The achievement spam

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about how achievements have lost their meaningfulness.

Achievements are a simple method to reward players for playing and exploring the game. Depending on the game, achievements are a reward for completing the game, exploring the virtual world or even doing things in an unusual way. Sometimes, achievements are even combined with additional rewards the player receives for getting a very complex achievement. Furthermore, achievements do not require a lot of additional development as they just check if a player has fulfilled a certain requirement.

The underlying idea of the achievements follows the principle of a flow inducing activity. Each achievement provides the players with a clear goal, a constant feedback about their progress and a meaningful reward. For instance, a player can get an achievement for collecting a certain amount of items. The achievement itself describes the requirement and shows a progress bar to provide the player with a constant feedback about the own progress. As soon as the player has collected the right amount of items, an information is displayed that the player has unlocked the achievement.

The first time I got in contact with achievements was as they got added to World of Warcraft (WoW) with the release of the update that prepared the world of Azeroth for the release of the „Wrath of the Lichking“ expansion pack. At this time, WoW featured 745 different achievements that belonged to eight different categories. Amongst other things, WoW players were able to collect achievements for completing quests, exploring the world, defeating raid bosses or fighting against other players.

An achievement in World of Warcraft.

Although the achievements have not changed the gameplay itself, they added a new layer of meaning to the activities in WoW. For example, completing an instance for the very first time was rewarded with a new achievement that provided the players with a feeling that they have achieved something meaningful. Some of the achievements provided the players with hard challenges and, as a result of this, contributed to a player’s reputation as they were a direct representation of the player’s skill level. Furthermore, the achievements provided the players with new ideas they could try out in the game world in order to unlock some special achievement. This new game mechanic even encouraged players to revisit old places to complete their achievement collection. In conclusion, the achievements were a great system to revitalize old content and to keep players longer engaged in the current content.

Since then, achievements became one if the most easiest ways to keep players engaged in a computer game as they are very effective and easy to implement at the same time. Today, the game mechanic is being implemented in the majority of the current computer games. Some computer games are even rewarding the players with an achievement for starting the game for the very first time. As a result, achievements lost most of their meaningfulness as they have become a common element of computer games. Personally, I do not even notice anymore when I get a new achievement as most of them are rewarded for just playing the game.

In conclusion, achievements are a great way to reward the players as long as they only reward important milestones during the gameplay. This way, the players associate them with important moments during their gameplay and feel rewarded for their performance as they then have achieved something meaningful.

Currently, World of Warcraft features 2587 achievements belonging to 12 categories.