#daveoshry — Public Fediverse posts

Nintendo prüft Switch-2-Spiele streng – Entwickler spricht über Freigabeprozess

https://nintendo-connect.de/heimkonsole/nintendo-switch-2/nintendo-prueft-switch-2-spiele-streng-entwickler-spricht-ueber-freigabeprozess-225157/

Nintendo prüft Switch-2-Spiele streng – Entwickler spricht über Freigabeprozess

https://nintendo-connect.de/heimkonsole/nintendo-switch-2/nintendo-prueft-switch-2-spiele-streng-entwickler-spricht-ueber-freigabeprozess-225157/

In the Soundbytes section of Edge magazine, issue 397 from June 2024, there’s New Blood Interactive CEO Dave Oshry’s commentary about achievements  – “I actually hate achievements and what they’ve done to games and our ability to enjoy them without needless gamification and meaningless rewards…” A reply from a gamer followed in the next issue, expressing how hating on something “entirely optional and easily ignorable” is a waste of energy and then there’s something else about dopamine hits. He ends with “achievements are a positive, harmless and utterly optional aspect of gaming that many players enjoy.” I agree in part and this made me think a bit about my way of seeing achievements and how important (or not) they are in my experience with video games.

When I was playing on Steam many years ago it barely had achievements. Most games didn’t have them but the feature was gradually introduced for new games and now almost all games have it. When I played Skyrim I wasn’t aware that the achievements were popping every time I did something in the game. When I recently came back to the platform I saw that I had almost 100% (let’s use 100% as a verb) the game naturally. When I finished the game I was pretty much done with it. I explored a lot, did all side quests and the main story. I went out of the beaten path as I usually do and unlocked some very rare achievements. It didn’t do anything for me because it went unnoticed at the time.

I don’t remember if the PS3 had trophies but I checked that they were introduced in this system around 2008. I played many games that were more story focused and surely I got some trophies but I can’t quite remember. It was only when I got my PS5 that the trophies started getting some more importance in my gameplay. I made sure to check the trophy list and see if I could manage the challenges and tasks. I went out of my way to do everything, even if the task didn’t make any sense. Some trophies were interesting because they opened up some aspects of the game I otherwise wouldn’t have seen, but others were just a time sink.

After getting the platinum for about 10 games I noticed another pattern in my game choice. I’d only choose games I could get the platinum for, or before picking up something to play I’d check the trophy list first and see if there were difficulty related trophies or if there were trophies that made me play the game more than once. I’d scratch those temporarily and gave priority to games I could platinum more easily. Then, going back to the harder games I’d go for most of the trophies I could unlock and leave the other trophies unfinished. For example in Final Fantasy VII Remake I couldn’t and didn’t have any interest in playing the game again on a higher difficulty or acing at the mini-games. Those kinds of trophies are empty challenges for me because they’re only skill-based. It’s the trophies that make me do something I haven’t done before or collect items I didn’t know existed that I find worth pursuing.

So by this time I was pretty much playing games with the trophies in mind and not with the game as a priority. I’d choose the games in function of the trophies they had and gave immense priority to trophy lists and guides. Eventually I wasn’t having fun with the games anymore. I feared all the time the trophies I’d miss if I carried on with the main story, or I’d have to save scum to get this or that trophy in one playthrough. It was exhausting. I don’t know why I got so obsessed with it but I think it was a mix of my obsessive nature and the internet. The idea that you’re only finished with a game when you 100% it, therefore all the games where you didn’t get all the trophies for are considered unfinished gave me some sort of anxiety.

When is a game actually finished? Is it the main story? Main story and side quests? All collectibles? Super bosses? Discovering all locations? Talking with every NPC? Getting all the trophies? Finding all hidden areas? Then why did I get all trophies in Horizon Forbidden West but my game progression in-game was still at 70%? Is the game finished or not?

Anyway, I eventually got a Nintendo Switch and one of the first things I noticed was that the system doesn’t have achievements, and I don’t know how to put this but the relaxation I felt when I played the first games on the console has lead me to the realisation that this trophy thing isn’t good for people like me. I struggle with the “easily ignorable” part of achievements. I felt free but more than that, the experience helped me rethink what I valued in my gameplay – if it was the story and experience or a trophy list and a bunch of guides. I went for the former.

Now, free at last from trophies and achievements, I approach the games on PS5 and PC from another perspective. I still check the list out of curiosity but I don’t think about doing all the tasks for completion, because usually that completion is artificial (it’s obvious to me now but it wasn’t then). I’m almost certain that people who got the platinum trophy for Elden Ring did access almost everything the game had to offer. I don’t remember anything left to do when I finished the game on Xbox and got 100% achievements but honestly I didn’t need any of it to enjoy the game. The trophies in that case, however, pointed us in directions and optional areas that could be hard to find naturally.

Apart from trophies and achievements almost every RPG has much to explore outside of main story progression and to me the completion of the main story is what defines that the game reached its conclusion and the side content is optional. Personally I do every side quest I come across out of habit and explore the entirety of the map. I collect everything I can and it’s nice to have a trophy list to check if I still have something missing. But I try to avoid freaking out if I have some trophies missing when I decided that I explored what I wanted to and considered the game finished. This text is so unnecessary but I’m sick in bed, so I have to keep going. [It was nothing serious and I’m better now.]

In sum the trophies for me are more of a hindrance than a source of something positive for my gameplay and entertainment. I use them as a tool to track my progression in the areas I value the most: side quests, exploration and collection, ignoring the tasks and challenges that don’t add any value in my perspective. However, finishing a game and exploring most of the side content and still seeing a progress bar at 60% sucks magnificently. I’m all for trophies in games because I see how much people love to see them in their accounts and bragging rights are a thing (if you aren’t a follower of the Law of Jante), but playing on a platform without them has been a return to offline sanity.

The more games I have in my backlog the less I care about trophies. I think this goes for most people who don’t have time to hit their heads against a wall and have to move on with the game because of time constraints. I prefer to prioritise 100% visual novels. They’ve made it easier to run through the games several times through the skip-dialogue function in order to unlock all the endings, routes, CGs and other extras, although in this case we’re actually discovering more story and alternate endings, and not just earning a badge. 

More often than not I’ve seen trophies being used to troll people online, questioning their skills or their investment in a game. Given this, I don’t see any advantage in having them apart from having something to write about on a blog between Xenoblade sessions and Steam Summer Sales.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/07/06/trophies-achievements-and-anxiety/

#achievements #daveOshry #edgeMagazine #eldenRing #finalFantasyVIIRemake #Games #gaming #nintendoSwitch #platinum #playstation5 #rpg #skyrim #steam #trophies #videoGames #videogames #visualNovels #xboxSeriesX