"I definitely play more games I don't enjoy than games I do."

December 10, 2009 7:27 AM

"She bought Jumper: Griffin's Story - one of the worst reviewed games ever in Xbox 360 history. The day Modern Warfare 2 was released, she spent all her time on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. American Idol? She put the microphone in front of a speaker and played songs into it to ace the performances that much faster." The story of Kristen and her gamerscore addiction.

Gamerscore addicts swap tips on message boards and flaunt their numbers, blog about where the easy points are ("Avatar The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth is such a poorly-designed game that you can get a full 1000 gamerscore in about five minutes, repeatedly mashing the “B” button – it’s totally worth renting at your local video store."), connect and brag on Facebook. Sites like Xbox360Achievements and Achieve360Points lay out the road maps for finding points within games.

posted by jbickers (88 comments total)

o_O

that is all
posted by jckll at 7:41 AM on December 10, 2009

I see 50 of her points come from a game called "5th Grader". That seems to be this game. How much does it cost? It looks like it's selling for some kind of points maybe?

But I wonder, how are games allocated gamer points? Is each title allocated a set number of points? If so, couldn't you develop your own crappy games and put them up for download, then get all the points?

Does the XBox have a app store type system that lets you sell your games like the iPhone or Android phone?
posted by delmoi at 7:42 AM on December 10, 2009

She either needs to smoke more or less pot.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:48 AM on December 10, 2009 [12 favorites]

I swear that I try really hard not to judge other people's parenting choices, but .... I have to wonder how many hours a day she spends on this, and how many of those hours are time she could be spending with her daughter? (Yes, I know they sometimes play games together.) I assume, at age 6, the daughter is now in school, but the article says she started three years ago .... She's clearly addicted to this, and, like any addiction, she's sacrificing important parts of her family life to her addiction.
posted by anastasiav at 7:48 AM on December 10, 2009

Kongregate.com seems to cause a similar addiction in some people (me!)

delmoi - you can buy games online with "Microsoft points", that you purchase with cash. All the gaming systems do this sleight of hand to obscure the cost of online content.

"Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" is a television show that airs in the US.
posted by muddgirl at 7:49 AM on December 10, 2009

Yeah, I guess a helpful distinction might be made here between Microsoft Points - which cost money and are used to buy games - and gamerscore points, which have no value other than "woo-hoo!" It's the latter that she is working for.
posted by jbickers at 7:51 AM on December 10, 2009

1200 MS points is around $15, but there are ways to get discounted points. For example, sometimes Target and Walmart sell cards that grant a certain number of MS points at a 10-15% discount.
posted by muddgirl at 7:51 AM on December 10, 2009

There is an equivalent scene among PS3 gamers--see, for example, PS3Trophies.org.

It's possible that achievements and trophies are a contributing factor to the continuing decrease in difficulty of console games. Right now I'm taking a break from Demon's Souls (which yields one bronze trophy for me for every four to six hours of play) to play through Prince of Persia (which crapped out a silver and eight bronze trophies for me in 50 minutes, including one trophy for successfully viewing the opening cinematic). Yeah, sure, it's a very pretty game, and I'll probably sit down and beat it this weekend, but it's not nearly as fun as Demon's Souls, and I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it. On the other hand, if I cared about trophies more than the game in and of itself, PoP would be incredible.

If there's an (arguably broken) metagame that encompasses all games on a console, and that's hooked to the addictiveness of leveling up, then is there pressure on the game's developer to make that leveling as easy as possible? Like I said, in my opinion Demon's Souls is a far better game in terms of craft than Prince of Persia, but I'm not going to lie--that little dopamine squirt you get when a bell rings unexpectedly and a trophy pops up on your screen is nice, no matter how trivial the reason for acquiring it.
posted by Prospero at 7:52 AM on December 10, 2009

Hmm. It reminds me a lot of grinding in WoW. The only difference is that at least the XP/Gold/loot in WoW can be used for something. Gamer Points on XBox can't even buy you anything.

I have to wonder, if someone deleted her account, would it make her snap out of it, realizing the futility, or would she just redouble her efforts, replaying the easiest games to regain her score?
posted by explosion at 7:52 AM on December 10, 2009

Whoever came up with the gamerscore concept is a genius. It's so simple and pointless, yet brilliant. I've found myself playing some games a bit longer than I would normally just to squeeze one or two more achievements out of them.

