Gaming Masochism Part 1: The Endless Hunt for Virtual Carrots

Mankind has a desire to compete. We all have some sort of desire to elevate ourselves above those around us. Be it sports, academics, or some sort of other forum, human beings tend to try and differentiate themselves from their peers by going above and beyond the social norm for whatever it is he or she is trying to achieve.
Gamers, ever since the creation of saved “high scores”, have expressed this competitive spirit. Anyone who has been to an arcade at some point in their life should have at least felt some sense of accomplishment when their completion time or score in an arcade leaderboard outranked all others. Although arcades have seen their time come and go, services such as Xbox Live, Playstation Network, and Steam have given gamers to exercise their competitive urges online. Achievements/Trophies, whether you personally enjoy what they add to (or take away from) gaming, are most likely here to stay and highly influence the play involved in modern games.

So, Valve, you want me to traverse Ravenholm and figure out a way to kill zombies with only a Gravity Gun? Challenge accepted!

Take Valve’s critically lauded shooter Half-Life 2 for example. When the game was re-released in the Orange Box compilation set, achievements were added to the game that many people, including myself, felt added new possibilities to the gameplay that most people wouldn’t think of. Achievements such as Zombie Chopper, which tasked players with traversing the zombie-infested town of Ravenholm while only using the gravity gun, creating new opportunities for play that most people wouldn’t think to even try. Another example of achievements adding something fun or interesting to a game would be Red Dead Redemption, where one of the achievements required players to lasso a woman to a railroad track, then watch as an early 20th century train obliterates what was tied down on the tracks. In direct opposition to more creative achievements, there are achievements that serve as nothing more than filler for gamers to feel accomplished with. These filler achievements range from beating the game on a certain difficulty, to just doing things that one would whether there was an achievement to be earned or not, such as beating a boss battle.

Achievements do seem like a great thing, but I feel that the overabundance of “cookie cutter” achievements has destroyed the personality of a game. Completionists, or in this case achievement hunters, will try as hard as possible to complete every listed achievement in a game to increase the size of the gamer score. This desire is fine, but how many of these achievement hunters would actually go out and do some of the thing listed in achievements if there was no visual confirmation, no digital pat on the back to say: “Hey man, you’re such a winner. Here’s your 10G/bronze trophy.” Granted, there are still people who do interesting things with games that don’t have achievements tied to them, such as speed runs and special difficulty runs (3 heart only Zelda players, I’m looking at you), but those people are outnumbered by the sheer number of people who constantly chase those virtual carrots.

Does this mean I'm that good or that insane? Duke Nukem, it's clear that you are both….

That’s not to say I haven’t directly gone out of my way to earn achievements in games I like, but I certainly won’t give myself an aneurysm trying to beat Duke Nukem Forever on Insane Difficulty just for some onscreen confirmation and a gradual increase in internet ego. I understand that this is the way that some gamers have fun, and if that’s the case, more to power to you. I appreciate the amount of competitiveness and drive that achievements bring to gaming (especially single-player), but I don’t like that people can’t see past gamerscore/trophy count for what is actually important: Fun.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter for my personal thoughts and musings:

https://twitter.com/brendancrab

If you’re interested in playing with me on Xbox Live:

Gamertag: Headcrab3

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