blog-405 – sirrunlahtechengineering

Hello dear StopGame readers. Today we are going to tell you about the history of gaming achievements.

Achievements…what do we know about them…there are plenty of events in our daily life for which it would be possible to receive them:

And if you can also cook dinner for the whole family, then you have no equal and the conditional achievement “Father of the Year” is rightfully yours.

But from the farce let’s move directly to history, since in life there are enough areas of activity for which they give quite impressive awards and honors, be it painting, music, literature, cinema, sports, incredible discoveries of science, as well as many smaller types of activity and creativity: one of which is the gaming industry itself, fortunately many developers have thought about the virtual exploits of players and in return reward them with a corresponding achievement, both in the game itself and outside it, but let’s talk about everything in order.

Grammy, Oscar, Ballon d’Or, Nobel Prize, Homemade Car Racing, Cosplay

STORY

Arcade machines

It all started back in the arcade era of the early 1970s, when players would spend hundreds of hours trying to get to the top of the leaderboards. For this they received the respect of friends, the envy of rivals, and the owners of halls with slot machines often staged tournament battles until closing, with the opportunity to receive as a reward a free visit to the establishment for a certain time, and sometimes more valuable prizes, in the form of cups, medals or cash rewards. The pioneer was Hot Trip, a pinball machine that became widespread in the mid-70s.

A little later, tables with records began to appear in games; in 1976, Sea Wolf, which was a submarine simulator, presented players with a score counter, but these were blind lists, since the player could not enter his nickname after finishing the game; such a function was added only in 1979 with the release of the space shooter Star Fire, in the spirit of the Star Wars universe, but which was never licensed for various reasons.

Activision patches

In the early 80s, Activision, at the instigation of one of its founders, Jim Levy, began the practice of rewarding players and including them in an honorary club for success in the studio’s games. The main condition for the players was to take a photo of their records and send them by mail to Activision, in response they were sent a letter of gratitude and the coveted reward in the form of a title badge.
Included with the game was a special booklet, which indicated the condition for receiving the coveted reward, for example, passing against the clock as in Barnstorming, gaining a certain number of points, using the example of the platformer Pitfall, or for destroying units, as in Robot tank. The first game from Activision with awards for achievements was the racing simulator Dragster, released in 1980, in which you had to drive the track in less than 6 seconds to get a badge.

Almost all games produced by the company for the Atari 2600 had a similar reward system, until 1983, when the entire gaming industry collapsed, almost burying the main entertainment for players from all over the world.

Atari

In the early 80s, Atari tried to keep up with its colleagues in the industry and gave out more valuable prizes, unlike the same Activision stripes.

The Japanese decided to organize a kind of tournament for players of their Swordquest series, the gameplay of which was based on moving between rooms, collecting and combining objects as they progressed, the player received a hint with a reference to Swordquest comics, then they had to find a hidden word on the pages of the comic, and after collecting all the clues, make a sentence of 5 words. Those who passed such a selection were invited to the company’s office to participate in the final test – a special version of the game, with a timer for 90 minutes, the winner of each game in the series received a prize worth $25,000, and the winner of the super final would be rewarded with a sword worth $50,000.

Earthworld was rewarded with an amulet made of gold, encrusted with diamonds, in the shape of the zodiac signs. 20-year-old Stephen Bell triumphed.

For Fireworld, Michael Wrightout was presented with a trophy made of gold and platinum, set with diamonds, sapphires and rubies.

Waterworld was released during the collapse of the gaming industry and completely failed in sales and reviews, the competition did not take place due to financial problems, and the fourth part was never released, Atari was soon sold to a new owner, Jack Tramel, who, according to rumors, appropriated the remaining prizes for himself.

Triumphants of Earthworld and Fireworld and their awards

Indiana Jones

In the early 90s, Lucas Arts presented its analogue of achievements in quests about Indiana Jones. The system is called Indy Quotient points. These points demonstrated the progress of exploring the game world, stimulating the gamer to complete puzzles in various ways to get more points.

MSG zone

In the mid-90s, an independent site for browser and casual games, Microsoft Internet Start Games Zone, introduced its own system for tracking the progression of players’ achievements and issued badges for success in games such as Hearts, Spades, Checkers. Subsequently, the site was bought by Microsoft and based on it they created Xbox live for their future projects.

