They achieve this mainly by daily challenges, special events, or regular updates. Sometimes it can be to lengthen time and therefore opportunities for players to spend money on micro-transactions and/or DLC, sometimes it’s to be top of a played chart to boost company results and shares, but it’s always for a purpose.
So where does that leave us on the ideal length dilemma? Short games doesn’t mean they are bad or not worth it. And more isn’t always better either. In fact games may even be too long. The bottom line is that the length of a game should not be looked at in isolation. As long as there will be games that can provide a full experience that includes a satisfying end in a reasonable timeframe, some that provide instant pick up gameplay with infinite replay value, some that offer unlimited creativity and long term investment, there will be something for everyone’s lifestyle. Let’s just hope they make them interesting.
Following my recent posts on Vintage Gaming I thought I’d wrap it up with a list of my favorite games on old or very old systems. This is based on memories of fun had as a child, not requests for a port of any kind :)
So for someone who never had a console before the original Xbox, I’m going to be PC biased, with some games coming from playing at friends’ system. I don’t think there is relevance to a full ranking so I will list chronologically.
Head Over Heels (1987 – Amstrad CPC)
That game feels special to me. Ground breaking in its days as I think it was the first to introduce characters with different abilities that you had to use together to progress. Was at a friend’s house, but made me want a computer and I soon successfully managed to convince my parents to buy a PC ‘for school’.
Shufflepuck Cafe (1989 – Atari ST)
At a friend’s who always had all the consoles, this was one of the games we played the most alongside Bubble Bubble. I love Air Hockey so having this as a video game, with a brilliant atmosphere to top it off, great characters and AI, was pure bliss. Will always remember the Alligator in particular, who was literally impossible to beat at first, but you had to let him take the lead as he was getting a drink after each point he scored and was slowly getting drunk. What a game.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992 – PC)
Got this one free with a PC magazine at one point and dear me how good was it. My first foray with Indy adventure games was with the first original Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, but the Fate of Atlantis was more accomplished and fun. Point & Click type so not going to town with the gameplay, but the story & humour in it was something I remember giving me fun like rarely. Making the wrong moves and clicking on the wrong place was often something you wanted to do on purpose so you could get an hilarious line. Pure joy (I think I’ll have to retrieve the CD and play it again now)
Super Mario Kart (1992 – SNES)
Playing this on my friend’s Super Nintendo is what for the first time made me want a console over my PC. Never actually did, but shows how much I enjoyed this game.
Micro Machines 2 (1994 – PC/MegaDrive)
Gameplay at its best. Forget the 3D version turd they later produced. Forget Forza or any of these. This is simply the best racer ever even to this day. The toilet seat oval track being the best racing and laughs I’ve ever had with friends.
Chrono Trigger (1995 – SNES)
Final Fantasy was a genre defining franchise at the time and I played all of them (up to VII) with delight. But Chrono Trigger was special. The very diverse cast of character, the time travelling, the music score, all worked together beautifully to create a masterpiece.
The Pandora Directive (1996 – PC)
This game creeped up on me when it came bundled with Final Fantasy VII that was the game I really was buying. Ended up being one of my best experience ever on the PC. In those days, the gaming industry was experiencing with real life actors and FMV scenes to provide new cutting edge entertainment, and it was mostly cheesy and catastrophic. But this game got it right somehow and I remember being properly amazed and entertained. Film noire atmosphere, quality gameplay, scenario and acting, with genuine branching storyline and multiple endings, made for a unique and very special experience.
Outlaws (LucasArts) (1997 – PC)
This was the FPS that made a difference for me. Set in the Wild Wild West it was the only thing that could make an FPS perfect I thought, and it had soul, humour, fantastic art style and amazing soundtrack. My most beloved FPS to this day. Stunning game, highly recommended.
