1. ACHIEVEMENT
SYSTEMS
EXPLAINED
Luca Galli,
Piero Fraternali
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Email: lgalli@elet.polimi.it
2. WHAT IS AN ACHIEVEMENT?
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3. DEFINITIONS
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An Achievement is a set of tasks, defined by a designer,
for the player to fulfill so to achieve a milestone and
track the progress in a system.
A Badge is an artifact associated to the completion of
an achievement and given to a player after its
completion.
An Achievement System, also called Reward System, is
a component of an entertainment platform used to
offer, present, manage and share achievements, at a
global scale and across multiple games or
entertainment systems.
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4. DEFINITIONS
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The Player score is a numerical value that represents a
measure of the skill of a player.
A Leaderboard is an ordered list of players based on
the scores they have obtained in a specific game.
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5. A BIT OF HISTORY
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The achievement concept is older
than what you may think…
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6. A MECHANICAL ANCESTOR…
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1953: First score
tracking in an
entertainment
machine
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7. … AND THE DIGITAL ONE
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1978: The term
“High Score” ,
as it’s known today,
is introduced
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8. GOOD OLD FASHIONED SEWING
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1977: The first
game badges:
Activision’s Fabric
Patches
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9. DIGITAL ACHIEVEMENTS
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1990: Amiga
E-Motion introduces
achievements
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10. THE TURNAROUND…
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2005: Microsoft
improved Xbox Live!
service is launched
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11. …AND THE COMPETITORS
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2007: Valve
introduces
Steam Achievements
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12. …AND THE COMPETITORS
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July 2008: Sony
introduces
PS3 Trophies
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13. …AND THE COMPETITORS
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October 2008:
Activision Blizzard
adds an
achievement
system to
World of Warcraft
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14. …AND THE COMPETITORS
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2010: Apple
announces
Game Center
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15. COOL STORY BUT… WHAT’S THE PURPOSE?
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Motivation and Social Recognition!
“Games do not work without incentives
for the players to perform actions and to
strive towards their goals”
Staffan Björk
“Players play for personal goals, are
aware of the goals of other players,
and the shared understanding of
intentionality makes game actions
socially meaningful”
Jesper Juul
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16. DISSECTING AN ACHIEVEMENT
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Fundamental Components:
•TITLE: Suggest theme or actions
•ICON: Visual clues to attract interest
•DESCRIPTION: Defines conditions and rewards
•POINTS: Difficulty, effor measure
•ECA: Event Condition Action
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17. PLAYER DOSSIER
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18. ACHIEVEMENT TAXONOMY
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Ghost Recon:
Game Title Heavy Rain Team Fortress 2 World Of Warcraft Tyrant The Sims Social
Advanced Warfighter
The ten Platform
Instructors
Xbox 360
Completed tutorial
level on any skill
Playstation 3
Complete
drawing, Set the
the
Steam (PC)
Use Jarate to reveal a
cloaked Spy
Battle.net
Learn how
transform into
to
a
Kongregate
N/A
Facebook
Plant something in
two empty garden
level table, Play with kids dragon. patches
categories: Secure the US
Leave home without
Win 2Fort with a
Get in the arena at
the Amphitheater of Complete the quest:
Quests being spotted by the Location 2 reached
president shutout Anguish and defeat Roominating
journalists
Vladof the Butcher
•Instructors Content Win 5 matches on
See all endings
Enter the editor while Fully explore the
N/A
Break The Ice
Automatically
-
•Quests
Discovery each Map watching a replay Duskwood map.
Earned
Win 30 co-op
•Content Discovery
Achieve 100,000 Win 1000 ranked Post to news feed and
matches with at least
Socializers N/A YouTube views for arena matches while N/A have 3 friends click
6 gamertags in the
your movie in a guild group. your message
room
•Socializers Find all clues of the Get to Loot Island
52 unique cards
•Secret Chests
Secret Chests N/A Origami Killer in the and claim your N/A N/A
collected
scene reward!
Do
•Grinders
Get a total of 10,000 Knock down at least Complete 1000 Earn 600 simoleons
Grinders 1 million points of N/A
kills 50 passers-by quests from cooking
fire damage
•Herculean Tasks Herculean Task
Get 4 kills in 4
seconds or less
Perfect Crime
Get a melee kill with
a sticky jump
Fish up Old Crafty in
Orgrimmar.
Nexus
completed
campaign
N/A
•Trophies Trophies
Climb to the top of
the
leaderboard
universal N/A N/A
First person on the
realm to achieve
level 80.