That said, playing crappy games just to get the gamerscore points is a fool's game. It's like saying you have 15000 lps when 3/4s of them are Herb Alpert or the Kiss solo albums.

PROTIP: Some "Games for Windows Live" titles have achievements which tally up on your Xbox Live account. Street Fighter IV, for example, has separate gamerscore points for the Xbox and PC versions. So if you were really wanted to, you could get 2,000 points from SFIV alone by getting achievements for both versions.
posted by Dr-Baa at 7:57 AM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

She seems like she's boring herself to death, the slow way.
posted by hermitosis at 7:58 AM on December 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

Reminds me of this blog post I read about MMO's being like abusive relationships:

The less you get out of games the more you want out of them. The more time wasted the higher the honor of its accomplishment. Gamers will put up with the most punishing games, just as long as the game every now and then stop by that store at the airport that only sells poor relationship band-aids, to pick up chocolate, alcohol or what ever else they can use to instill hope that the relationship is not a waist of time.

Ask yourself, would you rather play an hour of grind to level up, or and hour of great gameplay who's progress you couldn't save?

I think many gamers would rather take a beating if they think that they are accomplishing something, then have some pointless fun. That's a real shame because, lets be clear, you don't accomplish anything when you play games. There is nothing wrong with that, we don't have to accomplish things all the time, it should be OK to just have fun every now and then. That's why I'm not so sure I'm OK with is trying to fooling you in to thinking you did accomplish something when you played my game.
posted by symbollocks at 7:58 AM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Shoulda Favorite whored instead.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:59 AM on December 10, 2009 [7 favorites]

I'm 38 and bought an XBox 360 a few years ago. The last console I had before that was Colecovision.

I remember seeing those Achievement points rack up and thought for years they must be redeemable somehow, if even for stupid throwaway stuff like themes for Live. But no. To my surprise, they are utterly, utterly meaningless. I still don't get it, really.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 8:00 AM on December 10, 2009

Whoever came up with the gamerscore concept is a genius. It's so simple and pointless, yet brilliant. I've found myself playing some games a bit longer than I would normally just to squeeze one or two more achievements out of them.

Doesn't this go against the business model? Unless the game would otherwise have felt too short without the achievements, I'd imagine they want you to feel "done" with a game and move on to buying a new one.

Of course, that does imply that achievements are a good way to pad out an otherwise too-short game...
posted by explosion at 8:01 AM on December 10, 2009

Doesn't this go against the business model? Unless the game would otherwise have felt too short without the achievements, I'd imagine they want you to feel "done" with a game and move on to buying a new one.

Not when they can sell you DLC which gives you more achievements to unlock.
posted by Dr-Baa at 8:04 AM on December 10, 2009

I don't think I'm in a social circle that looks at high gamerscore as a positive thing. I find it fascinating that people are obsessed with a metric that signals you play video games all day and have no life.

If they gave you a certain number of MS Points at different milestones, I admit I'd be obsessed.
posted by naju at 8:04 AM on December 10, 2009

But I wonder, how are games allocated gamer points? Is each title allocated a set number of points? If so, couldn't you develop your own crappy games and put them up for download, then get all the points?

Every retail game has 1000 Achievement points. Some games, like, say, Fallout 3, release DLC expansions that generally add 200-250 or so points to the title.

Additionally, you can purchase XBox Live Arcade games, which range in cost from 5-20 real dollars. These games have set limits of 200 Achievement points.

There is a community games section on the XBox, but those games do not have achievement points.

Hmm. It reminds me a lot of grinding in WoW. The only difference is that at least the XP/Gold/loot in WoW can be used for something. Gamer Points on XBox can't even buy you anything.

There are achievements in WoW, and people grind those too.
posted by graventy at 8:05 AM on December 10, 2009

I can't watch my spouse grind. It bothers me. I have to go do something else.

I "finished" Saints Row 2 last night, and what a blast I had. And I went and found what I had to do to do the "extra" mission. I did all the challenges; all the races and most of the "jobs". But I won't be searching every square inch of the city for the remaining graffiti spots. I won't be looking for all those missing CDs. Now that the missions are over, it mostly just hits me that nobody will talk to my character anymore. It's become a lonely city.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:10 AM on December 10, 2009 [7 favorites]

But I wonder, how are games allocated gamer points? Is each title allocated a set number of points? If so, couldn't you develop your own crappy games and put them up for download, then get all the points?

Does the XBox have a app store type system that lets you sell your games like the iPhone or Android phone?