Half-Life (1998 – PC)
No need to talk in length about this I’m sure. Fantastic game with scripted events that made you feel in the story. All of a sudden Doom felt like rubbish & dull. Plus the best modding community I ever saw, or at least it was the precursor to that scene. Played it for years and longer than any other game ever (bar Solitaire…). Also the only game me and my friends ever bothered organising LAN parties for.
There are others that come to mind like Barbarian (those decapitations), or Double Dragon II (sweet coop) but I know they come to mind mostly as nostalgia value. They weren’t as great as the above. That being said I probably could list more, but realise I got more than enough already. And I’m happy with all of them being real special and feeling like important milestones in my gaming history.
Almost all from the 90s, it really was the golden age of gaming.
[Note: This is a continuation of a discussion I started in the previous blog where I covered 1. Game Reboots 2. Old-school games as-is ports 3. HD remakes]
I’ll now discuss the 4th aspect of the movement I called vintage gaming.
4. 8-bit game design (pixel art)
Probably even more popular than reboots, the resurgence of pixel art games is astonishing. I can cite Shovel Knight, Fez, Super Meat Boy, Party Hard, #IDARB, Terraria, and almost never stop the list. Are those conscious design choice, budget pressure or laziness?
The Design argument Let’s look at it from a design choice first. Many of the games I listed above are very successful and very well regarded. At the same time retro style overall is in fashion at the moment (which prompted those blog posts). Is making something new look old seen as an ingredient to improve chances of success? Is being retro cool these days but won’t be in 5? Pixelation is a tool to create art that is coming from the time when it was the only way to draw anything remotely recognisable on a screen. Using that technique does not preclude designs created with it to look different. If they look similar, the reason is likely to be either the designer doesn’t know how to use the tool, or they are copying someone else’s work. The closer comparison and example of that is Pointillism art, a paint technique that digital pixelation is derived from, yet that produced pieces distinctly different from each other.
This leads me to conclude that if a game designer consciously makes their design look like pixel art, they are probably trying to surf on a trend and increase their chance of being successful. Which is fair enough from a business standpoint, but disappointing from a creative perspective.
The Budget argument And let’s look at pixelation from a financial rationale now. It seems pretty clear that there is a financial benefit to this type of development as the vast majority of those games come from the indie space. Even the behemoth that Minecraft Series has become, started as an indie game. Using pixelation on current resolution screens should theoretically allow for the creation of extremely detailed graphics, but it would be costly and not all game studios would have the means to automate the work. So using pixels at a level of details that is sufficient for the brain to do the rest of the work is a smart approach to make something that looks decent to the naked eye. But visible pixels are not the only way to achieve this. LIMBO is an obvious example to show how to use monochromatic design, and it doesn’t stop there. If you are a designer, you shouldn’t feel limited. In fact, lack of money often fosters creativity.
So I don’t buy budget as a reason and consider it a lazy excuse instead.
Now being an early days player, I can safely say I do not care why a game looks the way it does. What I do care about most is how the game plays: gameplay is king. Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine is a pixelated game that I tremendously enjoyed for example. But the pixel trend is getting tiring and I feel is stifling creativity in the industry.
Conclusion
There is a reason for everything and an audience for all games. At the same time I’ve personally hardly played any of the games I just used as examples. It probably is because I prefer memories to be left untainted, experience the old as it was and the new not made to look like the old.
I can understand the success of each of those 4 types of vintage gaming but it doesn’t mean I have to encourage it. Taking the approach of ‘everyone is free to buy what they want’, is at best not constructive, at worst misguided. Humans have been found to be poor at knowing what they want, and often getting wrong what they think they want.
This is why I hope the industry changes and turns back to being more of a creative industry than a revenue generating one, or at least as much as. And I hope it will encourage new ideas and innovation rather than rehashing the old ad-nauseum.
