Pop a Cap on it, ‘yo

Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 9:55 am in Rants, Xbox Live · Comments

I don’t own Halo 3, but if I did I’d have 1750 GamerPoints to chase. I thought Fallout 3’s 1450 worth of Achievements were bad, but no, Halo takes the hardcore biscuit. Remember when retail games capped at 1000? Arcade games at 200? It seems this was only to be the case in the 360’s infancy, back when gamers payed little notice to the fruitless digits tagging alongside their GamerTag.

Now developers deliver additional Achievements, usually in the form of Downloadable Content (DLC). Whatever the case, it’s to keep gamers coming back, to give us a bit of replay value for what we pay (though, more often than not, we also have to pay for the DLC). However, there’s also a degree of agitation, for me at least, that comes with each increase in cap.

You see, gaming can be an expensive hobby, and I don’t always feel comfortable spending significant amounts of money on it. Especially right now, I’m watching every spare penny, with any pocket money being invested into my business. For that reason I’ve found it useful trading/selling games I’ve completed and am no longer needing. In fact, I believe the pre-owned market is what makes high street retailer, GameStation, the most money, and is - on the flip side - the biggest cause of concern for developers.

A handful of times I’ve waved bye bye to a game only to see another 250 G’s slapped on. Overlord, Bioshock, Gears of War… These are just a few I’ve delegated to the bargain bin only to re-purchase at a later date. After realising how illogical this was, and how it was in fact having a negative impact on my wallet, I haven’t traded a game in since 2007.

There is another argument I have against increasing the Achievement cap, and this boils down to the fact, 9 times out of 10, we’re charged for the content that comes hand in hand with additional G’s. There are various examples of this, but let’s use Tomb Raider Underworld because, y’know, I totally like Lara. I haven’t bought the Beneath The Ashes DLC, which, by the way, a former Crystal Dynamics’ developer exclaimed was initially included with the retail game, only to be later cut and distributed via Xbox Live at a further cost. Despite not purchasing said DLC, the additional Achievements are still totaled onto the game’s original 1000 GamerPoints, whether I have the DLC or not. This is the case for every game that sees an increase in cap.

I think Microsoft should have thought a little more about their customers, only ‘unlocking’ the additional Achievements if the DLC in question was purchased. But, of course, Microsoft look at everything from a tactical business perspective, not a ‘what can we do to make our customers happy’ perspective. And knowing how big a pull Achievement and GamerScore have, they went down the money making route.

So, despite the added replay value Achievements can often bring us, I’m of the ‘pop a cap on it’ mentality. We’re too far into the 360’s lifespan to actually reinforce this, therefore this post is nothing more than me sharing my begrudged sentiments. At the very least I would have been happy had we not had additional Achievements forced upon us until the DLC in question was purchased. I know there are people who heartily disagree, and that’s fine (as well as perfectly understandable), but I wonder… Where do you sit with this?

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19 Responses to “Pop a Cap on it, ‘yo”

The Roguester

# July 27th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

I dunno about this Ash. I understand why you personally are pissed, what with you not feeling like you’ve truly finished a game until you’ve got all of the achievements. I can only really agree with one part of what you’re saying, that is that the level cap increases (and so your percentage completed drops) whether or not you’ve bought the content. My point is that if you like a game enough to 1000 point it, you’ll probably WANT the content. For example, Oblivion or Fallout 3. Takes a fair bit of effort to get to 1000 points but I actually relish the DLC not for the points, but for the game itself. I think THAT is what producers want. To get people to buy their product and the added achievements, well…I guess that gives gamers like yourself a bit more incentive.

Arnold Sideways

# July 27th, 2009 at 2:38 pm

I was only just thinking about this the other day. I’d like to see achievements for DLC listed separately from those of the original game, as if they’re just smaller mini-games themselves. That way they just don’t show up at all unless you buy the DLC, and you could be quite happy knowing that you’ve 100%’ed a game as it existed at retail. The extra achievements would then sit aside as totally separate tasks.

I do believe DLC should come with extra achievements, but they shouldn’t make gamers feel obliged to buy it by making them feel a once complete game is now only part-done.

Still, it’s a business, they’re all there to make money, and if there’s something they can do to make their product more desirable, they’ll jump on it. It’s one of those things that makes you grumble, as an end user, but it’s not going to stop you buying games.

Mark Greenwood

# July 27th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

First @Arnold Sideways, we were talkin’ about it yesterday while we were tryin’ to whore Gears of War 2 but couldn’t get very far without ALL the DLC, including some that hasn’t even been released yet. Wasn’t there a game that came out where you could only get 400gs from the game off-the-shelf, if you wanted 1000, you HAD to buy the DLC? That would be wrong.