Retail games have a set 1000 points in achievements that the developers have to put in. Halo had more, I think, but usually it's set at 1000. Games you can buy on XBox Live Arcade are limited to a smaller number (200, I think).

There are indie games on XBox Live, but they don't have achievements. I recommend I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1, personally.
posted by ODiV at 8:11 AM on December 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

All the gaming systems do this sleight of hand to obscure the cost of online content.

Microsoft's really the only one that does this. Nintendo still uses Wii Points, but they have a rate of 1000WP = 10.00USD/EUR/1000JPY, so it's not so bad. The PlayStation Store uses normal currency outright, but there's a minimum of $5 per transaction.
posted by ConstantineXVI at 8:13 AM on December 10, 2009

Doesn't this go against the business model? Unless the game would otherwise have felt too short without the achievements, I'd imagine they want you to feel "done" with a game and move on to buying a new one.

Not when they can sell you DLC which gives you more achievements to unlock.

Plus, a lot of the achievements require an XBox Live Gold account, which costs more money.

Hmm. It reminds me a lot of grinding in WoW. The only difference is that at least the XP/Gold/loot in WoW can be used for something.

We must have different definitions of "something".
posted by ODiV at 8:16 AM on December 10, 2009

Metafilter: boring yourself to death, the slow way.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 8:22 AM on December 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

I always thought that the gamer score could be a decent way to judge the re-playability of a game. Pick N people who have finished a game and average the number of points they received from the game. If it is low it probably means the game sucks enough that they haven't picked it up since they beat it. A high score means fun DLC and a re-playable game.

As an example, I finished Fable 2 with minimal points. With Dragon Age, I may get close to all of them. Fable 2 sucks. Dragon Age rules.

However, people like this girl just fuck that up.
posted by Loto at 8:23 AM on December 10, 2009

Another thing that throws that off is that developers have different ways of scoring achievements. Sometimes it's impossible to get all of the achievements in one playthrough and sometimes you get most of them as a matter of course.
posted by ODiV at 8:26 AM on December 10, 2009

Plus, a lot of the achievements require an XBox Live Gold account, which costs more money.

True. There are a lot of achievements which are "Win 50 online battles!" or some variant. You can't play online though without the Gold account.

I recommend I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 , personally.
This is the first indie game that I will buy.
posted by Dr-Baa at 8:28 AM on December 10, 2009

I always thought that the gamer score could be a decent way to judge the re-playability of a game.

Essentially, it's an effective console-based way to keep track of Valve-like stats on games. I'm certain Microsoft knows/tracks how many people made it how far into the latest HALO game, and they can probably use achievements to figure this out. I would think regular publishers could do the same, if not with information provided by Microsoft than through achievement sites.

Making a game with easy achievements probably even leads to increased sales, at least slightly.
posted by graventy at 8:31 AM on December 10, 2009

I do like to be complete with games, when I can - I've spent time grinding in the Zelda series trying to find all the hidden items, for no real reason other than it makes the game take longer and I don't necessarily want to see it end, because Zelda is fun! - but spending your life grinding? Don't we do enough of that at work already? Why do it at home, especially if it isn't even fun?
posted by caution live frogs at 9:03 AM on December 10, 2009

Happily, in TF2 PC, grinding the achievements actually unlocks new in-game items, with no monetary price or value. Sandvich FTW.

graventy: Valve-like stats on games

Wow, only 12% of people use subs? I always use subs in games. How odd.
posted by paisley henosis at 9:04 AM on December 10, 2009

I don't regret the 10 hours I spent hunting pigeons in GTA. It was like a site-seeing tour of Liberty City and made me appreciate locations I missed in the story. Having to lose a wanted-level for gunfire was slightly annoying.

I do however regret missing 1 of the 200 pigeons, and spending an additional 4 hours revisiting every damn site again.
posted by yeti at 9:07 AM on December 10, 2009 [3 favorites]

Hmm. It reminds me a lot of grinding in WoW. The only difference is that at least the XP/Gold/loot in WoW can be used for something.

We must have different definitions of "something".

I mean "in-game something," of course. XP levels your character. Gold buys supplies, trinkets, fun things like fireworks. Loot upgrades your character, is used in crafting, whatever.

Gamer points sit there as a total that you can't interact with. You can't spend Gamer Points to increase your chance of being the "1" on XBox Live's 1v100. You can't spend Gamer Points to download new features for your Xbox, new avatar options, new games. You can't spend them at all.