Gamescore

In 2005, with the release of the Xbox 360, achievements also changed. The new Gamescore system was introduced. Each game was assigned a list of achievements, for obtaining them player points were accumulated, and thanks to the new Xbox live service, it became possible to compete, comparing progress with other players. Microsoft did not count on such warm reviews of the new achievement system and the company elevated it to the absolute level, making it a distinctive feature of the Xbox consoles. It is noteworthy that absolutely all games on Xbox 360 received Gamescore. Some achievements included digital trophies for avatars, such as avatar t-shirts for achievements in Portal 2.

Steam

In 2007, Valve introduced its version of the achievement system, integrating it into Steam. The pioneer with this functionality was the “Orange box” set; all games in it, with the exception of Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One, had their own list of achievements, but the player did not receive anything for completing them, unlike Team Fortress 2, in which new weapons were unlocked for unlocking achievements. Soon a new system was added for third-party game developers on the Steam platform.

In 2008, it was Spin-Casino.co.uk Sony’s turn to respond to its direct competitors, having analyzed their successes, the company introduced its own player reward system, renaming achievements “Trophies”.

They were divided into several types: bronze, silver, gold and platinum for opening all achievements, each gave a certain amount of experience to increase the account level, and with platinum it was possible to track how many games the user completed 100%.

The first game was the platformer PixelJunk Eden, initially the trophies were advisory in nature for developers, but at the beginning of 2009, by order of Sony bosses, the new system became mandatory for passing game certification.

Uplay

In 2009, along with the release of Assassin’s Creed 2, an internal Ubisoft service called Uplay appeared. Users of the new system now have the opportunity to communicate with other players, and special points were introduced – Uplay Points, which were awarded for certain achievements. These points could be spent on unlocking various bonuses for games, for example, getting unique equipment in Assassin’s Creed or unlocking cool weapons for Far Cry.

Ubisoft game awards

Retro Achievements

In 2012, the amateur project Retro Achievements, which is an emulator of consoles such as Atari, Nes, SNES, gameboy, Sega mega Drive, Playstation 1 and many others, also began adding achievements to retro games, the principle of operation was similar to psn and xbox, you have an account, by logging into which you can track your progress in games. Achievements for each game are added by the head of the TheMysticalOne project and the number of games with this system has already exceeded 4000.

Unfortunately, to take advantage of these functions, you will have to download a modified emulator application (for example, they are already built into RetroArch); achievements are not available on the regular version.

Retroarch game lists and achievements

Sony (continued)

In 2011, the trophies reached the Ps Vita, and in 2013, upon release, the Playstation 4 received an updated version of the system. Several innovations awaited players: now a constant Internet connection was required to view trophies, the rarity percentage of each achievement and their sorting by various parameters appeared, players were given the opportunity to share their successes on social media.networks or in personal messages, from now on the console automatically took a screenshot at the time of receiving trophies, as well as the ability to remove games with zero progress from its list of prizes.

For earning platinum trophies in some of its games, Sony rewards players with avatars and themes for the PS4 home screen, such as Bloodborne, Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, Spider Man.

In 2017, a system for exchanging trophies for real money was added exclusively for American accounts. It consisted of the following: you earned points for a certain number of trophies and, having accumulated 1000, you could exchange them for $10. The points rate was as follows: 100 silver trophies are equivalent to 100 points, 25 gold trophies give a total of 250, and 10 platinum cups immediately bring their owner 1000. The money went to your psn wallet and you could spend it on any product in the Playstation digital store, be it a game or an add-on.

In October 2020, Sony revised the long-established system, updating the visual component of trophies and changing user levels: increasing the maximum value from 100 to 999, and also redistributed points for obtaining them.

With the release of Playstation 5, a long-awaited feature was added: tracking (insert) to track progress on trophies, as well as cards with information on games, where you can view information on individual collectible items or tactics for completing games.

epic games

In October 2021, EGS finally presented its achievement system to the public, which is in many ways similar to the trophy system of PlayStation consoles, we also have bronze, silver, gold and platinum prizes. The amount of experience points for each trophy is as follows:

To get a platinum trophy you need to collect 1000 experience points, all this can be tracked on a special page with a convenient progress counter. Not all games on the platform have received this system yet (rocket league, alan wake, hades and some others), but this is the first stage of testing and tools for adding achievements are available to developers, now it’s more a matter of time.

