How do I say this politely? An IGN article is not scientific rigor, and to say that the highly specialized and decades-refined addictive triggers used in slot machines and the use of achievements are the same sort of brain manipulation shows a lack of academic rigor.

HURRAY.. you have collected all the plants... HURRAY  rejoice feel good about yourself.. HURRAY... look at the amazing popup on your bottom left screen .HURRAY... HURRAY

As opposed to rejoicing the death of computer controlled characters or collecting pre-determined loot which is just a series of 1's and 0's your computer is being told to generate?

How do I say this politely? An IGN article is not scientific rigor, and to say that the highly specialized and decades-refined addictive triggers used in slot machines and the use of achievements are the same sort of brain manipulation shows a lack of academic rigor.

You should judge the arguments, not who they come from. Otherwise it's just snobbery.

 

King, Daniel, Pual Delfabbro and Mark Griffiths. "Video Game Structural Characteristics: A New Psychological Taxonomy." International Journal of Mental Health Addiction. 2010.

 

Achievements fall under "winning & losing conditions"  in the frame work developed by R.T.A. Wood et al to discuss videogame addiction in their paper The structural characteristics of video games: a psycho-structural analysis. Wood argued that the human brain is conditioned to maximise wins and minimise losses.

 

Weinstein, Aviv Malkiel. "Computer and Video Game Addiction -- A comparison  between Game Users and Non-Game Users". The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2010.

 

Dr Weinstein, of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, writes a paper which deals with, amongst other things, a dopamine trial to test dopamine levels in gamers who have no prior traditional addiction versus those who have had addictions to ecstasy. The game he selected for the trial was MotoGP published by THQ, which has no zynga style exploitive microtransactions, nor traditional gambling systems like betting. While not mentioning achievements, it is clear by his research that people do get chemical carrots, so to speak, from playing traditional style video games.

 

So to reiterate, you're wrong. Achievements are designed to motivate players to accomplish them and they do so by exploiting a person's psychology and physiology. And you're wrong to call out an article on IGN as illegitimate or scientifically unsound because of the source. Video games websites are chalk full of people who are interested in games and having university degrees.

 

edit: And as I just dug through about 60 pages of journal articles to prove a point that never should have been needed to be made in the first place, no, I'm not interested in continuing  this conversation.

Edited March 22, 201510 yr by Verenti

 

How do I say this politely? An IGN article is not scientific rigor, and to say that the highly specialized and decades-refined addictive triggers used in slot machines and the use of achievements are the same sort of brain manipulation shows a lack of academic rigor.

You should judge the arguments, not who they come from. Otherwise it's just snobbery.

 

King, Daniel, Pual Delfabbro and Mark Griffiths. "Video Game Structural Characteristics: A New Psychological Taxonomy." International Journal of Mental Health Addiction. 2010.

 

Achievements fall under "winning & losing conditions"  in the frame work developed by R.T.A. Wood et al to discuss videogame addiction in their paper The structural characteristics of video games: a psycho-structural analysis. Wood argued that the human brain is conditioned to maximise wins and minimise losses.

 

Weinstein, Aviv Malkiel. "Computer and Video Game Addiction -- A comparison  between Game Users and Non-Game Users". The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2010.

 

Dr Weinstein, of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, writes a paper which deals with, amongst other things, a dopamine trial to test dopamine levels in gamers who have no prior traditional addiction versus those who have had addictions to ecstasy. The game he selected for the trial was MotoGP published by THQ, which has no zynga style exploitive microtransactions, nor traditional gambling systems like betting. While not mentioning achievements, it is clear by his research that people do get chemical carrots, so to speak, from playing traditional style video games.

 

So to reiterate, you're wrong. Achievements are designed to motivate players to accomplish them and they do so by exploiting a person's psychology and physiology. And you're wrong to call out an article on IGN as illegitimate or scientifically unsound because of the source. Video games websites are chalk full of people who are interested in games and having university degrees.

 

edit: And as I just dug through about 60 pages of journal articles to prove a point that never should have been needed to be made in the first place, no, I'm not interested in continuing  this conversation.

 

None of those things you just quoted said *ANYTHING* about achievements. You're making big logical leaps from typical reward/loss scenarios that exist in any and every game since the beginning of mankind to addictive brain-trigger engineering through the use of achievements based on no scientific argument that I've seen.

 

How to say this? You are wrong.

It takes absolute no academic rigour to find a half-dozen articles talking about the science of achievements. They are not something that appeared by accident, they are a tool. They are designed to appeal to the player design with psychology in mind. Repeating this in the negative doesn't make it untrue, because it's well documented. Otherwise, why would people hunt achievements at all? Most give no gameplay benefit and they don't hold any social significance. So why pursue something that is effectively a waste of time? Because your brain releases a chemical that makes you feel pleasure when you overcome a challenge.

 

 

It's not any of that at all for me. Achievements track your progress through a game. I don't care about collecting them at all, but they make it obvious when you only played half the game. If there's a separate achievement for aligning with a different faction, for instance, you know that that's a pretty big game decision and it would be worthwhile to play the game a second time from the perspective of the other faction.

 

Anyone who objects to achievements is just downright pig-headed. This is the same sort of idiot who objects to having seatbelts in a car, they exist, but social evolution has thinned their numbers out.

So... Still not anyone who has a list of the achievements? Might the devs share more about this with us perhaps?

 

Our resident programmer Roby pushed to get all the steam related assets done before release. We support the following:

• Achievements
• Badges
• Cards
• Emoticons (be sure to collect both "eyes")
• Profile Backgrounds

 

 

This makes me so happy :D Now I can swag out my steam profile!

in the case of wasteland 2, i liked the achievements. i can look at the achievements i unlocked and think back on how i played the game and the choices i made. it's pretty cool

Edited March 23, 201510 yr by guizhang

 

Who cares? Achievements... What a load of crap.

 

Seems like you care enough to make one of those typical posts that people like you have to make when asking if achievements are in a game. There's always someone who has to comment about how lame achievements are. Guess what, they are optional. Don't like them? Ignore them. If you were a game developer, I would bet all my $ you would put achievements into your game. 

 

There are A LOT of different types of "picky" gamers in this world. And a chunk of them will not buy a game if it doesn't have achievements. It's the world we live in today. Deal with it.

 

is it actualy possible to disable steam achivements pop ups?..because id really like to do that ..in this game

 

I dont like it in story games

 

 

 

 

Who cares? Achievements... What a load of crap.

Seems like you care enough to make one of those typical posts that people like you have to make when asking if achievements are in a game. There's always someone who has to comment about how lame achievements are. Guess what, they are optional. Don't like them? Ignore them. If you were a game developer, I would bet all my $ you would put achievements into your game.

 

There are A LOT of different types of "picky" gamers in this world. And a chunk of them will not buy a game if it doesn't have achievements. It's the world we live in today. Deal with it.

is it actualy possible to disable steam achivements pop ups?..because id really like to do that ..in this game

 

I dont like it in story games

Disable steam in-game notifications.

What happen to the good ol days when we didnt care for such things as achievements..Enjoying a game that oblivion has made for us.Is the only joy i need this week..

 

The good old days like the Atari 2600 games with badges and letters from the developer? My achievements back then.

 

 

 

 

 

People used to do the same thing with a notepad and a pencil. Steam just makes it easier.