Så ved I hvor meget jeg egentlig har i gamerscore^^ Bare add mig hvis I har lyst

…eller achievement hunter for at være mere politisk korrekt!

En achievement i denne sammenhæng er en belønning i form af point (gamerpoints), som en gamer får ved at udføre forskellige opgaver i et computerspil. De findes i udpræget grad på en Xbox 360 eller en Playstation 3 (her hedder de trophies). De achievements gameren samler sammen, bliver linket til hans/hendes gamercard (kaldet PSN ID på en Playstation 3), som kan bruges til vise verden på forskellige online fora (herunder Twitter og Facebook), hvilke spil man har spillet, og hvor mange gamerpoints man har optjent. Nedenfor ses et eksempel på et gamercard med 615 gamerpoints.

Gamercard

Achievements er samtidig et værktøj, som en spiludvikler kan bruge til at præge en gamer i en ønsket retning. Det kunne fx være ved at bruge achievements til at anspore til samarbejde istedet for saboterende adfærd ved holdspil. Ydermere har undersøgelser vist, at achievements er med til at generere mersalg.

Det interessante er, at de såkaldte “achievement whores” er, at de næsten er villige til at gøre hvad som helst, for at få flest mulige gamerpoints:

1) De vil bruge uanede mængder af tid på at booste deres gamercard.

2) De vil købe og/eller leje spil, som de finder komplet uinteressante for at booste deres gamercard.

3) De vil snyde sig til gamerpoints ved at indlæse gemte spil på hukommelseskort, som ikke tilhører dem selv.

4) De vil betale sig fra at få flere gamerpoints ved at udlevere personlige oplysninger om deres gamerkonto, så “professionelle” gamere kan booste deres gamercard mod betaling og samtidig risikere misbrug.

Det mest interessante er efter min personlige mening, at “achievement whores” slet ikke får noget for deres anstrengelser (andet end anerkendelse), selvom det selvfølgelig ikke er op til mig at vurdere værdien af achievements. Jeg finder det bare tankevækkende, at nogle gamere er villige til at gennemgå et eller flere af ovenstående punkter.

Der findes ikke meget direkte litteratur om fænomenet, men jeg mener bestemt det er værd at dykke ned i. T.L. Taylor har skrevet om “Powergamers”, som tilnærmelsesvis kan bruges som en analogi til “achievement whores”. Derudover bringer psykologen Mihály Csíkszentmihályi interessante perspektiver på banen med hans teori om flow. Kort sagt går det ud på, at vi drages, så snart der i computerspillet findes udfordringer, som  matcher vores evner. Vi vil opleve fortvivlelse hvis det er for svært, og kedsomhed hvis vi finder det for nemt. Teorien om flow forklarer dog ikke, at selv trivielle handlinger i et computerspil, som ikke er behæftet med nogen særlig sværhedsgrad, stadig kan virke dragende.

Til sidst vil jeg gerne vise en video, som jeg synes opsummerer det hele meget godt. God fornøjelse:

This is a custom Gamercard that I created using GIMP 2.6.  It has all the information that a normal Gamercard has, but it’s sweet looking   Clearly I had too much free time today.

When the Xbox360 launched back in 2005 it changed the way I play games. The console itself didn’t really change things, it was the introduction of achievement points. For anyone who has been under a rock for the last four years, achievements are points that players receive for completing game-specific challenges. These challenges range from finishing a level to winning a certain number of matches against other players on Xbox Live. Every retail Xbox360 game has 1,000 available points and every Xbox Live Arcade game has 200 possible points. When points are awarded for completing challenges they are added to a players Gamerscore. A Gamerscore is an accumulative number that represents all points that have been unlocked in every game that has been played by that person. I have to hand it to Microsoft, the way they incorporated this score was ingenious, a players Gamerscore is displayed underneath their name on their Gamercard. If you don’t know, Gamercards are name tags that represent each player on Xbox Live. Every person that someone plays with during a Xbox Live match is able to see this card. In a way, the score is like bragging about how many games someone has played or how good they are at games without having to say anything. If a player looks at another players score they are able to see what achievements that player has unlocked and it shows them every game that person has played. It sounds harmless but if you dig in a little deeper there is a dark side to achievements. That brings me back to how these meaningless digital trophies have changed the way I play games.

