How Important Is Gamer Score To You?

[Logan Westbrook]

My wife bought me an XBox 360 for Christmas, but I'm predominantly a PC Gamer, so the idea of Gamer Score is a new concept to me. Perhaps it's because of my neophyte status that I find the whole concept so enthralling, but I can't help myself looking at in-game leader boards and checking out gamertags. It's become almost as compelling as playing the games themselves.

So I put it to you, Escapist Forums, how important is Gamer Score to you?

 

[Necrohydra]

Well..I don't own an Xbox 360, so it's not at all.

But, speaking from the sense of if I DID own one, it probably wouldn't be very important. I'd be more interested in the individual leader boards for games, or seeing what games my friends were playing. Gamerscore just seems to be a machine to get xbox players to buy more games from Microsoft. Quite ingenious, actually.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I'd say it's fairly important (I am, in fact, currently on a Divine Crusade to get over 50% of the potential gamerscore for my Xbox games, need about 1500 more). But what's more important to me is the achievements themselves, rather than the score associated with them. Doing something a little off the beaten track to make something go *plink*, or going back and practising something to the point I can do it well enough for the achievement keeps me playing games much longer than I otherwise would.

The most telling thing, of course, is that if there's a game which is otherwise functionally identical on both platforms, I'll get the Xbox one instead of the PS3 one for the achievements.

 

[RIOT MAST3R]

Gamerscore is a right of passing 4 some people. I know 4 some clans U need 3000 or up and some don't care. Personally it's a load of sh*t with chips thats only good for overachievers and bonuses for multiplayer (Halo 3 armors. Hyabusa in particular).

Ever since I saw ZeroPunctuation I will never talk the same. All my friends are obsessed with it but I'm the first to sign up.

 

[Glitches are cool]

As long as I'm having fun, I don't really care.

 

[EtherAMP]

I don't really pay too much attention to my Gamerscore. I know it can be raised very quickly with certain games (Guitar Hero II just throws points at you, and Assassin's Creed, Gears of War and Halo 3 award you loads of points simply for completing the game's levels), so putting a lot of stock in a player's high score may just be the sign of someone with a lot of money to spend on new games. What's worse is that in many multiplayer games, you'll run into people who want to basically forego the game simply for racking up achievements. There's an endless stream of voice chatter on Halo 3...

"Anyone doing achievements? I need the two-for-one achievement with the Spartan laser."
"Sure, I'll do that, but you gotta let me kill you right after; I need that achievement too."
"Hey, let me in on that achievement action!"

Makes the achievements seem worthless if you're going to get them that way.

That said, I do enjoy looking at my friends' records and comparing our accomplishments, just for kicks.

 

[Mstrswrd]

I've never cared, and hopefully, I never will. To me, gaming is about just that, playing the game. On the other hand, I find it a lot of fun to help my buddy Matt get a better gamerscore. Matt's obsessed with Gamerscore (his is currently over 16000, possibly 17000 or more at this point). My own is pretty low (about 2000) because I just don't even try for them.

 

[WingedFortress]

Gamerscore is fairly trivial to me, although I enjoy the achievment system. The gamerscore itself seems flawed, as some particularly brutal achievments yield low gamer points, while sports games shell them out like free candy. When it comes down to it, I am more impressed with certain achievments than I am a 10,000+ gamerscore, mainly because I can think of about 1000 ways to be cheap about it all, and rack up easy points.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

I like the achievements, I think it's a good way for people to get more out of their games. What I DON'T like is how unimaginative so may of them are. Sure you should get achievement points for beating the game and some of the levels, but there's so much more room for imagination that could easily expand the lifespan of a game. The Orange Box has got some great achievements, like the one-bullet for Episode one or the (evil) gnome-carrying achievement.

The achievements can extend the lifespan of a game long after you've beaten it, which is great if you're not too bothered about multiplayer, like me. There is one problem though, when certain achievements stop you from playing the game the way that you want. For example, I played through mass effect making decisions that I probably wouldn't have picked otherwise to get the Paragon of virtue achievement. This changes the way that the game is intended to be played and can slightly spoil the gaming experience. Having said that my scores tiny, so maybe I don't really care that much anyway

 

[Nickolai]

I really, really like the concept. The idea of putting in little rewards for being creative, playing a little longer, or going someplace you'd never normally go, all work in tandem to increase the gaming experience.

In practice....it can be a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, hearing that cheery little 'ping' always makes me happy, whether it's intentional or not.

On the other, some are so hard as to be downright nasty. The "Flawless (insert instrument here)" Achivements in Rock Band just pissed me off to no end, and I still need the drumming and singing ones. Not from lack of trying.

If you're really obsessed, then you fret about not getting some obscure Achivement that no one else cares about. That time could be better spent playing newer, better games.

And sadly, I fall into the "Fairly Obsessed" category. I've got nearly 6000 points so far, and I really try hard to get as many as I can. I will admit though, it's pushing me hard to be a better gamer. My Halo skills have sharply spiked from trying to get the multiplayer Achivements, to the point where it was me vs. my friends and I still won 75 to 50 and down.

So, I like them for the chance to get more out of a game that you wouldn't normally.

However, I do hope that my gamerscore never hits like 100,000. That just screams "No life!" in my opinion.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I do try for the achievements to give me the illusion that I'm not completely wasting my life away, but I wouldn't call myself obsessed with them.

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

i particularly enjoy the achievments idea, it gives you something to shoot for in a game and in some instances extends the life of a game until you can do this or that. my friends and i keep track of particular acheivments on a specific game sometimes but overall gamerscore isn't that important to us, of course it helps that i have the highest gamerscore of all my friends, seriously they could add theirs together and it still would be smaller than mine is so thats always fun. however it's only come up once so thats how important it is really, enough to notice, but not enough to make anything out of it.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

I care about achievements if they unlock stuff (i.e. Mass Effect), but other achievements I do my best not to care about. I'm well aware that I have a type A personality, but I also hate being that way, and try to defy it as often as I can. I play games through several times, generally, but my golden rule is that if an activity is actively unfun (Get some Grub and Little Rocket Man come to mind), I will not go through it just to unlock an achievement.

That said, my gamerscore is over 8000 points, and while that doesn't seem that high to me, I've got everyone on my friend's list beat.

- J

 

[Mr. Bubbles]

I like it, but I'm not going to become obsessive about it. I've had my 360 (well, technically) since last year and I've got about 7500 points. Oblivion is the only game I'm anywhere close to having every achievement for(unless you count each individual game in The Orange Box as seperate, in which case I have every TF2 achievement). I'm only currently missing 2, but getting them aren't high on my to-do list. Gamerscore adds replayability to a game, and certain achievements are nice for bragging, but I'm not consumed with them. Though I'll admit that I'd miss them if Microsoft decided to do away with them.

 

[greygelgoog]

Gamer score? Are those the numbers that show up in my profile that I've never paid attention to once in my life?

 

[m_jim]

I think they're a neat carrot on a string and I will go out of my way for them on occasion if they seem fun or have a cute name, but more often than not, I ignore Achievements and Gamer Score altogether.

 

[cuchillo0]

depends on gh3 is the only place were it really matters for me