Are achievements a good thing for games?

[Whispering Cynic]

Achievements are irrelevant to me, unless they provide some tangible in-game rewards (like in the first Mass Effect: do this thing, and you'll get a permanent boost to your max. health - this kind of thing). I simply don't see the point in bothering with them if they do not.

So there is the answer to the question: achievements are a good thing if they reward you for doing them. Otherwise they are just padding, a cheap way of expanding game content with minimal effort.

 

[emissary666]

Achievements can be good. In games like Jazzpunk, Consortium, and E.Y.E. The Divine Cybermancy, looking at the list shows you how much you have found instead of just completed and in Metal Gear Rising they provided a slight incentive to go and try to do a no-damage run of the final boss on very hard mode. Non-mandatory achievements that will pop up during normal gameplay are acceptable, provided they aren't as stupid as "press first button". Achievements like "killed 10 enemies" or "performed three hit combo" are also acceptable provided that they are the beginning of a scaling set (eg. "kill 100/1000/10000 enemies")
Achievements that are bad are those that either require a significant amount of grind, online multiplayer, leaderboards, or just being lucky. If there is an achievement for finding an item drop with a .025% chance of being dropped, that is just a lot of grinding for something based entirely on luck. Multiplayer servers are not kept online forever and the number of players drops over time. Leaderboard achievements are largely based on "who started online the earliest and worked to maintain a high score for a significant period of time"

 

[RealRT]

Certainly not bad. I like the cheeves I can get and I try to get them, but I'm not obsessed with them and actually never got all the cheeves in a single game. I find it kinda cool for games to congratulate you on doing stuff.

 

[duwenbasden]

Maybe.

If the achievement is only doable iff you go out of your way and do it, achievable in a meaningful amount of time, and/or there is a reward that positively influence my avatar, then yes. In another word, it is an in-game task that rewards based on the difficulty of task.