First off, when I am playing a game and I complete a level, get my 50^th headshot, collect 10 hidden gems, or whatever, a sound goes off and a green and gray icon displays on screen letting me know an achievement has been unlocked. When this happens its like my Xbox is patting me on the back telling me what a good job I have done. Then I keep playing, waiting patiently for the next one. It doesn’t sound like a bad thing but this payoff triggers some part of me that feeds off being rewarded for accomplishments. That is were the evil lies. If I let my guard down when I am playing I catch myself chasing the achievement dragon instead of playing games for fun. I have lost hours of sleep because when I finish playing a game for the night I look to see what achievements I unlocked during that session before I shut down my Xbox. The insane thing is that without even thinking I will scroll through the list to see which ones I haven’t unlocked. If I see one or two more I think I could pickup quickly I will jump back into the game and try to grab them before I finally call it a night. There have been days that I have had a list of things I needed to get done, but instead I get caught up playing games and next thing I know I wasted the day away. In the past I would have been upset with myself but if I pickup 50 or 60 new achievements points in that time, it makes me feel justified in putting things off until tomorrow. I mean… come on! I was working on raising my Gamerscore, right?

I like to rent a game if I am not sure whether or not I will enjoy it. (Games are too expensive to buy one and not play it.) I have brought games home from Blockbuster and even though I wasn’t having fun, I played it every night until I had to return it just to collect some extra achievement points. Before achievements I would never have played a game that I didn’t think was fun. I am doing things in games that are out of character for myself as a player because in the back of my mind I am thinking that I might get an achievement for doing it. When that little Pavlov’s Bell like sound goes off and the Xbox symbol for congrats shows up it’s all good. It’s when it doesn’t pop up that makes this a problem. It actually upsets me. I don’t throw a tantrum or blow a gasket but I have uttered words of disappoint towards the makers of the game for not having an achievement related to whatever I was doing. Achievements have tricked me into spending countless hours playing game modes I am not interested in because I was trying to unlock one that requires specific circumstances. An example that comes to mind is an achievement in Halo 3 that gives you 5 points for splattering someone with a mongoose in a ranked free for all match. I spent at least ten hours playing through countless online matches trying to get that achievement. I wasn’t trying to get this achievement just to add 5 points to my Gamerscore either. This time I was chasing them for a different reason. I had been browsing my friends list the day before and I saw a friend of mine had more points in Halo 3 than I did. Seeing this set off a competitive urge inside of me and I did not stop playing Halo 3 until I had more achievement points than my friend. There are plenty of games that I haven’t picked up every single achievement and that’s fine with me. I just don’t like it when someone else has more than I do. Especially if its a game I think I am good at.

Achievements have even affected my purchase decisions. If a game is on more than one system I will buy the 360 version every time. If I play a game that is not available for the 360 there is always a point where I will think, “I wish this was on the 360 so I could get more achievements.” My Gamerscore is not ridiculously high and I recognize the fact that in the end, it means nothing. I see how these points are affecting my habits but like I said, I keep getting sucked back into Microsoft’s trap every time I stop paying attention to it. Whatever mental fuses these make believe accomplishments were designed to ignite in players is working on me. Don t get me wrong, I don’t think achievements are all bad either. They have changed some of my gaming habits for the better. Before achievements I only played through most games one time. Once completed they were thrown on the shelf and that was that. Being a gaming enthusiast with a limited amount of time to spend playing games there is always something new I want to check out waiting in the wings. Games I finished and wanted to go back and play a second time eventually get lost in the shuffle. Achievements have changed that for me. Instead of picking up something new at the local Blockbuster to get through a cold winter weekend I will look through the games I have on my shelf and try to pickup achievements I missed the first time around. Rediscovering games and enjoying them a second or third time lets me appreciate the work developers are putting into the small details I might have missed the first time around.

