What's the deal with achievments?

There's something weird about these things. They have no real value besides showing off the E peen and it's not like anyone online really cares about your gamerscore... well anyone normal that is. But I've been playing my little brother's xbox and I can't get enough of them. Halo 3 for instance, I took down the Campaign on Legendary and felt proud and I felt even better after a little notification popped up notfying me that I earned 425 gamer points for 4 achievments. Throughout the game I became infatuated with the stupid things and now I'm becoming an addict trying to earn all the achievments I can for each game. Why are they so addicting?

Edit: Forgot to ask the question.

Adds replay value for me :).

For me its just nice to have something to say yeah you got this :) and it gives you something to do as well if your bored you can just put on a game and try and try and get a particular acheivement

The overall points score though ... just bragging rights for some people, pointless to others, I dont see the point in that to be honest

Yeah, I wish more achievements were obsucre or difficult to get. Some games simply give you achievments for completing the story and that's about it. Pretty boring.

Beeing that i'm old I guess I relate to them more like the arcade games used to be, ie the reason you played space invaders, pac man or donkey kong was simply to see how hi a score you could get. So to me achievements are kinda like bringing back old school, but with a twist.

Personally i'm not really that into achievements but I can see the allure of them in other ways as well. As already mentioned they are just like anything else in a game in that they give you something to go after. I think about it this was say you're playing a game that has health packs and ammo lying around, and you happen to see a health pack up on a ledge that's kinda hard to get to. A lot of people will go after it simply because it's there. Do you need to go after it? I guess that depends on your players health but let's assume it's 80% full, then the answer would be no. But there's a good chance you still would simply because it's there and you can see it.

Or maybe look at them like collecting all the coins in Mario, you can beat the game without doing that but there's something about the ability to honestly say I got all 100 coins that keeps people working at it.

Add all this up and there's some real reasons people like achievements in my opinion.

My only grips with achievements are multiplayer related ones. Aside this they just give a good replay value!

for me, the can add replay value and make me challenge myself sometimes. GTA IV is a good example, with acievements to bring you back for doing police missions, drug runs for Jacob etc. they also sucked me into a Legendary playthrough for Halo (owning the first 2, I never touched Legendary. didn't care too, but for 125 extra points, suuure, why not) and a Veteran playthroughs on Call of Duty games.

Beeing that i'm old I guess I relate to them more like the arcade games used to be, ie the reason you played space invaders, pac man or donkey kong was simply to see how hi a score you could get. So to me achievements are kinda like bringing back old school, but with a twist.

Personally i'm not really that into achievements but I can see the allure of them in other ways as well. As already mentioned they are just like anything else in a game in that they give you something to go after. I think about it this was say you're playing a game that has health packs and ammo lying around, and you happen to see a health pack up on a ledge that's kinda hard to get to. A lot of people will go after it simply because it's there. Do you need to go after it? I guess that depends on your players health but let's assume it's 80% full, then the answer would be no. But there's a good chance you still would simply because it's there and you can see it.

Or maybe look at them like collecting all the coins in Mario, you can beat the game without doing that but there's something about the ability to honestly say I got all 100 coins that keeps people working at it.

Add all this up and there's some real reasons people like achievements in my opinion.

rgsniper1

I think you just summed up the point of achievments perfectly dude

Adds replay value for me :).

Oakfront

This.

I have to agree with the people who said it adds replay value. I never used to care about achievements until recently and now I'm going back into the games that I haven't played in a while and getting those achievements too.

I'm not one for achievements, but I will always check to see what achievement I just unlocked when it flashes in a game. It at least makes me curious. I never go for 1000/1000 in my games, and only have one game with that score, Call of Duty 2.

The only thing I can say is that 1000/1000 achievment points pretty much means you've done everything possible in the game and means you got your money's worth. In most cases.

I lvoe them,brings out a different way of finishing a game.