In Praise of Being Praised

It all began in the confessionary. Graham was telling us how he almost stopped playing videogames forever (I don’t think he would though) when we started debating about how to algebraically measure a game. It eventually came down to issues related to in-game grinding, which led to issues related to grinding for achievement points. I love to make fun of Graham’s inexplicable (well, to me (and everybody else) at least) gaming tastes. With this debate I might just have just given him the ammo he so longed for to fight back.

I’m an Achievement Whore.

Pretty obvious, right? After all, I am the guy who posts fictional achievement messages into his own stuff. Coincidentally, I am also the leading writer in terms of Nightmare Mode’s “writerscore”. Also important: who cares? Well, I do. That’s more than enough for me to keep posting these things. And….. ooooops! I did it again!

I don’t have a Gold membership for Xbox Live. I tried playing Gears of War online only once and discovered that I suck at it. Nevertheless, I have finished both games at the “Insane” difficulty. Why? Because of the “Suicide Missionary” 150 G Achievement, that’s why. It is a pretty sweet felling to receive that little badge after all that work I’ve had defeating the lambent Brumak (well, the Brumak itself was pretty easy, but who cares? I’m trying to make a point here!). That little badge is now added to my gamer profile. By comparing my profile with Patricia’s, I can see that – despite being able to kick my ass online – she hasn’t finished the game on Insane yet. I feel a bit of pride because of that.

Receiving virtual Achievement Points for virtual accomplishments is probably one of the biggest innovations of this generation. It’s even bigger than motion sensing and 3D graphics, because the concept of granting achievements can be applied to the real-world accomplishments as well (they ARE an incentive system, after all). They are more than a mere incentive system though.