Microsoft's Bill Gates

Achievements are great when I am playing games that require a larger commitment of time to complete. RPG’s, as an example, have a lot of content that is available to explore but may not be necessary to progress through the story. Its easy to miss or skip large portions of these games. Achievements give me a way to gauge my rate of discovery and help direct me down the paths I need to follow to open up side missions. Side missions are there to help add to the overall experience in a game even if they aren’t necessary. If I wasn’t unlocking achievements I might have passed over a lot of great moments in a game. In some respects I think I have become a better gamer because of achievements. I will always play a game on the highest available difficulty because nine times out of ten I will get extra points for completing a game on a harder difficulty. I have spent a lot of trial and error time trying to get achievements that are more difficult to obtain. That repetitiveness has helped refine the way I look at games and has given me a better understanding as to how they work. Being aware that achievements have had a psychological affect on me I have started to question Microsoft’s motives behind implementing these points into their console. Were achievements created to trick gamers into become loyal to the Xbox brand by feeding their addictive personalities with these fictitious feelings of accomplishment? I know that question comes off as being very conspiracy theory sounding but its something I have been thinking about for a while. I am curious as to whether others have been impacted by achievements as well. What do you think? Have achievements been good or bad for gaming in this generation?

Ponieważ jest to pierwszy wpis na tym blogu, jako autor i administrator w jednej osobie postanowiłem się “przedstawić”:

Head over to https://secure.eu.playstation.com/psn/mypsn/ login in with your PSN details and set it up. It automatically pulls your Trophy info and its possible to browse your friends details as well.

Spotted this over at Playfire.com this morning:

We’ve got an exciting announcement about automated PS3 Trophycards. We’ve been talking to Sony for a while, and they’ve let us announce the details for their new official Trophycards! As such, we’ve decided to pause our automatic cards until these ones come out, and will be working on some amazing new features for you PSN fans!

Read the full announcement here

J’ai un tas de déformations professionnelles. Par exemple, l’autre jour je marchais dans la rue, casque vissé autour du crâne, et je me demandais comment améliorer le marketing des livres électroniques. Faut dire qu’un livre électronique ça coûte plus cher que son équivalent papier (pricing fail) et ça a un tas d’autres défauts. Le principal pour moi, c’est qu’une fois fini, on peut pas le poser sur une bibliothèque et ainsi investir quelques centimètres d’espace de plus. Ca a l’air de rien mais pour moi une étagère c’est une sorte de miroir de l’âme, une galerie de trophées, l’addition d’expériences de vie. Je vais chez quelqu’un, je jette un œil à sa collec’ de bouquins, de jeux-vidéos ou de disques. Parce que ça dit quelque chose, et c’est très intéressant. Alors certes dans un E-Reader on peut mettre des milliers de livres. Mais à part pour le malotru qui irait fouiller dedans, ça ne sert à rien.

Microsoft a réglé le problème depuis quelques années au niveau du jeux-vidéo avec les Succès. Chaque jeu en boîte propose 1000 points de Gamerscore plus ou moins difficiles à attraper suivant la connerie des développeurs. Quand j’ai bouclé un jeu, que je l’ai revendu sur Ebay et que je suis passé à un autre, il me reste des points, pour toujours, sur ma carte de Gamer. Je peux jeter un œil à la liste de mes jeux, me souvenir combien de G j’ai pu scorer sur chacun d’entre eux. Mais ne nous voilons pas la face, les Succès ne servent qu’à une chose : mesurer qui a la plus grosse en les comparant avec ses potes ! Bwah ah ah comme je te méprise, toi le noob, du haut de 15700 G ! Forcément c’est devenu maladif. La difficulté d’obtention des succès joue souvent dans mon processus d’achat. Et j’ai beaucoup de mal à jouer à un jeu PC ou Wii puisque je sais que c’est du temps de jeu dont il ne me restera qu’un souvenir en lieu et place d’un gros sac de G.

Donc, en appliquant un système de Gamerscore exportable aux livres numériques, y’aurait trop moyen de rendre accro (et de te moquer de tes amis). Puis là je repense à la fois où Maïa, encore brûlante de sa folle course en roller, m’a demandé combien je faisais de visiteur uniques. Nul doute qu’elle jaugeait mon potentiel de désirabilité, une partie de jambe en l’air se jouant  peut être sur une ribambelle de chiffres (déformation de l’érotomane). Un score décevant plus tard et je me dis que y’a trop moyen d’appliquer les succès à la vraie vie. Par exemple un Don Juan à force d’enchaîner les coups d’un soir est blasé, tout ce qu’il lui reste s’est son Baiseurscore. Holy shit il faut absolument créer une carte de la vraie vie, avec un tas de scores divers et variés ! Le CV ultime ! Arrêtez moi où je réinvente le marketing, la société et la civilisation entière !