But, I agree… extra achievements with DLC are a factor in my purchase but if I’m not particularly keen on a game or can’t afford it, why should I suffer my completion percentage? I think DLC achievements should be put in a subset of that game’s list. Then you don’t have another “game” on your list, yet it still remains accounted for. Like a file + folder/tree metaphor type thing. I think that could work quite well.

As far as the lifespan is concerned, I think XBL will continue throughout all future Microsoft consoles so the sooner they sort this out, the better, for the future of XBL and it’s manageability. So, I think your argument is valid and hopefully shared and heard around the community.

Scott

# July 27th, 2009 at 9:40 pm

Nice idea about making the DLC a seperate part of the achievement list but i don’t think MS would ever do it, i do believe things are capped though, you’re only allowed to add an extra so many G’s to a game with DLC.

There’s nothing stopping MS from changing that a later date again obviously… I loved fallout 3 though and i can’t get enough of it.

My biggest problem with achievements are the multiplayer ones, i’m not a huge social gamer.. i don’t want to be forced into playing a game online just to get 100% in it. That’s why you get those annoying people in games online boosting for achievements.. they don’t want to play online either.

Arnold Sideways

# July 28th, 2009 at 9:58 am

@Scott, Yeah I know it’s unlikely to happen, for one thing it would probably be an absolute pain in the arse to implement to get games already out to work with it. If I thought there’d be a chance of them doing it, I would have made a suggestion to the platform team already.

Multiplayer achievements are difficult to get right… When we made Perfect Dark Zero we didn’t have any other games to compare to, we had no idea how popular gamerscore was going to be, and so ours weren’t that great unfortunately. Achievements are entirely the choice of the developer, MS gives advice but no actual rules about what you can award them for, other than this: they must be possible… In other words, one of your testers has to have done it with no debug build cheats etc. When it comes to multiplayer though, too many achievements in games are about *winning* games rather than simply taking part or even doing well. When I play multiplayer games, a lot of the time I find myself better than the majority of the people in the game but there’s always one ninja who wipes the floor with everyone, and it annoys me when I consistantly come second place and get nothing to show for it. In other games, I’m just rubbish and I know that winning games is something I can’t be bothered going for. As a Live developer I would always in future base my multiplayer achievements on taking part rather than winning. After all, achievements are our tools for encouraging players to expose themselves to areas of the game they may have normally missed or might shy away from, and there’s nothing more discouraging than getting your arse handed to you on the first game. At least you know that by taking part you’re earning something, and somewhere along the line, you might actually improve to the point where you can really compete.

Rockers Delight

# July 29th, 2009 at 9:36 am

Hey Arnold (eek, couldn’t resist), Achievements listed separately for DLC would have been ideal. We know why they didn’t do this, though, and there’s no chance of it happening. Still, like you say, we may grumble, but we still end up buying the game. Also, in regards to your other comment, it’s always interesting hearing the perspective of someone who actually works in this industry. Thanks.

Mark, not sure what game that is, but it’s pretty shocking. Perhaps an EA title? :p Hopefully it is heard. I know Major Nelson passed through here once and shared a previous post I wrote with his team, but whether they are actively trying to change things for the better (from a gamer’s perspective) still remains to be seen. It’s all about the mon-eh!

Scott, sorry, I ballsed up and didn’t make my point clear enough. I know Achievements are capped at 1750 right now, but I wish they had simply been capped at 1000. Too late for that now, I know. Agree 100% about the MultiPlayer Achievements. I’m not the biggest social gamer either, unless we’re talking Rainbow. If something was done about the feedback system and it actually became effective, thus filtering out all the idiots, then maybe that would change.

Mark Greenwood

# July 29th, 2009 at 10:15 am

In conversations with Arnold (Dave) we’ve mentioned a few times about the rep system that simply doesn’t and never did really work properly, a lot of MultiPlayer games don’t even get matchmaking right, take Gears of War 2 for example. A level 2 person can be teamed with another low ranked player and end up in the middle of a 50+ level battle to get their ass handed to them and put off the game for life, that is of course, if you can find a match within 5 minutes. I think the quote was, “How can the company who made Unreal Tournment 3 so right, bollocks up Gears of War multiplayer so royally?”

In terms of multiplayer achievements, I don’t mind them per se as I tend to sync my games collection with Arnold, so we can at least setup a party and earn them. I do, however, dislike achievements that involve ranked matches. I think CoD4 did quite a good job of the achievements list, all single player and all pretty reasonable (except that damn Mile High Club!).

I can’t remember what the joke of a game was with the ultra low gamerscore, it was actually Arnold who told me about it.

