Xbox Achievements

When Xbox Achievements debuted on Xbox 360 circa 2005, it was new and exciting. It gave meaning to the metagame beyond the needed proof and bragging rights that certain gaming accomplishments required before Xbox introduced gamerscore. Before 2005, you needed to somehow record your accomplishment on video, photograph, or another way. After achievements and gamerscore, you could just show it off to practically anyone.

Problems

Of course, cheating happened and was curbed. Some people would transfer their saved games to the computer and edit them to unlock massive amounts of achievements at once. They were eventually branded as cheaters and their reputations were ruined.

The real problem with achievements for me, was the achievement ratio. That is, how many games were 100% complete. I never wanted my total ratio to drop below 50% across my total score. Because of this, I avoided games that had too difficult of achievements or ones that had a lot of online achievements. This means that I missed out on some good games, and I missed out on playing with my friends sometimes.

Scoring the metagame, as accomplished by Xbox Achievements, therefore ruined some of the gaming experience for me. At the same time, it has served as motivation to squeeze every drop of gameplay that I can out of a game. Right now, for example, I'm working on Rare Replay, trying to rack up my achievements. Unfortunately, some of the games aren't very fun, so I'm grinding my way toward a meaningless score and not enjoying myself while I'm at it.

Some of those old ZX Spectrum games aren't fun. They're also very, very difficult. I appreciate the challenge, but how did anyone have fun with these? And how do you even play Lunar Jetman?

Again, I'm grinding away at something I don't especially enjoy, to get a sense of accomplishment reflected by a meaningless score.

Competition

College set me back in more ways than one. Aside from grad school debt, time lost, and degrees that I'm not using, it also set me back in terms of gaming. My friends and brother all surpassed me in terms of games and immediate income. I lag by 40,000 gamerscore behind my friends, and I used to lag behind my brother by 5,000. Well, not anymore. I've nearly caught up to my brother and I'm looking forward to being more even with him. This isn't a case of "I need to beat him," it's just that I don't want to be so far behind!

I realize that it's silly, but it's just nice to not be so far behind. I don't think I'm going to put in the time, effort, or money to catch up to my friends though. Not to mention I sometimes get depressed and don't even want to play games at all. Depression sucks. That said, I sometimes miss the days when I could just play games all weekend and do nothing else. Those were sometimes good times.