Une pilule rose offerte par le bon docteur plus tard, et je recentre le débat pour la conclusion. Aussi sexy que soit un bel E-Reader, rien ne vaudra le potentiel de séduction qu’offre une bibliothèque bien garnie. (« Waow, quelle culture, tu dois en savoir des choses sur la vie, apprends moi Le Reilly je t’en supplie ! »)
Tain, mieux vaut que je m’arrête ici.

Sinon je sais que le vendredi je suis censé causer filles, mais là, de suite, j’ai absolument aucune idée de quoi raconter. Halp !

Alright, I am tired today so I am posting a bunch of crap all at once. Mooch Report will be coming up right after this.

ThinkGeek has a sweet little system that lets you play NES and SNES games for only $50. As you can imagine they are totally sold out, so the soonest you can get it using backorder would me on the 9th. You can even plug in your old controllers, although it comes with two controllers for futuristic multiplayer action!

Retro d00d!

Also, ThinkGeek just put their Personal Area Network T-Shirt on sale for $20. Basically it lets you wire your mp3 player, cell phone, or other digitalia into a t-shirt for epic cord management. It even makes you look buff while wearing it, and hides the wires while simultaneously keeping them off your skin.

There's even a mini version for your dog! Just kidding. But you can control devices through the fabric.

In other news, I broke 2000 gamerpoints on my 360 the other day. I know, I know, that’s nothing. You uberfied gamers (aka “people with no lives who live in their mother’s basement”) have 10 times that. I get laid, so I win.

Preemptive Strike: I am about to get 500 comments from Xbox 360 point-whores claiming to have lives, but still having more points than me. To them I say: screw you and screw your mother too.

P.S. If you want to track my gamerscore or see what my 360 is up to, you can do that using the little feed ticker on the bottom of my sidebar. Clicking on my gamercard will show you my progress in any game I’ve played, and the feedticker actually goes to a blog that my 360 writes. He really gets in my head sometimes, it’s weird.

Oh wow I was granted a topic icon in my Gamer Card yesterday, I feel good about specially that I have dedicated allot of time in the Xbox.com Forums. I won’t say how and why but I am sure that the people that read about it knows very well what I have express. I didn’t write this on my other blog cause I think is more a personal accomplishment then just a regular gaming news.

For those that are reading this and doesn’t know I am a Xbox360 Gamer and an honored Xbox Ambassador, video gaming is one of my favorites things since I was very young and I find myself completely in love with my Xbox360.

The Gamerscores for Friday 20th February can be grabbed from here enjoy!

Shepperton has gained the most gamerscore this week (Ia thanka ya), with a 1805 increase since the last update on the 13th of February.

Will we see some 70K+ scores next week? Stay tuned…

I really want to go on Grand Theft Auto IV and play with you guys (THATS WHAT SHE SAID) So if you want to, add me on Xbox Live and message me.

Or email me at kylewebs@live.com because I’m not too sure how the whole Xbox live gaming online thing works – I only play one game so yeah, add me so we can team up and kill some people!

……that sounds really violent. Oh wells, it’s not, it’s only a game.

Stats. I like them. Particularly game related stats. I guess its why gamerscore is such a pull for me, and one of the reasons I put together the weekly gamerscore updates each week right here.

These days with console online connectivity being available right out of the box, systems such as Achievements, Trophies and Steam all provide accessible solutions for developers and publishers to gather some insightful data, stats, on their respective communities and player gaming habits.

Some forward thinking when deciding how achievements and Trophies are awarded, can provide some insightful data once a game is released, and in the hands of the player. What map is most popular? What percentage of people play on difficulty X? What percentage of people have purchased downloadable content? What percentage of people actually finish the game? All of these are pretty straight forward to track, and with a little creativity, more specific data could be tapped into also, which in turn could (and should IMO) influence and feed into the decision making process about what direction possible sequels and updates could take.

Anyway, back on to the stats. Ive been revisiting giantbomb.com over the last couple of days, as I’ve decided to give their podcast a go after several recommendations, particularly now that the 1up series of podcasts are to be no more.

