I don't need any achievements to enjoy a good game. I'm neutral to them as long as they don't break the immersion by having lots of popup tabs / messages etc but, depending on the game, i can get somewhat annoyed if they do. In other words: Everyone should be able to play the game however they want, just don't excessively nag those who prefer no achievements at all; keep things silent and dedicate a menu for those who care about their medals. If need be, offer an option to disable them via the settings panel.

Achievements are completely unnecessary distractions, which provide nothing extra to gaming experience, but break immersion and annoy the player.

The less achievements, the better.


If we want to go down this path (and it's probably a bad idea...) it's also possible to see achievements as a form of DRM. While that doesn't make any sense immediately, reading through Steam's DRM information page may be a shocking revelation to some:

"We suggest enhancing the value of legitimate copies of your game by using Steamworks features which won't work on non-legitimate copies (e.g. online multiplayer, achievements, leaderboards, trading cards, etc.)."

By that definition, GOG should never offer any achievements at all!

I agree 100% with the previous two posters. I don't care at all for achievements or integrated client applications. All I want are offline installers that I can download and use to install/play my games.

The only way you can be truly DRM-free is with offline installers that are not intrinsically connected to any client or online server.

Personally I dislike them. At best they're a distraction. At worst, it's very cheap padding to expect gamers to mindlessly grind for something (another thing I dislike in many newer games even without them being achievement related). Or something stupid that it's intelligence insulting ("Congratulations, you've taken your 1,000th step!").

Now like cloud saves, I don't use them but I'm also not opposed on principle for adding them for people who want them as long as it doesn't negatively affect anything else. But that's the real issue for GOG games and why this list is the scale it is - client-based store-specific Achievements only really "work" for the first store that creates and dominates the market. Every secondary store the game gets sold on after that basically expects the developers to reinvent the wheel each time and manually recode them for each store, which unfortunately does have an impact for games coming here for devs who don't want to end up on the Second Class Citizen list whilst simultaneously not having the time to do them and wanting a simple DRM-Free release they were used to prior to Galaxy.

At least "In-game Achievements" (eg, Dragon Age Origins or Stardew Valley) only need to be coded once. The way Steam invented them by locking what should be internal to the game itself into the client wrapper of the store that sells it, is the worst possible implementation of all (and some say was done deliberately precisely because it negatively benefits other stores). Ideally what should have happened is some "Open" platform-neutral server, that could be written once and all clients (Steam, Galaxy, Origin, etc) connect to it, but that's far too late to push for now and the damage is done.

I don't care about achievements, unless they're actually a part of the game. For example, rampage challenges in GTA. Or ambulance missions, which eventually boosts your HP. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it gives these things some gameplay value. Another example is Frostborn Wrath, where achievements give you skill points.

The best achievements are the ones I don't have to worry about. Like the ones in Avernum. There's a long list of accomplishments, sure, but they're just a background decor.

The worst achievements are the ones that require other people to get involved.

While I've considered Retroachivements, I have to keep in mind that the people running that site are the people who have put in at least an hour a day into Doom since it came out. Also, there's not a solo instance version where I can just keep a personal scorecard.

I've said this multiple time:

Repetitive games(platformers, puzzlers, rogue-likes, score attack games) need achievements to extend their play life. I have never replayed a rogue-like once I've got my first win, unless it has achievements which give me something else to aim for.

Story driven games(rpgs, point and click adventures, walking simulators), do not need achievements and are in fact immersion breaking.

I challenge you to disprove my point, using objective reasoning, and not subjective opinion.

ADOM - Has multiple endings.
TOME4 - Has multiple campaigns, an endless dungeon, and other challenges.
Dwarf Fortress - Has three game modes.
Tetris - Literally in existence longer than most of have been alive and yet we find reason to keep playing it.

I'll also mention that nethack (one of the most well-known roguelikes) doesn't have achievements, despite being highly popular and in continuous development since 1987.

It seems to be a good counterexample to the claim that 'roguelikes need achievements to extend their playlife'.

Why should anyone challenge your subjective opinion with objective reasoning? This is the dumbest thing I've read today.

