Most of you, consciously or unconsciously, will already have formulated an opinion about this piece based upon its title and I don’t blame you. It is a bold statement I agree, but it is one that carries a lot of merit whether or not we choose to admit it or not.
"Antstream Arcade is proud to announce its collaboration with Xbox to launch Retro Classics, a collection of over 50 iconic games now available for Game Pass members worldwide." - Antstream Arcade and Xbox.
"The Warsaw-based (Poland) indie games publisher Ultimate Games S.A. and Bayswater-based (Australia) indie games developer Torus Games, are today very happy and excited to announce that their vibrant flying adventure "Stunt Flyer, is now available for Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One via Xbox Game Pass." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
A new update for Fallout 76 has arrived and sounds like more Wasteland mayhem.
Trophies make me more likely to buy or replay certain games just cause, but I still buy games that don't have the feature like did with Saints Row 2 last week
I'm not a huge achievement/trophy hunter, but I find they keep me playing some games past the point where I would have ended it. A lot of titles I might put down after one play-through. However, when there are extra challenges to attempt on a game I really enjoyed. It's all the better for it.
I have to disagree.
Like a lot of, I don't want to say bad editorials but it summarizes my feelings, articles, it takes a narrow view and looks at a very specific subset. For instance, there are people who won't play games with certain graphics, pixelated indie games have it especially rough, others are performance snobs and some will even avoid titles over trivial things like a lack of online or couch co-op.
In this case, I think there are some people who really enjoy the trophy/achievement system, but the ones dominated by it are quite small. A good example of this is a game like Destiny. After a certain point, people get down to one or two trophies/achievements, usually collecting ghosts and finishing a raid flawlessly, yet they and many others still pump endless hours into this game. The same goes for pretty much any large scale online experience, be it The Division of Elder Scrolls Online.
Furthermore, Nintendo Switch doesn't even have these things, yet the system itself has a lot of demand and interest, with games like Super Mario Odyssey getting a lot of attention, even if it lacks these sought after items. Heck, the most popular things at E3 were probably Nintendo's offerings and Destiny 2.
Not to be mean to the author, but this opinion strikes me as something more personal, than objective. The author is clamoring for their latest fix, like some pathetic junkie on the street and spent some time wondering what choices lead to this decision. And sites like PSNProfiles and the like don't help matters.
With a strong push for purity and leaderboard ranks, you have people who're more concerned with constantly moving up, instead of having fun. One reason I pity Hakoom and people like him is regardless of how many trophies/impressive tasks they've done, it's clear that he can't stop to enjoy things/life or else his position will be in jeopardy.
The idea of taking off five days to go to E3, enjoy what Nintendo has to offer, become trial ready in ESO or whatever is simply a luxury they can't take. It doesn't stop millions from doing it, heck, Pokemon with no trophy/achievements still outsold things like Horizon with ease, yet some people just can't escape that feeling.
TL;DR I get that some people have an overwhelming desire to chase after leaderboard rank or fixate on these trivial icons, but the average person will gladly spend 1,000+ hours playing Destiny for fun or see what Nintendo is doing, even at the cost of their progress. It's likely only a small subset, such as the author here, who is caught in this sad cycle. Sure, it sucks, but it is likely more of a disorder, such as an addictive personality, than a real problem with the system. The vast majority have no issue missing out on trophies or playing games without them.
"Games that aren’t treated to trophy/achievements are snubbed, regardless of their quality, based on the fact that players will not ‘earn’ anything while playing them. We’ve all done it at some point because, think about it, what is one of the first things we do when we load up a new game? We scour the list of achievements and trophies to see which we can pick up the easiest."
Yeah, no "we" don't do that. You might want to take a look inside yourself and fix that and stop projecting your shortcomings onto other gamers and blaming achievements for it. Its not achievements, its you.