Gamasutra examines Gamerscore and game completion statistics

Oblivion had good achievements. They seemed designed in a way to encourage you to explore without being ridiculously difficult.

The ironic thing is that multiplayer oriented games like Halo 3 or Modern Warfare have a higher single player campaign completion rate than single player titles like GTA IV or Fable II.

I'll admit, the only game I ever bothered to get 1000/1000 for was Halo 3. And that's because I was rewarded for it. But with all the add-ons later, I only made it to 1575/1750 before I stopped.

This chart would look way different if it were game completion based on difficulty. Call of Duty wouldn't even be close to Halo on the hardest difficulty. Why? Coop.

Honestly, I don't really see the point of getting all the achievements / trophies in a game. Some achievements can be a fun way to make a game last longer, but I refuse to go for the grinding ones (ie, reach 10,000 kills, etc.). Games stop being fun when I have to grind - and when that happens, they go back on the shelf. I have better things to do with my time then work towards a meaningless accomplishment.

This chart is slightly off due to the fact that they don't take in to account that ALOT of people make second(maybe even third) accounts on some hit multiplayer games for the hell of it like Halo 3 and Cod4

Im starting to see campaign rot away in the near future

"According to the feature, a game's overall difficulty is the biggest culprit from discouraging players from completing a game."

Ugh, kids today...

Very very rarely do I not finish a game I play. If I buy a game, then I will always finish it, but it's the few really bad rentals that I get from Gamefly (like just recently, Resistance 2) that I refuse to keep playing and just send it back.


"we'd also guess many of the hardcore gamers examined skipped the campaign in favor of pwnin' n00bs online."

Just so you know, you're not a hardcore gamer if you do that. Doing that more or less makes you as casual as you can get. I wish developers would lock out multiplayer until you beat the campaign, as too many casuals don't even play it.

Surprised to see R6:V2 at such a low completion rate. It was a very well done title and I would think most purchasers knew what they are getting into with a R6 game.

A chart like this begs the question - what should a developer focus on? An experience, but not necessarily an ending, or an easier, less frustrating process that leads to completion.

I hardly ever finish games.

And I can't say exactly why.

But I just lose enthusiasm for them.

So this is ignoring the fact that many gamers don't give a shit about their gamer score?

I only have 2 'completed' games and both of those are from XBL, but I played all the way through a bunch of others. Requiring multiple playthroughs to 'complete' a game just sucks.

Now, being stuck in Tomb Raider because the darn seaserpent won't pose nicely under the bells is my fault, I'll admit. I noticed the other day that it's been over a year since I last tried that one...

It should be noted that "Beating a game" is not the same as "1000 gamerscore"

I have beaten every game in my collection except Blue Dragon, and yet I only have 1000 gamerscore on 1 of them.

Why? Because some of them are rather demanding in terms of what you have to do. For example, Guitar Hero 3 requires you to beat the game on Expert for at least 3 of the achievements.

Another 3 achievements in that game require you to be able to beat the hardest song on the game, on expert, and get a score that only a handful of people in the WORLD have actually gotten.

Then there's 2-3 achievements that require bizarre multiplayer requests (win 15 straight ranked matches using a CONTROLLER)...or one such as "Win 500 ranked games".

So in reality, I beat that game (on hard) a LOOOOONG time ago. But because of two songs out of 50 or so I will likely never finish off about a third of the achievements.

Likewise Ninety Nine Nights. I have 500 points, but have beaten EVERY story mode in the game. The only thing I didn't do was beat the secret boss (who's a cheap bastard and the game has no in-level save)...and the rest of the achievements require a massive grindfest (replay the one or two levels open to each character over and over to max them out, then play them ONE MORE TIME)

Sorry, pass.

the helicopter mission on COD4 on veteran is bullshit. can't get past the first 5 seconds of the very beginning of the level. can't even tell who the fuck is shooting me. total fucking bullshit.

the only games in my current-gen stack that i really bothered to beat were brawl, halo 3, H3:ODST, RB2, GH3, GHA, GHWT, SMG, and RB2 a second time on my 360, and i have gotten maybe 3 dozen games since i bought my wii in 2007

I try to finish every game I buy no matter how long it takes. That being said I have quite a back catalog to finish.

I finished all the games but GTAIV on that list. Gamerscore wise though I couldnt care less. Guess my average GS on all my finished games is about 20-25%. Thats ok for me. I like a challening SP experience and once I´ve finished it, I go on to the next one.

Agreed - multiplayer is fantastic as well, BF2 fanboys be damned. It's the only game I can reliably pop in and play an online game for a couple of hours without getting irritated because some kid is bitching and screaming over something (the squad-only comms have their perks), or getting ready to fling my controller across the room because some jackass is using a super-broken or annoying combo (P90 + Juggernaut + Martyrdom, anyone?).

Frankly, I'm betting that BC2's multi will ultimately be more enjoyable than MW2's.

I wonder how much the rampant multiple account creation in Halo 3 skewed the results for that game, since most secondary accounts don't accomplish most of the campaign achievements.