Microsoft: 2.5 billion Achievements served

by Richard Mitchell { Apr 6th 2009 at 8:30PM }

In a Gamasutra article discussing the use of Achievements in video games, Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg let it be known that, to date, gamers on the Xbox 360 have unlocked 2.5 billion Achievements, nearly 150 Achievements for every Live subscriber. Furthermore, 360 gamers have accumulated a gamerscore of 54 billion points. Said Greenberg, "We never anticipated this reaction... where there are Achievement fan sites and people playing games that they would never play."

The article goes on to examine the implementation of Achievements throughout the game industry. The piece notes that games with more Achievements actually sell better than those with seven or fewer, though Achievement numbers also correlate with production budgets. Several developers chime in on the best way to create Achievements, including Infinity Ward, Black Box, Turn 10 Studios and Naughty Dog.

All the developers use Achievements in different ways, encouraging different play styles, rewarding players for trying new features or just patting users on the back for doing something cool. Turn 10 is even using Achievement data it's gathered to help improve its next title. Anyone interested in the psychology of Achievements should give the article a read. You should also play this, right now.

Tags: achievements, business, trophies

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Cj @ Apr 6th 2009 8:32PM

Its Avatars fault

Alex @ Apr 7th 2009 1:27PM

"people playing games that they would never play."

I reckon about 0.5% of people who played Avatar played it for the game. The other 99.5% of people who have played it are the kind who are trying to compensate for something by having a high Gamer Score.

Nynjatic @ Apr 6th 2009 8:34PM

Wow....Thats a lot. I didn't think the XBL community would have that many Achievements. The gamerscore is huge to. The XBL community sure dedicated a lot of time to those gamerpoints....lol

Rhamsey @ Apr 6th 2009 10:56PM

im a trueachievements addict... sadface at my life

eNrique @ Apr 7th 2009 1:20AM

Something like this

http://tinyurl.com/360achievement

Moptimus Slime (Gobot in disguise) @ Apr 6th 2009 8:34PM

"Several developers chime in on the best way to create Achievements, including Infinity Ward, Black Box, Turn 10 Studios and Naughty Dog."

one of these Devs doesnt belong in a Microsoft article.

Can YOU guess which one?

Sly (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ Apr 6th 2009 8:38PM

i was thinking the same thing. unless they somehow managed to include trophies with achievements.

nick @ Apr 6th 2009 9:10PM

Was thinking the same thing, but then again, the links send you to a listing of ANY article pertaining to those developers. After browsing a few, and not seeing anything related to discussing how those developers deal with achievements, I simply gave up looking.

Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Apr 6th 2009 9:17PM

Click the Gamasutra link to the article. The article actually covers achievements and trophies. But good try...

sony boy @ Apr 6th 2009 8:36PM

well, sony probably has more trophies served!!!! /sarcasm

whylekat @ Apr 6th 2009 8:36PM

Ahh yess, just another prime example why the 360 is way better then ps3.

Sly (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ Apr 6th 2009 8:39PM

ps3 has trophies. every game released from now on has them. they're pretty much the same as achievements.

Inect @ Apr 6th 2009 8:40PM

Why???

SoshiKitai @ Apr 6th 2009 8:49PM

I have one quip against trophies though: The pictures aren't as pretty than most achievements.

...I don't like to get achievements for the sake of badges or for score, I just like how pretty they are. @_@

Sly (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ Apr 6th 2009 9:02PM

@ SoshiKitai

fair enough.

whylekat @ Apr 6th 2009 9:09PM

Ps3 has trophies NOW.. they just started using them like last summer! Meanwhile 360 had 'em for it's entire lifespan.

And ontop of that, most of them weren't retro-active when Ps3 intiated trophies. So you'd have to play some laggy Ps3 game all over again.

So weak.

Sly (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ Apr 6th 2009 9:23PM

laggy ps3 game? what the hell? have you ever played on a ps3? no? so stfu. and who cares about replaying a game? i would gladly replay a good game.

Moptimus Slime (Gobot in disguise) @ Apr 6th 2009 9:43PM

play through a game again?

http://www.ieatbees.com/pics/fgsfds.jpg

Bissy Boy (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Apr 6th 2009 10:11PM

The only reason I think trophies are better in terms of a barometer of skill is because they are based in bronze, silver, gold and platinum. An achievement is just an achievement and has an arbitrary amount of points given for each one. You see someone's gamer score as a whole but you don't see which achievement they got that was really hard without browsing through their list. Conversely, you look at someone's trophy card and you see how many silver, gold & platinum and it tells you how dedicated or what their skill level is defined as by a level system instead of a total score.

At their core they are similar but I think trophies are just a better version of achievements which makes sense because they came long after achievements and were influenced by them. However, achievements have been around since the 360 was released and are done so in every game.

What's Nintendo's excuse at this point?

Markez @ Apr 6th 2009 11:23PM

Seriously what is Nintendo's excuse at this point? I acknowledge it's just a superficial meaningless #, or qty of trophies, but I enjoy them quite a bit and the replay value for my games that they bring.

Markez @ Apr 6th 2009 11:26PM

And yeah, Johnny, you're right on about them being better as a gauge of skill, makes a lot of sense. Hell I played like 2 games of the 1st Scene-It back when I got it and racked up more cheevos than I got out of GoW or GTAIV individually after beating them.

mahouneko @ Apr 7th 2009 5:32AM

I think achievements should be rewarded when the player pulls off a very difficult stunt/victory. Good example would be completing a convoy escort with no convoy and unit lost in the mission. It really shouldn't be rewarded to players who get to a segment of the game's story. Otherwise, the situation turns into something that Joystiq has already taken the time to parody.

