An example (Gaming)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Thursday, May 05, 2016, 19:58 (3131 days ago) @ cheapLEY

While I acknowledge what you're saying, I've never actually understood the viewpoint.

Do people still care about or even pay attention to achievements? I don't. I never even so much as look at an achievement/trophy list anymore. I don't strive for any of them, hell, I rarely even read the description of what it's for when they pop. You can accomplish exactly what you're talking about just by disabling notifications (I've never looked, but I assume you can do that on PS4).

Edit: That said, I'm mixed on achievements and trophies. I don't personally care, but I know some do. I do think they can be detrimental to multiplayer games, though, when achievements aren't designed properly and people end up playing to get the achievement versus actually just playing the game.

I played through about half of Quantum Break before putting it down... one of the things that really turned me off of the game is the fact that your character's power progression is tied to finding collectables scattered around the environment. And to find those collectables, you need to engage the "detective mode" vision ability (which stops working the moment you move). So rather than running through the environments and exploring them naturally, I would walk 10 feet and activate my vision mode, walk another 10 feet, activate it again, etc. It's the most immersion-breaking combination of mechanics. I wanted to just ignore the collectables, but that would mean I giving up the chance to level up my powers. I'm amazed the game shipped this way :-/

On the flip side, I do think some games incorporate collectables well. As much as the Assassin's Creed series has devolved into a bit of a mess, Black Flag nailed a lot of things for me. The thing about collectables in that game is they perfectly fit into the narrative concept of living as a pirate. Sailing around the ocean, exploring tropical islands and searching for buried treasure makes perfect sense in a game like that. I never felt like the collectables were pulling me away from the game. They felt like a perfectly natural part of the whole experience.