The Impact of Achievements & Trophies -- Recognition that Motivates

As a form of recognition and position the Achievement has progressed to the point that it is not simply game developers, publishers, and online services like Microsoft's LIVE and PSN that are now rolling them out. An independent system of Achievements has been added to digital media distribution sites like STEAM for PC, and many game titles that otherwise do not participate in an Achievement scheme have added them.

Most recently the Playfire Gaming Community (https://www.playfire.com) -- a website and community that is best known for its game popularity polls, personal game play statistical tracking for the LIVE, PSN, and STEAM services, and its free custom statistics badges that members can use in their blog and chat board posts and as part of their email signature, has implemented its own Achievement system that awards Achievements for earning Achievements in the original Achievement Systems!

Among the more unusual Achievements that can be earned by members of that gaming stats site are:

-- Forever Alone Achievement (for gaming on Valentine’s Day)

-- Play on Christmas Achievement (for gaming on Christmas)

-- Play on New Year's Day Achievement

There are also Achievements for the number of unique games, the number of Achievements unlocked in a month, and for reaching a set number of Gamerscore Points. To add further value to the site it rates the difficulty of each Achievement in games into the categories of "Ultra rare, Very rare, Rare, Uncommon, and Common," and keeps track of how many of each you have by accessing the publicly available statistics from the popular gaming communities online.

Clearly the Achievement has become the universal standard for accessing the average gamer skill level, position, and status in the gaming subculture, a development that suggests that the phenomenon is here to stay.