[Note: This is a discussion that I will split in two different posts given the breadth I’ll try to cover. So I may in a distant future go back to each sub-topic separately in more details, but I wanted to cover them all together as I think it does provide an interesting fuller picture]
The video game industry has been around for a while now. It has already gone through a crash (in 1983) and we can already count two videogame-native generations. This means the history of games and associated archive library is now aplenty, and this has led recently to the escalation of several related practices that can be questioned: 1. Game Reboots 2. Old-school games as-is ports 3. HD remakes 4. 8-bit game design (pixel art)
And the question is: are these good or bad for gamers?
1. Game Reboots
Rebooting a game for a new generation to discover and enjoy has been picking up pace in the recent years. Amongst them we could cite Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct for fighters, but also Medal of Honor and DOOM on the FPS side, and Carmageddon: Max Damage on Arcade Racing. But there are also many more coming up, like Unreal Tournament and TimeSplitters Rewind.
All these reboots have in general encountered great commercial success (let’s put Duke Nukem Forever as an example of a failure though) or are expected to.
Personally I look at this positively, as long as the game produced is of quality. The best thing about these is that in many cases, the players that buy them aren’t even aware they are reboots and enjoy them for what they are. And so they should as there is no need to know the history of something to enjoy it. Although knowing about it may change the experience, it is not a pre-requisite. As long as, again, the game is well made. If it only runs of nostalgia it will most likely be a failure. On the other hand, for those that have played it before, the expectation may be too high to match. Or they may have moved on to a different state of mind. But it is good to have the option to play an updated game again if one wishes to.
Rebooting a game is no different to rebooting a movie franchise, it’s not easy and it’s not guaranteed success either. You need to know your target audience and combine the right elements. I think the secret in these being successful, is focusing on producing a quality modern game, giving the newer players everything they like and have come to expect (high resolution, progression, multiplayer, ..) while also having a layer of referential material. As long as this layer is not obstructing a gameplay that needs to be current and efficient, it can only serve to add a positive glow, for those who know and care.
Now there is also another type of reboot, the Hitman type. I’ve ignored them for the purpose of this piece as they’d have been coming with a much shorter period from their previous games and so I consider them mainly as major iterations instead.
2. Old-school games as-is ports
Those are old games ported on next gen consoles without any change, almost verbatim (let’s ignore the addition of achievements or maybe even leaderboards, the game looks and feels the same). Recent examples are fewer and further between compared to the reboot wave, but the bigger one probably is Rare Replay. Before that there was the Arcade Game Series Series, as well as some Sonic games and the very high ratio Game Room, but also Doom (Arcade), that was just cited in the Reboot section.
Now this isn’t actually a new trend. New consoles have always taken good care of providing old games where there was demand. The key for companies is having enough demand to warrant the cost. Game Room for example was quick to shut down once its market base had been exhausted. And this is why I don’t mind those. It is actually great to be able to play an identical version of something you used to enjoy and still want to enjoy, but with the added ease of use to be on a current system. Is it lazy and opportunistic from publishers? Maybe, but no more than movies that you can purchase on a new format or a song that you buy on a device specific store. As long as there is a way to keep using something I already own, I don’t blame the IP owner for charging for the convenience of making access even easier if I wanted it. And as far as I’m concerned, the onus is on them to price it appropriately so that people consider it worth it.
3. HD remakes
HD Remakes are defined as identical versions of an existing game, but refreshed with modern visual assets. (My topic is not to discuss Ultimate editions that include DLC or ‘lost’ scenes, so although these may be included as part of a HD remastering, I’ll ignore those aspects for the purpose of my discussion) Let’s keep the model I’ve used so far and start with a few examples, we have Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Hitman HD Pack, etc… There is no shortage of those actually.
At first look and on paper, one could think those are the same thing as the old-school port, with the added benefit of getting a visual upgrade at the same time. The reality however often is that the popular old games are either ported untouched or rebooted. The games that get the HD treatment are almost exclusively not-so-old games. Games that the current generation of gamers have grown-up with, not old gamers. The generation that lives and breathes online multiplayer, DLC, overwhelming game libraries and instant gratification. The generation that gets quickly bored, even with games they absolutely love and have sleepless nights playing. And so they crave an updated version of the same thing, sometimes regularly. That is why annual release of games are viable and HD remakes have an audience worth catering for.