Oh, and I’d be surprised if Arnold gets the cartoon reference, despite his (american) football shaped head! :-P

Scrooby

# July 29th, 2009 at 6:09 pm

Regarding your point about you trade in the games just a couple weeks later, new content coming out, some gaming companies are not releasing their DLC onto disc. Gears 2 being one, just yesterday I think they released a disc containing all new DLC content. Also, GTA 4 are doing the same thing but (not sure if this is the case with the Gears disc) but you don’t actually need the disc to play it. The only downside to the discs is that generally a company won’t release the disc until they have a group of DLC content to put onto the disc.

Scrooby

# July 29th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

I mean ‘Now’ releasing their DLC onto disc, not ‘not’ :P Really should spell check

Dave

# July 29th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

I agree Ashley, it would be nice to have that seperation between the two. Maybe one day it could happen, it would be a big job but worth it I think. MS are adding avatar unlocks to achievements, so if they want to they could.

I’m not a fan of multiplayer achievements either, some games are better than others. G.R.A.W had one which was to get to the solo leaderboard, how realistic is that for most gamers and most of the time people glitch or cheat to get there! I agree with what Arnold said about getting achievements for taking part, at least it gives players who aren’t as good (me) more incentive.

Hey Arnold was great! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQQ-aYbneRw

Los Havros

# August 2nd, 2009 at 1:25 pm

To a certain extent, this is the same on the PlayStation Network. There are more Trophies available for DLC, and the ‘percentage completed’ changes as a result. The sensible bit though, is that you can still achieve the platinum Trophy with just the main game, which is only fair. I’m sure there would have been an outcry if you had needed to complete the DLC to get the platinum.

As for Achievements and all these points on Xbox Live, the numbers being talked about look quite high, so I think I’ll stay out of that discussion :p

Scott

# August 6th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

Argh! I should have ticked the box for email updates, i’ve missed loads of comments here cause i didn’t check it sooner!

I agree with the CoD4 Achievements, Mile High Club wasn’t that hard either i didn’t think.. i was one of the first people i know to get it and i loved the challenge to get that achievement!..

I’m a big big fan of avhievements like the ones on the orange box too as it gets you to play the game differently and do things you wouldn’t normally bother with like attempting to take the gnome from the start of the level all they way through with you… My biggest gripe with the multiplayer achievements on games though is the stupidly time consuming ones like getting 50,000 kills on GoW. Sorry, but i can’t commit that much time to one game. I know the point from Epic’s perspective is to get people hooked into getting that achievement but they need to balance things a little to take into account the hardcore gamer who’s not a hardcare online gamer.

As for the DLC stuff, i think MS would just be better off in making the achievements “active” once someone downloads the DLC. I.E it’s not on their list till they get the DLC that way it keeps people happy without the DLC and they still have the 100% completion on their lists and people who get it the DLC then have to work a little more into getting the new achievements.

@Arnold
How exactly did you get involved with working for MS? I’ve been trying very hard to get companys to take me on in a QA role but everyone’s only willing to take on experienced QA staff which is pretty silly i think as thats entry level stuff and so, so many people would take up those jobs if they had the oppertunity… You can’t get QA experience without a QA job, but you can’t get a QA job without the experience..

Scott

# August 6th, 2009 at 7:55 pm

Also, RE the avatar unlocks:

I think that’s an amazing idea on MS’s part.. possibly on par with the gamercard/gamerscore idea they had originally. I’m in the middle of playing ‘Splosion Man at the moment trying to get the avatar unlockables!

Arnold Sideways

# August 6th, 2009 at 11:07 pm

@Scott: I’ve been working for Rare/Microsoft for about 6 years now, I went straight out of uni into the job. Smaller indie devs simply can’t afford the time or money to take someone on who’s not 100% effective from day 1, but luckily we’re backed up by a big corporation and can afford more long term investments. QA’s a bit of a tough one to recruit for since it’s not steady work. For long periods of time while you’re working on a game you don’t need any testers, whereas at other times you need intensive testing and as many bodies as you can get hold of. There are QA companies who contract out to game devs, you might want to try those rather than going to developers themselves. I’m surprised they’re asking for experience though, like you say, QA is usually the department that isn’t too fussed about it.

Scott

# August 6th, 2009 at 11:20 pm

Any hints on the names of those QA companys?… :D

I wouldn’t expect QA to be a full time thing for the exact reasons you mention, but i see it as a stepping stone. The industry itself is still very young so there is a lot of room for people with the passion and right ideas to still go quite far in the industry and work from the bottom up as it where.

I’ve heard storys of people starting in a QA department and learning skills on the job that can take them up to a producers role which is something i’d love to do… or even level design. I’d love that.. but i just don’t have the time or the money to go back to university to get the skills people need to have on their C.V’s now to get started in the industry. Plus there’s always the storys that once people get the degree’s they’ve spent years towards that they are not actually used once they get a job..

Arnold Sideways

# August 7th, 2009 at 9:27 am

Volt Europe is the only one I know of for sure but there may be more.

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