Browsing giantbomb.com I noticed a link to the blog of Robert Bowling – AKA Fourzerotwo – Director of Communications/Community Manager over at Infinity Ward. He recently posted some interesting stats for Call of Duty 4, after hitting a mammoth 10,006,606 unique users who have ever played on CoD4 on Xbox 360 and have connected to Xbox Live at least once:

That number got us curious as to how many of those 10 Million+users finished the F.N.G. mission, or beat Airplane on Veteran (among other things). Well, it turns out:

71.1%, or 7,111,508 people have completed F.N.G. – That’s more than the entire population of Hong Kong (which is 7 Million).

68.8%, or 6,886,509 people have completed Cargo Ship. – This is the same number of adults in the US who were morbidly obese in 2005.

46.5%, or 5,654,643 people have beaten the game on any difficulty. – This is more than the current population of Finland!

2.8%, or 283,632 people have completed Airplane on Veteran difficulty. – The population of Stockton, CA is 280,000.

So if you have one of these on your gamercard:

You can sleep sound in the knowledge your are in the 2.8% of players around the world who have achieved such a feat (well at least of those players connected to Live) Additionally if you managed to finish the first level (Cargo Ship) you can also proudly say you are not in the 31.2% who didn’t.

A few of the members of the l337sheet right here actually have their own wiki page on giantbomb by the way, head on over to the site, go to the search box and enter you name to see if you there!

Select the NXE theme over mygamercard.net and your away:

As iPhone users have known for a while now, there’s nothing more satisfying than staring into your handset’s screen and … seeing that your friends are at home, playing video games? For those who roll with a Crackberry Blackberry and simply must keep tabs on their friends’ Gamerscores at all times, Juan Xavier Larrea has developed the free Xberry Live. Available via this link, the app functions much like Microsoft’s own web-based friends list, displaying Gamertags, status, and Gamerscores along with a Gamercard sub-screen with icons representing your friends’ most recently played games. Friends must be added manually for the time being … which is fine, unless you have a maxed-out list. Xberry Live has been tested and works on Blackberry 81xx, 83xx, 87xx, 88xx, and 9000 handsets, and requires OS 4.2.1. or higher. No word on whether it (or similar apps) will experience any problems when the New Xbox Experience launches November 19.

As most PlayStation Network and Wii users know, you are unable to create a 100% automatic updating gamercard like Xbox LIVE (see GamerCards post). However, there is a way for you to create one. With one downside: you have to update it manually. There are a few sites out there that allow you to do this, however I recommend two different sites, depending on what you are planning on using it for.

Site 1 (PSN)- PlayFire.com: If you are really getting into PlayStation Trophies, and want to show off what trophies you have, then your best option is probably PlayFire. You are able to add what trophies from what games you have. Just create a free PlayFire.com account. GamerTag only for PS3.

Or if you’re like me, and don’t do many trophies (as you can see…)

Site 2 (PS3/Wii) – TripleTags.com: If you would rather display to people what games you play, rather than trophies, then your best option is TripleTags.com. You can still add trophies, however. For both PS3 and Wii.

This IS Me

It’s come to my attention recently that there are a few gamertags floating around out there that “appear” to be me, but are not. Regrefully, some of them (ahem…IAMfourzerotwo) are attempting to scam players out of Microsoft Points. The others, are just harmless impersonators. Which I appreciate, but I thought I’d make it clear, who is…. and who is NOT me. For Example:

THIS IS NOT ME

Neither is this…

… and believe it or not… neither is this.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion. Thanks to everyone who sent me messages, emails, and PMs letting me know about this. I really appreciate the help!

That said, if you’d like to send me an actual message (friends list is full atm, but feel free to message), you can do so at my ACTUAL gamertag here:

http://live.xbox.com/en-US/profile/profile.aspx?pp=0&GamerTag=fourzerotwo

or head over to the Contact / Connect page for my email, twitter, AIM, linkedin, myspace, facebook, PSN ID, XBL gamercard, friend feed, or other modern means of communication you prefer!!

Playlist Update: As for the playlists. Nothing new at the moment. Hardcore HQ is completely good to go, and we’ll probably release it as soon as we have another solid one to go with it. The rest are still being tested, tweaked, and fixed. Their descriptions have been fully translated, so as soon as they’re bug free they’ll be good to go.