Weekend Reading: Achievements, Command Lines and Cheaters

I don't fully understand Achievements (or Trophies, for that matter). I get what companies like Microsoft and Sony are trying to do with them: make gamers interested in playing and replaying a game to get those elusive gamer points and the bragging rights that come with them. I do understand why games sporting nicely implemented Achievement systems sell well. But I fail to see how any game lover could attach any value to them at this moment in their existence.

Exhibit A: In Fallout 3, on the PC, you can get all the Achievements by typing a few words in the command line. And then you can tell others how awesome you are and that you've managed to get all those Boobleheads. There's a group of people (a minority, I hope) who are getting the PC version of the game and give it no play time. They only need it to get the Achievements, which, thanks to Games for Windows Live, are added to their overall profile.

Exhibit B: You're one of those Team Fortress 2 players who are good enough or persistent enough to get those rare Achievements rolled out for shooting 100 Spies with one hand tied behind your back as they perform back flips (not actual Achievements). The problem is that other people have it and you can bet that they got it using that custom made level that is only used to farm this particular Achievement. Yes, players do that in order to gain those small images and descriptions which seem so important to them.

What's a rational, seasoned gamer to do? Well, they could first ask themselves who needs achievements, trophies, or cheats, then search for an answer. I believe that, at the moment, we need to return to the simple pleasure of playing a game for what it can offer as far as story, gameplay and personal experience are concerned. If we want to talk about the game, we can do it by using our words, our ideas, our observations rather than relying on some little badges displayed somewhere in a profile. It's a good way of also making games more personal. The PC games of old, like Alpha Centauri or Baldur's Gate, didn't feature Achievements or Trophies but they generated, in my case, some of the most interesting conversations about videogames. It's the power of a good game.