Next Generation Achievements

Next Generation Achievements
by John Davison

In-game Achievements are getting boring, providing little more than shopping lists of gameplay requirements to feed the meta-game and provoke us to play longer. We're due an overhaul, and the implementation of "next generation" content that rewards our game time differently. Here's what that could entail.

I've somehow convinced myself lately that the only way to work off the unsightly layers of flab congregating around my middle (thanks in no small part to my spectacularly sedentary workday lifestyle) is to burden myself with a hellish early workout at a local torture chamber that calls itself a "Crossfit gym." As I arrive each morning at 6 am, wiry and lean lunatics can be seen putting themselves through hellishly painful contortions in what I'm assured is an "advanced" class. They move from squat-thrusts to quad-blasting crunches to clean and jerks in reps that seem to go on and on for interminably painful-looking periods. I tell you this, not to try and draw attention in the most ferociously douchey way to the fact that hey, yeah... I work out, babe, but to tell you what I overheard a muscular, middle-aged woman yell at the end of her superhuman barbell frenzy. In hindsight it probably shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did, but in context it was just weird. As she reached her final rep, she threw her barbell to the ground, pumped her fist and shouted "Achievement Unlocked!" to no one in particular.

I shit you not. How gloriously nerd-tastic is that?

That Microsoft's stroke of meta-gaming genius has trickled its way through geek pop culture in just five years is no secret, nor is it a surprise. That it’s worked it's way to the point that you'll hear it from someone randomly in a gym to mark a real-world physical achievement (little A) is. We nerds have embraced the magnificence of the Achievement (big A) since the very beginning and have created Internet memes about it, worn T-shirts, and coined self-effacing terms about it. We all have an inner Achievement Whore because it's in our nature to seek validation. That said, the notion itself has got to a point now where it's plateaued.

Remember the earliest Xbox 360 games? The ones that clearly weren't designed with Achievements in mind, and very obviously had them bolted on later? You'd get a couple of achievements for beating the game and then maybe one for performing a feat of superhuman patience, but that was it. Since then, they've slowly evolved to the point that we seem get a big pat on the back these days for the most microcosmic gameplay event, even just for turning a game on sometimes. "Well done! You pressed start!" The only other evolution seems to be the pervasiveness of the "secret" reward. In the early days, Achievement lists were video gaming's analog for skipping to the last few pages of a novel. No one likes to admit that they do it, but there’s something quietly satisfying about knowing what's coming. The secret Achievements eliminated this, in large part to negate pre-release spoilers, but there's definitely something very disappointing about not knowing that we need to do something 100 times before we get the shiny little badge.

But as more games are connected, the next generation of this content will be adaptive and emergent. Developers have certainly mastered the art of micromanaging our expectations and our most obsessive behaviors. But where will it go from here? Have we seen everything that this concept has to offer?
In a word, no.

The evolution of "next generation" Achievements (and I'm using that as a collective term to include Trophies and any other behavioral validation thingy) seems likely to come in lockstep with the next generation of connected games. Over the past five years we’ve had the chance to get used to the idea of our games bringing us together, and slowly providing us with more control over the environments in which we herd our friends and play together. The next phase of this is very much tied in with the stat-tracking and telemetry stuff that I’ve talked about over the past few weeks.

The next batch of connected games aren't necessarily going to need us to be online together. Obviously, if we are, they'll cater to that, but if we're not, all of that telemetry that’s being gathered and fed back to us will still allow us to compete, and to engage in what is often referred to as "comparison gameplay." Think of it as the ultimate incarnation of the “ghost racers” in Gran Turismo. Games will “record” everything you and your friends do, and then give you something to compete against.

A side effect of this is that this telemetry can track what you're doing, where you're doing it, and how frequently you're doing it. It knows everything about your performance, and assuming that you're online, it's pulling that data and comparing it to the same data set from everyone else. It doesn't matter if it's a shooter, an adventure, a puzzle game, or a racing game - there's plenty to pull. Once all of it is in one place, it can be analyzed and used to fuel numerous projects. It'll reveal if parts of the game are too easy or too hard, if content is being ignored or obsessed over, and it'll also highlight specific behaviors that the game's content is provoking people to exhibit.

In the past, Achievements have always been about setting specific gameplay goals, or anticipating player behavior. But as more games are connected, the next generation of this content will be adaptive and emergent. If lots of us playing some future version of Burnout are doing that crazy "jousting" game of chicken that we all did when we played online, the telemetry will see the behavior, see where it's happening on the map and reward it with a new Achievement. If a future Just Cause spots that lots of people are jumping out of planes and landing on motorcycles which are then driven off a cliff, that could be rewarded appropriately too. The possibilities are endless, and instead of developers having to dream up new ways of rewarding the collection of a hojillion sparkly things in InFamous 2, or eleventy thousand orbs in Crackdown 3 because they're now slaves to the fundamental concept, they can ease off, give us the toys and watch what we do with them.

Obviously there are some barriers to this in practice right now, but as the walls around the closed networks come down, it's going to be easier for studios to push this kind of dynamic content without having to go through the kinds of rigorous approvals that every flavor of pushed content currently requires.

When that happens, we'll be one step closer to the in-game version of setting our own Achievements based on our personal performance. Just like my bonkers new friend at the gym.