Me? I wish I could turn off achievements/trophies from games. The notification doesn't make me happy so much as interrupts the game and spoils the mood half the time. I don't care that I got some trophy for killing that big Demon in Demon's Souls! I care about what's in the next room! Stop breaking my suspension!
posted by explosion at 9:08 AM on December 10, 2009

Yeah, it was just a dig at MMOs, explosion. I knew what you meant. :)

I thought you could turn achievement notification off, at least with the xbox, but I haven't checked specifically.
posted by ODiV at 9:12 AM on December 10, 2009

I must admit I've been doing a bit of this with Burnout Paradise. Though, to be clear, everything is still fun. But I've definitely been gearing myself more towards doing things that would lead to achievements. At least in Burnout, the more grindy things lead to rewards of unlocked cars in-game.

I'm probably a bad gamer, but I do get a little thrill when I hear the Achievement bloop.
posted by kmz at 9:23 AM on December 10, 2009

Can I except one game from my previous comments? Amorphous+ has such a terribly addictive, well-integrated award system that I can't help chasing down every last one.

And then deleting the record and chasing them down all over again.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:27 AM on December 10, 2009

Anyone else happy they have no idea what any of this means?
posted by Zambrano at 9:28 AM on December 10, 2009

"With as much time as she has allotted for video games and the kid I can account for her whereabouts at any given moment so I'm certain that she isn't cheating on me."

Not to de-rail, but did anybody else find this quote from her husband extremely creepy? I realize it's meant as a joke, but man, my feminist senses are tingling.
posted by bookwo3107 at 9:30 AM on December 10, 2009

This reminds me of WoW as well, only in reference to the "win trading" that became a problem during an Arena season maybe a year or 2 ago. I'm not sure what the strategy behind it was, but the idea was to boost ratings and the accumulation of Arena points, with very little effort. Now that I think about it, this happened in Team Fortress too. How the accumulation of points and ratings surpasses deriving enjoyment from gameplay is beyond my understanding. Anyway, blizzard put the kibosh on that fairly quickly, however.
posted by Brocktoon at 9:32 AM on December 10, 2009

Not to de-rail, but did anybody else find this quote from her husband extremely creepy?

Not me. Any gamer-widow could make the same joke about her man. And they probably do.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:34 AM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Not to de-rail, but did anybody else find this quote from her husband extremely creepy? I realize it's meant as a joke, but man, my feminist senses are tingling.

That joke was in reference to several hundred dollars just randomly disappearing from the bank account at certain times. Much less creepy in that context.
posted by explosion at 9:40 AM on December 10, 2009

I do however regret missing 1 of the 200 pigeons, and spending an additional 4 hours revisiting every damn site again.

Way back when, playing the original Police Quest, I ended up 1 point short of a perfect score.
It has haunted me ever since.
posted by madajb at 9:45 AM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

I find it fascinating that people are obsessed with a metric that signals you play video games all day and have no life.

This particular woman is addicted, but in general, this sort of statement bugs me as a gamer. If someone were reading all day or painting all day or writing all day, would people make comments about "hav[ing] no life"?
posted by cmgonzalez at 9:52 AM on December 10, 2009 [3 favorites]

"...I'm certain that she isn't cheating on me."

No, she's cheating on her kid, which is just as bad.
posted by Ratio at 9:53 AM on December 10, 2009 [3 favorites]

She seems like she's boring herself to death, the slow way.

As opposed to boring herself to death the fast way? "Steering this car is boring. La la la la la"[CRASH]
posted by davejay at 9:57 AM on December 10, 2009 [4 favorites]

How completely depressing - I loathe games that translate the playing experience into grinding. I'm currently playing Okami and loving every second of it. It's an experience worth savoring - everything about the game is just beautiful. And the best part? I'm playing by myself, against myself, without all the nonsense and unfun of competing against people with nothing better to do than grind all day. Sometimes I just run around and listen to the soundtrack. Don't suppose I'll gain any "gamer points" for doing that.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:10 AM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Everybody needs a hobby, I don't see what the issue is.
posted by flatluigi at 10:11 AM on December 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

delmoi - you can buy games online with "Microsoft points", that you purchase with cash. All the gaming systems do this sleight of hand to obscure the cost of online content.

