10 Years of Achievements
12th December 2006. The day the world bid farewell to disk drive pioneer Alan Shugart, and grumpy grandad Frank Barone (Everybody Loves Raymond). A Tuesday. Also the day I unlocked my first achievement on my brand new Xbox 360.
A lot can happen in ten years. People can forge a career, a relationship, move house, raise children, or simply end up turning tricks under the bridge due to bad life choices.
In addition to some of the above (I’ll let you figure out which), I’ve somehow managed to rack up 100,000G on Xbox.
@TrueAchievement Is it wrong that part of me wants to quit now and not get any more achievements? #MilestoneMonday pic.twitter.com/Tfrmv16nDZ
— Graham π΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώπ©πͺ (@gshenanigan) November 7, 2016
While there are many out there who are miles ahead of this (the 1 million mark was famously broken by Raymond Cox back in 2014), as someone who spends a somewhat modest amount of time playing while balancing “real life”, it’s a big milestone for me.
Achievements have changed the way a lot of people play games. While some now live for the trademark “bloop” of achievements unlocking, and ignore games without achievements while whoring easy unlocks, plenty of others just regard achievements as another facet of games. I’ve always been into collectable rewards and unlockable stuff in games, so it’s definitely brought a new dimension into my gaming habits, and also made me more selective in the games I play. With limited time available, that’s no bad thing.
I’ll discuss the merits of achievements and their impact on gaming in another article, but for now, I’m just celebrating a decade in the warm glow of achievements! Here’s to many more!