If Microsoft had been serious about maintaining a thriving Indie scene on the Marketplace, it needed to allow creators to bundle Achievements with their games.
The primary focus when playing a game should always be how enjoyable it is - nothing else. But given Achievements' prominence in today's gaming scene, the awards add something meaningful to games for certain people.
It's why so many iPhone games, for instance, have their own 'medal' systems: to try and emulate the thrill of gathering Gamerscore.
So to deprive indie games of Achievements is essentially relegating them to the status of games unworthy of the system, and while there are plenty of shat indie titles to be avoided, every once in a while a gem does break through.
We can understand why Microsoft wouldn't want to attach Gamerscore points to indie games. Every developer going would churn out dozens of 'Press Start to earn 200G' for 80MSP and earn easy money. But Achievements and Gamerscore needn't go hand-in-hand.
Indie games could come with a handful of zero point Achievements: six would be a sensible number (exactly half the number of XBLA games).
That way, nobody would be able to boost Gamerscore with masses of terrible indie titles, nobody would be making games to increase Gamerscore either, but those indie titles that were getting purchased and played could get a little bit more exposure by appearing on Gamercards and profiles.
It's a sacrifice worth considering, however, to help push the forgotten front of Xbox 360 gaming into the spotlight it truly deserves.
Order Xbox World 360 magazine here and have it delivered straight to your door.
Comments
7 comments so far...
chronicwombat on 20 Feb '11 said:
I have a love/hate relationship with achievements. as the article says its great to see when you played a game and how far you got, and have a record of that. on the other hand i would never go to a site that lists all the achievements for a game and work through ticking them off. for me that kind of obsession totally ruins the immersive experience that games offer. i have tried 'ticking off' achievements before. i found myself spending so much time on a game not having fun but just trying for achievements that i end up hating the game. so on the whole i dont really care much for them, but i can totally see how achievement hunting could get addictive and/or competitive.
LegendarySins on 20 Feb '11 said:
Really good article and totally agree. Good thinking.
Masked_Bunny on 20 Feb '11 said:
The score of achievements really doesnt matter to me (appart from the daft ammounts like 3 or 7 at the end, why cant they all end in 0 so they can keep my score neat)
I'll go achievment hunting if the game is fun and I see it as a way of showing that I truely enjoyed the game to spend the time hunting them to completion.
To date the only games I've done this for are Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.
hi0marc on 20 Feb '11 said:
At the end of the day i care squat about achievement boosting, if you want to waste your time fair enough.
But if it means genuinely decent titles are pushed to the back the world is at a loss, and that shouldn't happen.
MutilateTheDead on 20 Feb '11 said:
To solve the fact that all indie games would have the 'press start to get 200 ms points' if achievements were brought in, indie games devs should only be allowed one 50g achievement and it should be for completing the game or main quest on any difficulty.
nolim on 20 Feb '11 said:
They just need to strike a good balance so that buying an indie game just for the points simply isn't worth it. If the cheapest arcade games are 400 MS Points and can yield 200 gamer score then an 80 point indie game should have a total of 20 gamer score to award. Four achievements at 5 points each would be a nice addition to any indie game.
8-bit-zombie on 22 Feb '11 said:
I don't like achievements myself but I can see that it would help them sell more, but the main problem with indie games is the need to be connected to xbox live at all times when playing the games. its something I still don't understand, I mean I bought the game, once its on my HDD microsoft should no longer have any responsibility to ensure gamer safety so why cant I play the game offline?