N/A N/A
•Red Marks Red Marks N/A
Give up or fail the
N/A N/A N/A N/A
•Loyalties
Butterfly Trial
Owner of Wrath of
Loyalties N/A N/A N/A the Lich King's N/A N/A
Collector's Edition
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19. INSTRUCTORS
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Purpose: Onboarding
Game: Viva Piñata (Rare)
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20. QUESTS
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Purpose: Progression
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Softworks)
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21. CONTENT DISCOVERY
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Purpose: Replay Value
The Simpsons Game (Electronic Arts)
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22. SOCIALIZERS
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Purpose: Longevity, Viral Advertisement
NBA Live 07 (Electronic Arts)
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23. SECRET CHESTS
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Purpose: Longevity, Surprise
Halo 3 (Bungie Software)
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24. GRINDERS
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Purpose: Fillers, Secondary game mechanics
Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega)
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25. HERCULEAN TASK
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Purpose: Extreme Challenge
Dead Rising (Capcom)
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26. TROPHIES
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Purpose: Fierce competition, Pride
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (Ubisoft)
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27. RED MARKS
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Purpose: Onboarding, Mocking
F.E.A.R. 2 (Monolith Production)
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28. LOYALTIES
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Purpose: Customer Loyalty, Pride
Diablo 3 (Activision Blizzard)
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29. TO DO AND NOT-TO-DO
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Bad design
•Completion and actions
•No Secrets!
•Trophies may be demotivating…
•Red marks?
•This is my work! (or not?)
Good practices
•Acknowledge highest difficulty
•Always Earnable
•Reward strange and emerging behaviors!
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30. GAMING ARCHITECTURE
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Achievement System inside
a Game Engine
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32. DATA STRUCTURE
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33. Click here to add text
The CUbRIK Project
● CUbRIK is a research project
financed by the European Union
● Goals:
● Advance the architecture of
multimedia search
● Exploit the human
contribution in multimedia
search
● Use open-source
components provided by
the community
● Start up a search business
ecosystem
● http://www.cubrikproject.eu/
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Editor's Notes
Show military value in ancient rome, medallion with Caesar portraitBoyScout badges sports, science, craftingNowadays: foursquare badges
Williams manufactory company
Midway’s SeawolfExtra time, not possible to store the high score, introduced by Space Invaders II and Starfire
Atari 2600Listed on manual, end a level in less than 33.3 secondsMail the picture to the company, high valuableitem expressly conceived to be worn and shown to others, a principle that has been applied also to the distribution of digital patchesThe only way before the diffusion of the web, or on local consoles
completing a level without rotating to the right or completely failing certain levels.
Midway’s Seawolf
Achievements allow others to recognize what the player has attained and enhance games by providing lasting rewards. This leads to a sense of affirmation given by the fictional status that the player has created for himself and the expectation that others will look with admiration someone who has undertaken the action stated in the achievement. Favourite games and genres, his mastered skills and past gaming history.
We might also have levels for the same achievement, but it can be considered just a different instance
Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Kongregate, Steam, Facebook, Blizzard Achievement SystemHeterogeneous platforms, similar results, based on 6 flagcarrier games for each platform
actions that need to be mastered in order to procede with the gaming experience
completing significative tasks or when reaching a milestone in the game, such as an important event or the end of a level. Any action maintain the level of engagement high through the whole game
try all that the game has to offer. They usually require the players to play in a specific game mode, to try specific gaming features or components of the game. Tracks the interactions with the user interface
Longevity: both longevity and custom content creationreward the interaction among players and their contributions to enhance the experience offered by a platform or a game.
finding hidden items, special areas, completing collections, and other similar features. They encourage the player to explore every facet of the game and they are usually related to actions that are not meaningful for the goals of the game Surprise and discussions
type of achievement in which the task is to perform the same action repeatedly, with little or no variance between each repetition, such as reaching “1000 kills” or earning “100,000 gold”.
are rewarded when a player is able to perform exceptional actions within the game. Difficult, non repetitive tasks, good knowledge of the game, mastered skills
unique achievements that can be acquired just by few players in the world for exceptional actions performed in the game, possibly negating the possibility for any other player to acquire them. strong multiplayer components
performs poorly or commit negative actions in the game, such as losing or being humiliated
are special achievements that are used to reward the loyalty of the core members of a community Real word events
-A player wants to collect all the badges by using any means, most efficient way. Avoid repetitive and alienating tasks-Clear states the goals of your achievements, otherwise players will just find them by change or they will look up over the internet-Only few committed players will be able to get them-Not satisfied when low skilled, don’t remark it in their gaming history-Grinders are fine only if they are used for actions that the player would do anyway, otherwise they might cause behavior change