The name of the system was “Epic Achievements”, the company has already announced rewards for users and some social functions that should appear before the end of 2021.

Nintendo

Unfortunately, the corporation that has not yet introduced such a system remains a large N. The Japanese media giant still uses trophies in some of its games, but mainly on this platform, achievements are presented by third-party developers and then only within the game, since there is no tracking system, etc. n. does not exist on Nintendo consoles themselves.

In-game achievements on Nintendo Switch for Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, Monster Hunter: Rise, Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls

Previously, there was information that the company was working on developing its own achievement system, but things did not progress beyond rumors and a couple of vague statements from representatives of the Big N.

Perhaps, with the release of the Oled version of the Nintendo Switch and the announcement of crossing only half of the life cycle of its portable console, the company will nevertheless implement its own system, to the delight of all trophy hunters.

TYPES OF ACHIEVEMENTS

Introduction

A huge number of players love achievements – they challenge you, force you to return to the game for something new, and reveal previously unavailable content before your eyes. It is customary for the trophy hunter community to divide these achievements into certain categories according to the conditions for obtaining. It is important to note that there are no official categories as such and everyone determines them for themselves, and we, in turn, want to share our classification with you. However, there are also negative aspects – be it a long grind or just a poorly thought out trophy.

Progress

There is nothing unique about these trophies, many of them are awarded as you progress. Examples include games from the Telltale game, where to get similar trophies you just need to complete the game.

Education

New experience is always good, which is why educational achievements are useful in almost any game, unless of course they overload the player with unnecessary mechanics. Good examples are: Death Stranding’s building tutorials.

New experience

They force the player to move away from the usual style of play, give new sensations and open up new opportunities. A striking example would be an achievement of the “pacifist” type, according to the condition we need to complete the game without killing anyone, or the increased difficulty of soul-like games.

Grind

Such achievements are in bad taste, as they force the player to monotonously do the same actions or collect an unimaginable pile of items. Just remember the feathers and doves from the Assassin’s Creed series or think about the 40,000 kills in one of the BF: Hardline add-ons.

Multiplayer

There are simpler trophies in this category – play 10 matches in the rating, but there are also vice versa – for example, becoming an emperor in TES Online, which is practically unattainable in the conditions of constant competition in pvp, it’s not for nothing that the game is included in the lists of the most hardcore achievements.

Entertainment

The main goal of this category is to entertain players with humorous actions, such as the "Shit Stealer" achievement in Duke Nukem Forever, in which you need to steal a brown substance from a public toilet and poke it at the player characters. Developers can also include reminders of their own mistakes in trophies, as happened with the Uncharted 4 demonstration at the E3 2015 presentation. Naugty Dog decided to immortalize this failure with a corresponding achievement – to obtain which you just need to stand still for 30 seconds in one of the missions.

Absurd

Many trophies from this category have absolutely no meaning, be it achievements for returning to the game after a certain time – hello to The Stanley Parable with its entry after 5 years, you can also highlight a trophy that can only be obtained offline – in the game Hate Plus, you need to bake a cake, take a photo and send it to the developers: for this they will unlock it manually.

CONCLUSION

Let’s sum up a short summary of all of the above, what kind of information is received from players using the achievement system: it is a kind of map of actions – starting from the start of the game and ending with its complete completion, with branches along the way in the form of a fork in plot quests, additional stories, collecting collectibles and other activities, if of course they are present in the game. Based on them, statistics of our actions are collected, what choices we made and at what moments.

Thank you for your attention, see you again.

Best comments

Thank you for the article, it was interesting to read, some facts even pleasantly surprised me – I mean the competition from Atari)

Thanks for the material, it was very interesting. But a small question arose: Sony obliged the introduction of trophies into games in order to pass certification on their consoles, so that, probably, players will return to games again and again until they reach platinum or complete 100%, but then why don’t they oblige publishers to block (withdraw or delete) unattainable trophies, because by turning off their servers, they are deprived of the opportunity to get a number of achievements that use network functions? And we’re not talking purely about network games, it’s basically clear here, but about single-player adventures, for example, Mad Max, where it’s now basically impossible to get platinum and all because of one achievement that worked through a connection to the publisher’s servers.

