Lots of gamers love completing trophies and achievements provided by platforms such as Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation. They’re a great way to show off your progress in the game while also flexing certain feats that not everybody can manage to pull off. According to former Mirror Edge dev Fredrik Thylander, however, video game achievements have hindered game development more than anything.
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Thylander, interestingly enough, designed the achievements for Mirror’s Edge, giving him a unique perspective on the matter. Here’s the full statement:
Unpopular opinion : achievements/trophies have been bad for gaming. It narrows games down, it disrupts and diverts attention, and it eats resources that could have made the game better.
— Fredrik Thylander (@Thylander) January 7, 2023
On one hand, he kinda does have a point: the existence of video game achievements have caused games to feel more restrictive, as devs are now more likely to build their games around them while players will feel compelled to play the game a certain way. It also takes away from the game itself, as you may be more focused to do achievements than immersing yourself in the story or enjoying gameplay.
However, video game achievements have also helped make games a lot more replayable, even for games that you typically only need to play once. Players will do multiple playthroughs of a game to earn all achievements, and this also makes use of modern gaming features such as New Game+. There’s also a common joy in collecting achievements and adding them to your profile, which further incentivizes players to play even more games.
While there are arguments to be made for either side, the discussion on video game achievements is an interesting one. Though it doesn’t look like video game achievements will go away anytime soon, it’s worth noting this sort of criticism when either developing or playing a game.