But is that good for the gamers or a symptom of a cash-grab industry? Well we can’t simply give way to cynicism. As I started writing this article, I had a feeling this would be the part I’d either have nothing to say or be the most negative about. The reality though is I do still remember the day I updated my TV and went from an old LED to Full HD: I was impressed. And not just a little. In comparison I also remember how little difference I noticed when I moved my collection from VHS to DVD: I couldn’t see the difference. Yet I invested heavily into it and eventually built up a 400 titles strong DVD library. I just bought into it for other reasons than just the image quality. The point is, that the value one gives to a technical improvement is relative and different for everyone. And I understand how the visual improvement of an HD version can sound like a good proposition for some gamers. But that’s never been enough for me so far.
That being said, I could have an issue if it’d come too early after the original version. An upgrade is a more interesting proposition if it is a sizable one; iterative updates are only good if they are free. How early is early, is again, a personal matter, but that’s the area where I think the industry is treading on thin ice and akin to intensive farming. Which can be fine, as long as it’s done ethically and sustained by appropriate innovation.
Pixel art is the last part I wanted to cover but given the length of this piece already, I’ll leave it to a follow-up post at this stage. Maybe I should have made separate posts…
Achievements have been around for a while now and the hold they have on the gaming world is impressive. Many communities, including TrueAchievements, have been built around them. The impact they have had on the industry is unique and I find it fascinating how they drive behaviour like nothing else before. But how and why is that so?
It is widely accepted that Microsoft invented Achievements when the Xbox 360 was created in 2005. Steam followed in 2007 and then Sony in 2008 (and mobile devices later on). Yet back in the 80s Activision had something similar where they’d reward users sending them proof of their achievements. Those were only point rewards to a single game though, Xbox was the first to have a platform wide system. And since then a lot has changed. When reading forum discussions it is easy to find some of the effects achievements have. And put simply I think they can be listed in two all-encompassing statements: – They make you do things you wouldn’t otherwise – They make you not play things you would otherwise
Do things you wouldn’t otherwise
This happens for example to gain easy Gamerscore or when one plays all of its DLC regardless of quality, in order to fully complete a game
In the past gamers used to have different types of rewards for playing a game (aside for the fun of playing). We used to have a drive to complete a story so we can enjoy a (poorly executed but amazing at the time) FMV cutscene. We used to complete additional tasks to unlock in-game items, modes, skins or characters. Those were rewards just the same and as unlocks, they are simple to understand, for a gamer would strive to have the full game available. This is where human psychology comes into play. It is human nature to feel the need of being rewarded. Feeling a sense of success and progress that provides the confidence we are doing something right and feeling good about ourselves. Video Games have understood this and played with it for a long time, providing satisfaction in a small but regular feed. They are giving the gamer a tap on the back every so often, even if it’s only a digital one. And this good feeling can take on the addictive nature of getting a fix, where we need to more and more often be congratulated and handed some ‘well done’ or reward. This applies to other (‘smaller’) rewards by the way, like earning XP or Gold. But old school rewards never got the level of popularity achievements now enjoy. What do achievements give you that you need? What makes achievements different and so powerful that they became a game changer?
This is where we need to dig deeper into the reward mechanism and how they foster intrinsic motivation while giving extrinsic rewards. I’m not an expert on the subject so won’t discuss it at length, but there are reasons to believe that the reward system in today’s gaming world provides social meaning for players through motivation, enhanced status within gaming communities, and the use of rewards as social tools. One of the main motivation for a gamer hence becomes Relatedness, where they feel the need to build their social status and connection to the wider community. Being recognised online in a world of social media and online personas. And this is only provided by a platform such as achievements, which is public and global. Activision’s old system did not provide the same level of recognition and this is what made the Xbox 360 Achievement system so appealing, unique and successful.
