Live-360 takes a look at the Xbox 360 Achievement. This one idea has completely changed gaming forever and has been a stimulus to rental services across the world.

Why are we so addicted to them? What drives people to great lengths just to get more points? In this story we will investigate this and more.

In The Beginning

Microsoft defines an achievement as:

bragging rights redefined.

Achievements are a game-defined goal that is stored and displayed in your gamer profile. Achievements can be as simple, complex, or off-the-wall as a game wants

When the 360 first launched, nobody knew about these “game-defined goals.” Most people were clueless the first time it popped up. But then people started to check them out, and then checked out the achievements of other players, and then it shot up from there.

MyGamerCard.net was launched, and then the world of achievements changed forever. It was early in the 360’s life and no one had high gamescores. Everyone had a real shot of being number 1 in the world, and people strove for that. If you had the highest everyone in the world would go and see your gamercard as #1. Then achievements sites, like Achieve360Points and Xbox360Achievements, rose. They detailed all the secret achievements in a game and told how to get the achievements easily. Boosting had arrived.

The Bragging Rights Era

Using the achievement sites, gamers earned achievements to gain some sort of self accomplishment. They also used achievements to brag to their friends about how “1337″ they were and it created some fun competition. When a game would normally be thrown aside, gamers would still play it just to get extra achievements. When in a shooter gamers would normally use weapons, but their were achievements for not firing a shot. Achievements gave more shelf life to titles, created competition, and gave gamers something to strive for other than beating a game. And you know what? It was a great idea, and gamers ate it up. But there were people that said, “What’s the point? You don’t get anything real, why waste your time?” Microsoft, soon put an end to their criticism.

The Rewards Era

In Spring Of 2007, Microsoft did something revolutionary. They announced a partnership with Old Spice that would bring rewards to gamers, just for unlocking achievements. All you had to do was increase your gamerscore and you would be rewarded with games, and T Shirts. Gamers pounced on this idea. The registration site was down for weeks.

But when it got back up, gamers registered and the competition was on, and in the end thousands of gamers received copies of Fusion Frenzy 2 in the mail, as well as Old Spice T Shirts. But that was just the beginning. 7 months later 360 Voice announced its partnership with Old Spice to bring another gamerscore challenge. All you had to do was compete with other gamers to see who could get the most gamerscore in a certain time frame. And what was the reward? Best Buy Gift Cards, Amazon Gift Cards, HD DVD Players, and much, much more.

I personally took part in two challenges for Best Buy Gift cards. And even though I lost, I knew it was not the end and from here on out there would be even more events going up that would reward gamers for earning achievements.

The Compulsion

Why do we strive to get achievements? Why do people spend hours shooting each other in the head? Why do people cheat to get more achievements? It’s petty clear now.

As gamers we have always felt the urge to be number one. From the days of Pac Man, trying to get the high score and have you’re name on the top of the list. We knew we would never get it, but as gamers we have that mindset to be #1. With achievements we have that urge to be #1 just like back in the day. With achievements we can brag to our friends about how we’re better then them. And thanks to Old Spice, with achievements we can be rewarded with real world goodies.

Yesterday Pac Man High Score, Today MyGamerCard.net #1

The Aftermath

We all love achievements, but if there’s one group of people that love them more, it’s the game rental store owners.

Don’t lie to yourself, have you ever rented a game just because it has easy achievements? I know I have, and many other people have too. Just to get a higher score, people will drive down to their local Hollywood Video or Blockbuster and plop down 8 bucks to get Avatar, just so that they can get 1000 points in 90 seconds. Our drive as gamers to be the best has been an economic stimulus to the gaming world itself.

Conclusion

Whoever at Microsoft created the idea of achievements deserves to get a major bonus if they haven’t already. Achievements are among the list of great things the Xbox 360 has, and they have changed the gaming world forever.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Reading Material, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.