Well, the Xbox 360 and the Wii certainly do. Wii points are at least sold at retail for basically a penny a point. The Playstation 3 sells in US dollars. Microsoft's 80 points per dollar is really the only system has a weird exchange rate. They also like to sell their points in bundles that just don't seem to ever match up exactly with the cost of games in the store, setting up a weird hot dog / bun package purchase conundrum.

I'm not sure if it is because of or in spite of the real dollar values posted on the Playstation Network, but I've bought the most online content there.

I dislike the whole Gamerscore / Trophy thing, but I don't know if its because I find it distracting, or because my Gamerscore is so low.

Game developer Gearbox claims that "easy achievements boost game sales."
posted by curse at 10:14 AM on December 10, 2009

Every disc-based game is required to come with between 5 and 50 achievements, for a total value of 1000 gamerscore. DLC packages for a title can contain up to 5 more achievements, and up to 250 gamerscore, per package. A title can have at most, with DLC, 1750 gamerscore.

Note that it wasn't like this at the launch of the Xbox 360, as the original policy was a max of 1000 gamerscore, so some games came out with less than 1000 to leave room for more achievements and gamerscore in future DLC, which didn't always come. Thus some older games have less than 1000 gamerscore.

XBLA games have to ship with 12 achievements and 200 gamerscore, though I believe they can add 50 more gamerscore and 3 more achievements with DLC.

The Xbox team also provides suggested guidelines for game developers to use when creating achievements - after all, it was a new thing when the Xbox 360 came out, so there's been a number of lessons learned along the line. For example, achievements based on leaderboard ranks are highly discouraged, because they're extremely hard to get, and it then encourages people to boost or otherwise game the system to get them. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter was notorious for having a number of such achievements, and they're still some of the hardest to earn.

There is also a community site that's popped up that actually scans the achievements of all the users, and uses that to rate the difficulty of achievements per game, and across the site: TrueAchievements. They've even got a list of the easiest achievements you haven't earned in games that you've previously played - which can sometimes have the impact of convincing you to go back to playing a game you haven't touched in quite a while.

And for those interested, the guy who was in charge of implementing achievements for games on flash game site Kongregate.com has a whole article on what he's learned about achievement design: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/GregMcClanahan/20091202/3709/Achievement_Design_101.php

(For the record, I do work on the Xbox team, and am myself a bit of a gamerscore whore, having crossed the 83,000 mark not that long ago...)
posted by evilangela at 10:25 AM on December 10, 2009 [9 favorites]

Everybody needs a hobby, I don't see what the issue is.

Well, most of us actually like doing our hobbies.
posted by dirigibleman at 10:36 AM on December 10, 2009

I suspect there is a bit of elitist snobbery in the attitude that some people have against gaming. There's really no good reason that we should denigrate someone for gaming a lot and praise someone who reads books every spare minute.
posted by oddman at 10:37 AM on December 10, 2009 [5 favorites]

There's really no good reason that we should denigrate someone for gaming a lot and praise someone who reads books every spare minute.

That's a bit of a false dichotomy here. This woman is clearly addicted and isn't even enjoying herself.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:42 AM on December 10, 2009

This particular woman is addicted, but in general, this sort of statement bugs me as a gamer. If someone were reading all day or painting all day or writing all day, would people make comments about "hav[ing] no life"?

Not to troll, but the key difference between painting/writing and playing video games is that one is productive and the other is consumptive. I have much more respect for a shitty painter than a talented gamer.
posted by cloeburner at 10:50 AM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

People need to feel important, to feel as if they have some kind of status. Maybe for a young mother who seems to have had no other opportunity to stand out or express herself, gamerscore stats are a way to find validation. She's the best at something, and even if it's really lame, it's better than living a bland life and not being the best at anything.
posted by mpbx at 10:53 AM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

There's really no good reason that we should denigrate someone for gaming a lot and praise someone who reads books every spare minute.

Depends on the game and the book.
posted by mpbx at 10:54 AM on December 10, 2009

If someone were reading all day or painting all day or writing all day, would people make comments about "hav[ing] no life"?

As someone who read a lot as a teenager, I can say: "Yes, frequently". Gamers get mocked unfairly, and often by people who don't know how well-scripted and involving some games can be.