The old green 360 dashboard brought me to tears) It was a great article, my 100+ platinums say hello;)

About Uplay, we can add that now for UP you can get not only bonuses within games, but also a discount when purchasing a game

I’ll add on my own that the Xbox achievements also changed along with Juan’s release.

Firstly, one of the most controversial changes for avid achievement hunters was that in games for Juan (and until now) there was no division into “big” (regular releases that were released in retail) and “small” (those that were released mainly only in digital – in particular indie projects for Xbox Live Arcade like Limbo or classics like re-releases of Doom), and both of them were supposed to have a minimum of 1000 Gamerscore. Before this, “large” projects were entitled to 1000 or more, and smaller games around 250. According to some, this devalued comparisons of the total Gamerscore, since indie games immediately began to appear where you can get 1000 points in a couple of hours. For example, the publisher Ratalaika Games is still doing this, since they apparently realized that there is a layer of hardcore fans of measuring the number of achievements/trophies who will buy an average small game if it can quickly knock out all the achievements/trophies (and before that they would have had to pay for the full price).

Secondly, along with the Microsoft Rewards program, achievements can now earn bonus points, which can then be spent on all sorts of goodies. For example, there are promotions where for a certain month you are given the opportunity to earn bonus points in a 1:1 ratio with Gamerscore (but usually with some kind of ceiling, most often 10.000, which is equal to ten platinum trophies in the Sony ecosystem). For 10.000 bonus points can, for example, buy a $10 gift card that can be spent in the Microsoft store.

And yes, I remember when I just bought a 360 box and started opening achievements. It was the Wild West, when no one really understood how to implement achievements “correctly”. In some games, you could earn all the achievements simply by completing the story (for example, Need for Speed Most Wanted, although there you didn’t even have to escape the last chase to do this), and in others, some kind of game like taking a place in the GLOBAL MULTIPLAYER LEADER TABLE from all players in general (as in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter). That was the time.

Thanks for your feedback)

An excellent addition for Xbox, it was nice to read and at the same time a little upset, remembering the situation with Ratalikes on both platforms.

We have nothing against small indie projects; nevertheless, they partly move the industry forward with their developments and sometimes creativity, but it is platinums (and 1000g) “in 5~ minutes” that devalue the already precarious state of affairs in the field of trophy hunting. Although this publisher (Ratalaika Games) also has a couple of quite tolerable projects, for example I Am The Hero, I and Me

I completely agree. It is better to abolish online trophies altogether, especially for games aimed primarily at single player playthroughs.

It is possible that no one will monitor this anyway. Sony has no benefit in removing games from the store. Maybe at first they’ll do something for show, but then they’ll just stop paying attention. So there’s not much you can do here. Unless the developers personally write “this way and that, there are no servers, there are trophies. I got everything, give me this one too to close the game.". Maybe someone will answer and give out a trophy. At least, for example Fall Gays, some trophies were broken and did not fall. We wrote to the developers and they issued it themselves.

An interesting idea about obligations, but there is one “BUT”, for control you need to use additional resources or automate this process, with tracking of unattainable trophies. Sony is a rather lazy corporation, when something does not involve money, their return system only works through those.support, the exception was in the form of Cyberpunk, but this is an isolated case. They intervene only in situations where a lawsuit against the company is theoretically possible, such as censorship in many games (fifth points from DMC 5 say hello, as well as non-release in the Russian Federation COD: MW 2 and MW 2019).

With trophies in Mad Max, there was a rational way to solve the problem; the developers could focus on Middle-earth (Shadow of Mordor), whose publisher is also Warner, and give the trophy (or automatically count 2 challenges related to the crowbar) to all players; unfortunately, there was no reaction from the developers in this situation.

For TF2 my respect

My brother and I became infected with trophyhunting back in 2016, now we have 113 platinums and 55 completes)

In TES Online, you could forget about the “Emperor” achievement if it didn’t open up a good branch of pvp skills.

And we can also add about him that now tests in old Ubisoft games have gone to the bottom with the release of Ubisoft Connect. And you won’t get Yubli from them, as well as account experience.

Decent job. Subscribed to the channel!)

Well, I see someone has also moved to SG) Plus)

It seems to me that everything can be made simpler by simply including a clause in the game certification agreement stating that if it is impossible to achieve platinum, the game will be removed from sale, and given the fact that many people get into old games after many years, there should be no problems with informing about such situations.

Category: blog-405

History of gaming achievements