Good games don't need achievements to be enjoyable. Bad games aren't made good by adding achievements to them. Games' play time does not need to be artificially extended. Lazy cheap nonsense like achievements does not make up for lack of sufficient in-game content.

QED.

I agree with the sentiment that achievements might be nice sometimes, but aren't needed to play/enjoy most(if not all) games.

I also see them as a game dev gimmick to hook people similar to loot boxes.
(and I don't get why people seemingly support or like the former more than the latter on average)

That said, here's some of the types I dislike the most:

1- MP only ones - Not everyone has an online connection or a subscription to use MP, and/or friends to play with.

2- Ones that are easily gotten or gotten automatically - Like "watch the intro and/or start the game-10 G!" or "Walk 1000 steps!"(like AB2012 used as an example). They're too easy to get and likely just there to pad achievement numbers/score & make people more hooked on achievements.

3 - Ones that are too hard to get, or require too much effort - Like "Beat the boss without getting hit in 2 minutes on Ultra Difficult skill level!" or "Collect 1,000,000 sea shells from the beaches!" These are just frustrating and not fun usually to try going for.

(And likely put into a game to make people play more to try and get them, etc)

==========================

Agreed

But they might make some games interesting enough for some players.

Nethack does have some things that are achievement-like, though the game doesn't track them across playthroughs.
* There are conduct challenges, like being a vegetarian, atheist, or pacifist. Any you don't violate are reported at end-game, I believe.
* When you die, the game gives you a death message depending on how you die. Some of the deaths are rather obscure (like being killed by one of Newton's laws). (Hint: If something causes damage to you, it can kill you and reported as the cause of death.) I think my favorite obscure death message is something like "quit while on Charon's boat".

Nethack tournaments often have a prize for most unique deaths. (There's also a prize for dying due to the dungeon collapsing, which is basically the game crashing, and if it happens is almost certainly a bug in the game.)

Edit: I have more to say, but not the time to say it right now.

The Tetris the Grand Master series, again, has achievement-type things, particularly later in the series. For example, there are medals for completing certain tasks (like recovering).

(TGM3 even has a way to save things, despite being an arcade game.)

Now that I'm done with my webinar (unrelated and political, so I won't discuss it here), I now have more time to talk about this.

I agree with 2 (except in a situation like Cookie Clicker where achievements actually do something in game), but only half with 3. In particular, I don't necessarily mind those that are hard, though I would mind those that take too long to get, or that violate certain game design rules (like an achievement that requires a long playing session).

For point 1, would you consider such achievements OK in multi-player only (or multi-player focused) games? For example, would they be OK in a game where the single player content consists solely of the tutorial and maybe a practice mode? To put it another way, would these achiements be appropriate for games that nobody would get just for single-player? (I agree about it being inappropriate for games with significant single-player content.)

There are two other types of achiements that I dislike:
* Secret achievements. I feel that achievements should be there to guide the player, and making them secret ruins that aspect. (It's OK to have non-secret achievements for which it isn't obvious how to get, like Celeste's 1-up achievement (especially since the game lets you earn achievements with assist mode enabled).)
* Achievements that are outright broken due to bugs, either because it's impossible to qualify for the achievement, or because the game fails to register the achievement even when the listed requirements are met. (This is the sort of situation that should be fixed with a patch.) There should also be an option to reset achievements, for those who want to start over (for example, if one wants to do a 100% achievements speedrun, if it makes sense for the game, or even a low% achievements run (beat the game getting no achievements other than those that are impossible to avoid)). I think cloud saves are a good thing, but the player should be given control of them. For example, the player should be allowed to disable the automatic syncing of saves, and instead do so manual, with the player being able to choose the direction of the sync. Also, Cookie Clicker, where achievements affect the bonus you get from the kitten upgrades, as well as unlocking the kitten upgrades in the first place (though they're usually unlocked well before you can actually afford them).

Unepic also does this: Certain achievements will give you points to spend on special items, including armor that regenerates health and a single-use respec item. (Note that the points you earn carry over to later playthroughs, but the points you spend in one playthrough are only spent for that playthrough.)