Jeebus F-ing Christ, f-ing Joystiq comment system.

Bowser Rogozhin @ Apr 7th 2009 6:53AM

"What's Nintendo's excuse at this point?"

Not enough people care for its implementation. It's a waste of time.

Lord Negatron @ Apr 7th 2009 9:57AM

No Whylekat...and of all the Thundercats available and you chose one of the sissy twins...

vgxtremist @ Apr 6th 2009 8:37PM

This is a testament to the progress of people playing video games, the ginormous waste of time and yet time that I personally wish was spent on gaming.

Like sleep.

The Dark Wayne @ Apr 6th 2009 8:39PM

I love achievements, they're fun and I get more out of my games. But please, for the love of God, stop making games that have achievements for XXX Games/Hours/Kills/Matches played. It's one thing for Gears of War 2, where it's still annoying, but another thing that games that sell abysmally. Seriously, Chronicles of Riddick has an achievement for 10,000 people and winning 1,000 matches. Do they really expect it to be that popular? Because i mean, come on, it's not, and even if it was, is the multiplayer going to be that fantastic that people will want to do that?

Arkhetype @ Apr 6th 2009 8:44PM

Play the multiplayer. It is fantastic. I like it better than I like Halo 3 and think Halo 3 is the shit.

The Dark Wayne @ Apr 6th 2009 8:46PM

Yeah okay, I love Halo 3 too, but I havent played 1000 matches in it

lasersanchez @ Apr 6th 2009 9:06PM

Agree completely. It's kind of a kick in the pants when they barely give you more points than you get for doing something completely mundane like pressing start or beating the first mission. They just end up taking space on a game's list.

The Dark Wayne @ Apr 6th 2009 9:21PM

with respect achievements can be hard to make satisfying. On one hand you dont wanan have to kill 10,000 people or log 240 total hours or whatever, but you dont want to get an achievement for pausing or not having multiplayer (Matt Hazard, while it might have been funny, it certainly shouldnt be a basis for other games). I like achievements like Fallout 3 or Fable 2. With Fallout 3 they were pretty basic, you got all the ones for completeing sidequests and killing x amount of people, but then you also got ones for being good or evil and experiencing the game in a different way. The same with Fable 2, stuff like the "dye all your stuff black" or " have to wives" "have an orgy" they're rewarding in that they arent boring grindfests or painfulyl difficult, but encourage you to just play the game in ways you might not normally do it.

lasersanchez @ Apr 6th 2009 9:58PM

Good points. I don't like when games have achievements like "beat in less than x hours" or "do this x amount of times before the end" and not give any sort of clock, counter, or other indicator. Prince of Persia had one for finishing under 12 hours and only getting saved 100 times in a playthrough, but I know if I didn't get either achievement after beating the game I would've probably given up on games for a few weeks. RE5 at least let you replay certain sections to perfect your time/score so you can get some of the achievements.

Bissy Boy (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Apr 6th 2009 10:21PM

There are two things/situations implemented I don't like about trophies in general.

1. Forcing a user to play online to get all the trophies.
2. Making me buy DLC to get all the trophies.

StGermain @ Apr 7th 2009 4:50PM

There aren't too many games that got it completely right in my opinion but I really like the way achievements are done in PGR 4 (contrary to PGR 3). You don't have to be the world's best racer in order to get the achievements (appart for maybe 50G's) AND they are actually fun to do.

ice~ @ Apr 6th 2009 8:40PM

I love gamerscore...I LOVE IT! I can't sleep without it! Or breathe! I need a psychologist!!

Arkhetype @ Apr 6th 2009 8:43PM

I like getting achievements for games that I like and respect gamers who do the same. I do not respect gamers who play games just to get the achievements. Thats another story all together.

Obie @ Apr 6th 2009 8:45PM

My favorite achievement has to the the "Little Rocket Man" from Orange box.
Walking through the whole campaign with that garden gnome and launching him into space was one of the most fun I ever had getting an achievement.

When an achievement enhances gameplay, it's truly a great thing. I hate "collect a thons", like the flags in Assasins Creed. If something is tedious and boring, I say screw it and don't bother.

The Dark Wayne @ Apr 6th 2009 8:47PM

i liked the orange box achievement where you got 5 points for either hitting the train station guard with a can or putting it in the trash

Obie @ Apr 6th 2009 8:48PM

Yup, or playing the entire Episode one campaign firing only one bullet.
I have to say Valve does some nice work with achievements.

cloud858rk @ Apr 6th 2009 11:53PM

The Orange Box had some awesome achievements, I remember that getting all the lambda caches really got me to explore more, going places I wouldn't have before.

darthpepito @ Apr 7th 2009 2:40AM

i liked the assassin's creed "personal vendetta" achievement. it is in the same category as the flags, as in it's a "collect-a-thon" type, but it felt better. i wasn't collecting some arbitrary object, i was hunting down and fighting these mini-bosses. and each was fun, because instead of thinking "oh, there's a flag, i'll just jump up there and get it" i thought "how can i go about killing this guy effectively" as each templar was in a unique location, it changed how i went about it.

Psychofemm @ Apr 7th 2009 11:44AM

I completely agree...

Achievements make you do something you wouldn't normally do that are insanely fun.

mine is the late added Halo 3 achievement where you have to beat the last part with 4 people all in ghosts.

Holy Crap I couldn't stop laughing. it was a blast!