Some people are questioning the point of 0G achievements but they fail to see that they are nothing but the same. They serve to increase a virtual digital number, the total number of achievements unlocked. It is just a different one than the total Gamerscore but the motivation is the same: Relatedness.
Not play things you would otherwise
This happens for example when a DLC does not include achievements so you don’t play it, or when you can obtain them all before reaching the end of the storyline so you stop early
Some gamers ask directly what the ‘point’ of certain game modes is when there are no achievement linked to them. Some voice their sadness that they won’t get to play something because there is no achievement linked to it so they have no ‘motivation’ to play it. When did having a hobby start requiring to be provided with motivation?
When looking at that question, let’s first consider the two options: – either having a hobby can require motivation – or anything requiring motivation is not a hobby anymore, more a chore or work
At first it may be tempting to brush aside one of those two options as ridiculous or want to add a third option to consider: ‘it’s complicated’. But it may actually turn out to be simpler. All options could be considered to be one and only one thing, the overjustification effect. This has been covered in a very interesting study conducted in 1972 by Lepper, Greene & Nisbett. In short they took a group of children who enjoyed a drawing activity and then split them in three groups. The first one was then promised a reward, the second was not promised a reward but given one at the end and the third had no reward at all. They then stopped giving the reward. The findings are very interesting as it turns out the first group’s initial intrinsic motivation reduced, due to the existence of the extrinsic motivation, or we could say the motivation changed focus. All the while the third group saw no impact on its initial intrinsic interest. (Feel free to have a read of the whole document if interested)
Those findings I believe can easily be applied to the world of gaming today. With them we can then understand how a gamer’s motivation can change (without necessarily noticing it) from playing a game because it’s fun, to playing a game because it gives achievements. And from there naturally, if something doesn’t have achievements there is no reason or motivation to play it. This explains why some hardcore players honestly say they would stop video games if achievements ceased to be tomorrow. And that can happen regardless of how long or how much someone has been gaming by the way, as this process of change is completely out of our control and is even natural for the majority of us. The remaining question then is, would they come back to it eventually and how quickly? It would be interesting to know if someone has tried something like that, I suppose it could be called an ‘achievements detox’.
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In the light of all this, I was reflecting on what the impact of achievements has been for me and can sum it up as follows.
1. They have moved the end bar further to complete a game: As I use achievements as an evaluation of if I have completed a game, I now play things I used to ignore (e.g. Multiplayer)
Another hilarious personal and recent example is one achievement in Saints Row IV. They clearly took the piss and must have been smirking all the way but one asks you to simply press a button repeatedly for a good 10mn. No one in their right mind would waste their time pressing the same button for that long, but for 15G and/or completing the game, yeah sure! (The Minty Fresh! achievement in Saints Row IV worth 27 points: Lick the candy cane barricade all the way through in ‘The Fight Before Christmas’.)
2. But they haven’t moved it lower: I still play what I want to play (e.g. completed the Brothers game story, keep playing ‘completed’ games I enjoy, buy DLC with no achievements like Assassin’s Creed 2).
This means that so far I have been affected only by one of the two groups of impact, but there is no telling if I am at risk of gradually changing further in the future. Although given the pace it has been happening if it did, I’ll probably lose interest altogether before changing it.
All in all, the impact of achievements has been a change of behaviour for many players, which all boils down to one effect: achievements can change the reason some play games from an intrinsic motivation to an extrinsic one. And even if I’m personally doing fine, I’m wondering if I’m not getting close to thinking achievements have not been a force for good and have ended up shifting the motivation for gaming in the wrong direction. Maybe they should be phased out so that people can slowing rediscover the joy that playing a game used to provide?
Kerman's World 
