The Impact of Achievements & Trophies -- Recognition that Motivates

When Microsoft set out to develop the original Xbox console it based much of its goals and the features of the device on its experiences in helping with the development of the Sega Dreamcast; the involvement of Microsoft in that particular project being more accident than intent, as it found itself taking up the banner and sharing in part of the development process and game creation as an offshoot of its unofficial feud with rival game and hardware manufacturer Sony.

Sega's Dreamcast was clearly an idea and a concept that was before its time, but it was a good idea and one hell of a concept! (For a deeper understanding of that, please read the GU Feature Piece The Top Ten Most Influential Video Game Consoles of All Time, Gaming Update, December 21, 2011).

Microsoft joined Sega in its recognition that online gaming was the future for console gaming, and that while the PC gaming world had a headstart where it was concerned, it would not take much to build parity in the world of console gaming! It was that conviction that is behind one of the key pillars for the greater Xbox strategy -- the other key pillar was the integration of entertainment options into one highly focused platform (Microsoft's Xbox whatever the model designation ended up being).

Sega's attempt to capitalize on the growing online gaming trend was an all-or-nothing shot, and as it turned out its launch of the Dreamcast in 1999 -- which included online support as a standard feature for the gaming device -- turned out to be nothing. The spread and expansion of a Broadband Internet Access structure that Sega was counting upon failed to materialize on time, and as a result while the gamers were willing, the world was not. Not yet anyway...

Microsoft watched and learned, so that when it was ready to launch its Xbox it would succeed where the Dreamcast had failed -- with the most crucial of the decisions it made being to delay that launch until the day when more gamers used an Ethernet cable to connect their PC and console to the device that gave them 'Net access than the other way around.

The blokes in Redmond also understood that to succeed their console would need to have -- as standard features -- that Ethernet connectivity, a hard drive for mass storage, an optical drive for game media, and a tightly integrated and robust online presence in the form of a service that, while it was primarily accessed and accessible via the console, also had Web-based access around which a community might be built with just a little effort and guidance!

When the Xbox launched on November 15, 2001, the foundation that was to be its online service was largely in-place but remained underemployed until the following Summer (2002), when it was officially christened as Xbox Live and had the full and willing support of the majority of the game publishers as well as a minimal game development infrastructure at Microsoft to provide a series of games that leveraged its unique set of services and gaming environment to the hilt!

Microsoft's announcement that there would be 50 Xbox LIVE-aware or enabled titles by the end of 2003 was a major PR coup -- as was the expansion of its core features, which included an official distribution channel for game updates, expansions, extras, and DLC-- even for games that technically had no online presence! Features like its "Friend List" and the deployment of an Identity of Record (a single identity across all titles regardless of the publisher) that was made available via the LIVE service in the form of your LIVE Gamer Tag, when combined with services like dedicated online chat and messaging, the creation of both a security team AND a rapid-response code crew whose job it was to implement fixes and the suggestions made by the customers for the service gave it a level of responsiveness and immediacy that had never been seen or experienced before by gamers, and for that matter outside of LIVE, has not been seen since.

The fact that the service was subscription-based initially allowed Sony to attack it very effectively, leveraging the fact that their online community and service was free only permitted the competition a brief edge -- as the differences in quality and responsiveness between the two services quickly became apparent -- but it was Sony's continued failure to implement content and expansions to their online service that they had been promising for years that finally put to rest the issue as to whether or not paying for access was a negative. When Sony adopted its own version of the Game Achievement Scheme using Trophies, and then began charging a subscription fee for higher-level access to services on PSN these differences no longer existed.

Of all of the distinct services that originated on the LIVE Service it was the Gamer Score and Achievements Systems that had the most profound effect upon the world gaming community.