I think we just need to get used to the fact that there will always be people quick to crow that "your fun way of wasting time is far less [challenging/worthy/stimulating/worthwhile/etc] than my fun way of wasting time". It's easy to glance at a hobby, see the surface details and sismiss it as a shallow timewaste. For example, someone mights spend years learning about rail infrastructure, the elegance of its sytems and the majesty of its machines, then spent enormous amounts of time and money trying to travel all the lines or see all the engines; it's a consuming, deep and nuanced hobby. But the slobs who just sit around passively soaking in other people's adventures (i.e. avid readers of classic literature) instead of going out and having their own will happily dismiss them as "trainspotters".
posted by metaBugs at 10:57 AM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've certainly "wasted" huge amounts of my life with video games but I'm simply unable to understand achievement junkies.

This seems like the equivalent of slot machine addicts to me. You've stripped away all of the trappings of entertainment or competition and exposed the video game addict in its pure form. At least she has social interaction by chatting during gameplay, and it isn't bankrupting them.
posted by ecurtz at 11:03 AM on December 10, 2009

Way back when, playing the original Police Quest, I ended up 1 point short of a perfect score.
It has haunted me ever since.

I'm guessing you were totally smitten by the hot babe who ran that red light, and you let her off with a warning. You have brought shame upon the police force of Lytton.

That or you forgot to interview the "excited young man" at the car accident. And it was no accident! That man was murdered!
posted by Brocktoon at 11:04 AM on December 10, 2009

I've got a challenge for her: plow through the achievements on Tony Hawk: Ride, which looks like it could be the anti-fun gaming fiasco of 2009.
posted by porn in the woods at 11:07 AM on December 10, 2009

the key difference between painting/writing and playing video games is that one is productive and the other is consumptive.

Unless you're an artist in Brooklyn, in which case you're probably consumptive of your parents' checking account.
posted by incessant at 11:21 AM on December 10, 2009

evilangela (or anybody else who knows the XBox submission rules).

Has there been a game where you start off with the entire compliment of gamer points and points are removed as you progress through the game? Would that even be allowed by the submission requirements? You'd need the right kind of game, but I could see this working for something like Shadow of the Colossus if it was made today.
posted by ecurtz at 11:22 AM on December 10, 2009

My gamerscore isn't even 7000, and I've had an XBox 360 since it came out. I don't know what that says about me.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:28 AM on December 10, 2009

My nearly 30k achievement score, which I've been trying madly to make grow, seems like chicken feed now. 200k?! Fuck this shit. I'm going outside.
posted by Bageena at 11:36 AM on December 10, 2009

Has there been a game where you start off with the entire compliment of gamer points and points are removed as you progress through the game? Would that even be allowed by the submission requirements? You'd need the right kind of game, but I could see this working for something like Shadow of the Colossus if it was made today.

No, there's currently no mechanism for that - achievements are only awarded, and never taken away. The design of achievements is meant not to recognize some sort of transient state, but a permanent "I did X at least once" type of thing.

There have been games though that have used zero-point achievements as markers of what you'd think of as negative actions. Dead or Alive 4 awarded a couple for losing streaks, and some of the Guitar Hero games had achievements for failing the same song 5 times, or failing with 99% completion of the song (meaning right at the end).
posted by evilangela at 11:41 AM on December 10, 2009

My gamerscore isn't even 7000, and I've had an XBox 360 since it came out. I don't know what that says about me.

It means you've gotta go out and buy Avatar The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth!
posted by Flunkie at 12:11 PM on December 10, 2009

I say this as a lover of games and books - yes, I believe if you play video games (or read) all day every day solely for your own pleasure, with no further intentions or motivations, then you need to evaluate your life and what you're getting out of it, because there's a whole world out there you're not exploring and interacting with. If this makes me a philistine, so be it.

On the other hand, if you paint or write all day every day, you have incredible discipline and I can guarantee you'll make a name for yourself soon enough.
posted by naju at 12:13 PM on December 10, 2009

(rubs eyes, gets off of the couch, opens front door, blinks at the sunlight) Achievement unlocked!
posted by naju at 12:15 PM on December 10, 2009 [4 favorites]

I just looked mine up. I have a Gamerscore of 1675 out of 18900. It's interesting stuff to look back at, I've never really paid attention to it before.

I got my 360 for Christmas 2006, with Gears of War, 3rd person shooters make me ill to play, so I have 10 out of 1250 and it was last played 12/26/2006.

