Are you playing a game or playing for achievements?
hen the Xbox 360 launched on November 22, 2005, it not only ushered in a new generation of console gaming, it introduced players to a feature known as Gamerscore.
While the concept behind meta-scoring isn't new, the broad-scale utility of the achievement system — and its place in the public eye — leaves some gamers hungry for points. Many times, these achievements serve to increase the longevity of titles, granting points for completion percentages or fetch-quest objectives. In other cases, more obscure tasks are presented, some even contrary to the game's original flow (such as beating Half-Life 2: Episode One while having only fired exactly one bullet).
Can achievements (or a comparative meta-scoring system) actually distance the player from the core experience? That is to say, while the experience may have been enjoyable, was it actually meaningful?
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