The Impact of Achievements & Trophies -- Recognition that Motivates

In an article (Gamerscore: Achievement Chore, December 9, 2009) on the website Kotaku back in December of 2009, freelance writer Owen Good interviewed Xbox gamer and self-proclaimed Achievement Whore Kristen "Smith" (not her real last name as Good chose to withhold that out of concern for her privacy) about her approach to the recognition system that has formed around Xbox Achievements and the Gamer Score that is associated with each of the Achievements that a player unlocks.

At the time of his interaction with Kristen -- she and Good were "Boosting" Achievements in the game Madden NFL Arcade on Xbox LIVE -- the practice of boosting involves two or more gamers getting together and playing a game with the sole intent to facilitate quickly and easily unlocking its Achievements, an end that is accomplished in Madden NFL Arcade by taking turns losing to your opponent.

At the time of their interview -- and interaction -- Kristen (whose Gamer Tag on the LIVE Service is CRU x360a) had a Gamer Score of over 165,000 points -- but in the world of the Achievement Whore there is no upper limit or satisfaction to be had, as it is a never-ending quest for more Achievements, and thus a higher Gamer Score.

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For some gamers it is not the chase but the catch that is important -- as is the case with the girl gamer and mom who is the subject of this piece on Gamerscore, boosting, and the one woman's need to break 200K GS.

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Kristen -- whose Gamer Tag on the LIVE Service is CRU x360a -- has a Gamer Score of 222805 when this piece went to press, explains that the games she plays are not chosen because she particularly enjoys them, in fact she often chooses her games based upon how easy the core Achievements are to unlock! A cursory examination of her gameplay activity on the LIVE Service instantly bears this trend out, as there appears to be no relationship with respect to game genre to the games that she plays.

One of the key indications that a Gamer Tag belongs to an Achievement Whore is when you find a large number of games in which only a handful of the Achievements in each have been unlocked -- that handful representing just the Achievements that require little or no effort to unlock, which means that the gamer does not actually have to play the game to obtain a boost to their Gamer Score, which is a situation that all Achievement Whores actively seek.

In fact the presence of "Easy Score" in a game is a matter that makes up the most popular subject on chat boards frequented by Achievement Whores. Sites like www.xbox360achievements.org and an incredibly high number of Achievement Blogs scattered throughout the Internet factor heavily in this subculture of the broader gaming community, though to be fair the website at xbox360achievements.org serves more than just the population of Achievement Whores in the world.

The website is used by a wide range of gamers, from casual gamers who are simply looking for hints or tips on how to best go about unlocking an Achievement that is giving them trouble, to a subculture known as "Completionists" that is made up of gamers who feel the strong and often overpowering need to unlock every Achievement in a game, unable to move on to the next game until they have achieved that goal. There are other types, subtypes, and subcultures -- in fact if you can think of it and it relates to Gamer Score or Achievements there is probably a population of gamers somewhere online pursuing it.

The question you are likely asking yourself -- assuming that you are not a member of one of these subcultures -- is, Why?

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The simple answer to that question draws us right back to the subject with which we opened this feature piece: The Motivation of Want and Desire of Recognition.

Forget for a moment that, outside of the small community of the people who are on your Friend List on the LIVE service, and the members of the chat boards and sites that you are a member of or post on, nobody else is either interested in your Gamer Score and Achievement Count, or likely to ever see it! But as far as these gamers are concerned, that is OK.

While they are seeking recognition from their peer groups, and obviously from their friends (who more often than not are also members of one or more of their peer groups), the important person that they are compelled to please is themselves! They know that they have broken the 200K mark; they know that they have perfect 1000/1000 in 57 commercial game titles, and they know that tomorrow they will make that Gamer Score 201,000 -- and for the most part that is adequate, because the recognition that they are seeking tends to be more of a personal matter.

Back in the pre-Internet era most gamers kept score -- tracked their success -- by keeping a running total of their winnings (money), whether real or imagined or both -- with the whole point ultimately being their personal best. It is recognition at its most basic level, and akin to the medals that a soldier works towards that do not involve heroism or some special deed; the collection of medals, plaques, and trophies that the amateur athlete acquires throughout their non-career in sports -- the professionals have different ways of keeping track but they do keep a personal score nonetheless!

For Xbox gamers this has -- since they were created anyway -- always been about Achievements; for those gamers whose stomping grounds are PSN and whose console of choice is the PlayStation 3, it is about the Trophies (literally -- the PS3 and its games use four different levels of Pixel Trophies consisting of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum from lowest to highest in difficulty and value) but it all amounts to the same thing, right? Well, actually, no so much anymore, because the playing field is changing... One might even say it is expanding!