Bioshock is, by far, the highest scoring game for me. Makes sense, I played that for hours and finished it, I'm surprised I only got 720 out of 1100. The fiendishly difficult FIFA '08, which I also played for hours rewarded my ineptitude with 25 out of 1000. I only have 80 out of 1500 for GTA IV, which I've also put hours into, but haven't completed or done many of the side missions. Must get back to that one day

The most interesting thing to me is that, apart from original XBox titles, and 25 Arcade games that I've tried and rejected (0 out of 200) I've only played 12 different games on my 360 in 3 years. Perhaps my wife's argument against buying me FIFA '10 for Christmas is stronger than I thought. Damn.
posted by IanMorr at 12:30 PM on December 10, 2009

Bioshock is, by far, the highest scoring game for me.

Whoah. Minor epiphany. After all the complaints in the old days about games that were all score and no game progression, we've reached a point -- not for very long now -- where some games are all progression and no score. So they've found a way to put the score back in. And this really hooks some people. Fascinating.

Maybe that was so obvious as to be a premise of this whole conversation, but that's a puzzle piece that didn't quite fit for me until just now.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 12:33 PM on December 10, 2009

As someone who read a lot as a teenager, I can say: "Yes, frequently".

Well, honestly my leisure time is split between reading, gaming, writing, and cooking, but none of the others but gaming are so maligned. But yes, I agree with the rest of your comment and that's usually what I say, but sometimes I feel like pointing it out. Picking up a paintbrush isn't any more or less valuable than picking up a controller.

Also that gaming isn't just consumptive, there's a lot of experiences one can get out of it, time spent, and in online games, even connections made. Both reading and gaming can engage one's mind in many ways that go beyond the actual process. And it can even inspire things like writing and painting.

That's one reason why I see cases of gamerscore addiction incredibly sad, because in these cases, it does become just a process. There is no engagement.
posted by cmgonzalez at 12:53 PM on December 10, 2009

none of the others but gaming are so maligned

Give it time. It's come an incredibly long way on that front already.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 12:56 PM on December 10, 2009

Part of my job involves designing the requirements for and scoring Achievements.
With the addition or removal of a single digit, I can give or take away hours of people's lives.
It's a bit of a strange feeling, but I try not to let players like this influence my design choices, because to a player like this, the design choices don't seem to matter. They're going for those Achievement points no matter how they're earned. In fact, I would argue that they're not playing any more, they're working.
posted by Durhey at 1:16 PM on December 10, 2009

Geez, I'll never catch up to these people. I'm still trying to get 99 lives in Super Mario Bros.
posted by studentbaker at 1:17 PM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

The Xbox Live Gamerscore Philosophy goes like this:

Your gamerscore is under 1000. You can piss a foot and a half.
His gamerscore is around 10000. He can piss four feet.
My gamerscore is over 25000. I can write my full name in the snow. In cursive. With a chop mark signature.
posted by Spatch at 1:18 PM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

I game a lot. But I just can't understand why people engage in this sort of gaming.

The only cheesement I did some grinding for was the Zombie Genocide achievement in Dead Rising, for killing 53k-ish zombies. To do this I spent a few hours driving cars around the tunnels underneath the mall racking up the kills.

But, I did this not just for the achievement, but for the in game bonus weapon it gave me. A genuine mega man megabuster for my Frank West to run around shooting :)

I just don't get grinding for things that don't even give you an in-game benefit. All most of them give you are a slightly bigger e-peen.
posted by utsutsu at 2:01 PM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

the complete lack of economy in gamerscore "points" has always bothered me. some games make their 1000 points ridiculously easy to attain, and some have acheivement points tied to incredibly difficult/tedious/unattractive activities, and some of them have points tied to activities you literally have no control over ("have the highest rated video clip online" or whatever for Skate). the King Kong game has one of the easiest 1000 points available, and i recall friends bragging about their score-bump after renting it for the night as if those gimme points somehow mattered.

i'm totally baffled at how MS sold us the idea of a gamerscore, but the comments i've seen in here likening it to the old scoring systems of yore is fascinating and rings true. i think people just like to see a number, associate that number with themselves, and then cause that number to grow.

on the flip side, something i'm perpetually perturbed by is that the 360 records every single game you put into it and gives you the acheivement list for that title, adding the new max total to your potential gamerscore max total. you have no way of removing these entries, either, so when friends come over and pop a game in one time it is forever listed on your acheivement list. it's just something to be scrolled past on your way to data you're actually interested in. i guess it's some kind of pointless marketing ploy, but all it ever does is annoy.
posted by radiosilents at 2:13 PM on December 10, 2009

on the flip side, something i'm perpetually perturbed by is that the 360 records every single game you put into it and gives you the acheivement list for that title, adding the new max total to your potential gamerscore max total. you have no way of removing these entries, either, so when friends come over and pop a game in one time it is forever listed on your acheivement list.

Not quite true. The game is added to the games played for every profile signed in - so if you're not using your profile, they don't get added. Also, any game that you play that you do not earn any achievements in can be deleted from your profile. Finally, the games are listen in order of the last time they were played. So even if you do earn achievements in the title, it'll shuffle down past all the games you've played since then.
posted by evilangela at 2:20 PM on December 10, 2009

My interest in ever owning an Xbox 360 has shrunk to nearly nil. It reminds me of what Jim Carroll said about addiction: it's just another 9 to 5, only the hours incline more to the shadows.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:20 PM on December 10, 2009

evilangela, i did not know that. i will be poking at some menus later tonight and cleaning house, hopefully. thanks!
posted by radiosilents at 2:33 PM on December 10, 2009

I'm still trying to get 99 lives in Super Mario Bros.

The one time I actually pulled off the turtle on the staircase move, I felt like a video game god. Now I just have to beat the game.
posted by drezdn at 2:51 PM on December 10, 2009

dirigibleman: "Well, most of us actually like doing our hobbies."

All I see in the article is her playing several games she doesn't like to boost her gamerscore, as she'd gone through many, many other games. Should she have given up once she ran out of games she knew she'd enjoy?
posted by flatluigi at 2:58 PM on December 10, 2009

Whoah. Minor epiphany. After all the complaints in the old days about games that were all score and no game progression, we've reached a point -- not for very long now -- where some games are all progression and no score.

Huh? Except for the Seventies, when "video game" pretty much meant Pong, I pretty much remember all-progression-no-score games as far back as I've ever played video games.

I mean, for example, Ultima came out in 1980. And there have continuously been scoreless progression video games ever since (and not just in the RPG genre; think Sim City, for example).

I suppose you could say "your gold pieces were your score in Ultima", or "your experience points" or whatever, but that seems very nitpicky, and the same thing could be said about, say, The Elder Scrolls series. Maybe even Bioshock, which is what you were commenting on here (I've never played it except five minutes of the demo, so I don't know).
posted by Flunkie at 3:31 PM on December 10, 2009

On the off chance that this woman or anyone like her is reading this thread, here's a game that could help free up a lot of her time.
posted by Flunkie at 3:38 PM on December 10, 2009

Except for the Seventies, when "video game" pretty much meant Pong, I pretty much remember all-progression-no-score games as far back as I've ever played video games.

I didn't say there weren't such games, but they were a tiny minority, especially in older console generations. 99% of Atari games (and almost all arcade games) were of the repetitive level variety. The PS1 gen changed that percentage and PS2 changed it some more. But the core of older gaming was always defeat level 1, move on to level 2 which is almost identical to level 1 but harder. The score was everything. That was generally perceived to be a flaw that would be eventually fixed with greater processing power, so I find it interesting that anyone would want to attach a score to progressive plot games. It harkens back to trying to get your initials on the machine, get that top score.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:57 PM on December 10, 2009

Bah. Pointless. Addictions should at least be to something fun.
posted by tehloki at 4:11 PM on December 10, 2009

Like, this is the only time in my life I'm ever going to say this, but she should just fucking play WoW.
posted by tehloki at 4:12 PM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

I totally forgot to log on to Brothers In Arms : Hell's Highway on 17th September to get the world's easiest Achievement.

Le sigh. Lets hope the 360 doesn't RROD before next year.

Incidentally - why is there no gamertag listing for the Mefites who play on the 360 anywhere? It'd be nice to play against some reasonably mature folks instead of sweary 14 year old arseholes.
posted by longbaugh at 5:04 PM on December 10, 2009

Achievement. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
posted by Hardcore Poser at 5:26 PM on December 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

longbaugh, although I'm not really sure because I'm somewhat of an asocial gamer, I would assume that MeFightClub probably keeps a gamertag list.
posted by graventy at 8:48 PM on December 10, 2009

I totally forgot to log on to Brothers In Arms : Hell's Highway on 17th September to get the world's easiest Achievement.

The Simpsons game gives you a 5 point achievement for pressing Start to begin the game. I always thought that'd be the easiest.
posted by Spatch at 5:53 AM on December 11, 2009