I would actually unlock achievements if I got something for them

the whole idea of acheivements are to give you something different to do and to reward you for those ations there for it is a way of showing the world you are/were capable of doing something.

Um, there's no poll in your poll.

Also, Acheivements are for fun; it's like getting on the top 10 list of one of those old arcade games and signing your initials for the world to look at. They're just a way to show folks you've done something nifty or tough or weird in a game... if that's not your bag, well, there's no harm in skipping them.

-- Steve

Just another non-typical objective outside of the game's standard play. If created well, Acheivements could also function as a skill balancing tool (see CoD4) since higher skilled players will be attempting more difficult objectives that may make their gameplay more difficult... hence easier for their opponents.

Anton P. Nym:
Um, there's no poll in your poll.

Also, Acheivements are for fun; it's like getting on the top 10 list of one of those old arcade games and signing your initials for the world to look at. They're just a way to show folks you've done something nifty or tough or weird in a game... if that's not your bag, well, there's no harm in skipping them.

-- Steve

What he said, I like being able to brag that I got all the acheivments in Bioshock and
Amped 3.

Achievements are the point of Achievements. No really, it's Buddhist or something.

I think it adds significantly to a game to feature a public way of marking milestones within a game. Is it pointless ego-inflation? Well, duh. Is it fun? For me it certainly is.
(Then again, it becomes progressively more fun in proportion to OCD tendencies, as someone who has all but 3 achievements in Forza Motorsport and 100% of both Oblivion (with Shivering Isles) and Mass Effect maybe I shouldn't talk)

So you can get Sandvich!

Ego inflation is more or less what drives the gaming market and being able to say you are a god of halo 3 or ... just general competitiveness achievements are more or less the sprinkles on this cake, too often playing online i nervously compare games so i can say I'm better than people.

P.S bring wheres waldo to the 360 think of the awesome achievements!!

GCM:
So you can get Sandvich!

Yum Russian sandwich's delicious

I don't care about them at all. Check my gamercard on my profile if you don't believe me. 2000 or something I've had my 360 for over a year.

I could care less about the amount of points i accumulate, however, some of these achievements give you interesting things to try and thus, add to (re)playability of a game. Whether the award one point or a million doesn't matter to me, but if you're a competitive kind of guy, you'd probably like it.

More games SHOULD award bonuses for achievements

Mass Effect did.

other then that, it's just another toy for people who like 100%ing a game, or seeing what they can do.

If you don't like them, there's no reason for you to really worry about them.

They're there for completionists mainly.

Anton P. Nym:
Um, there's no poll in your poll.

Also, Acheivements are for fun; it's like getting on the top 10 list of one of those old arcade games and signing your initials for the world to look at. They're just a way to show folks you've done something nifty or tough or weird in a game... if that's not your bag, well, there's no harm in skipping them.

-- Steve

Plus bragging rights! How many people can manage 'One Free Bullet'?

Achievement unlocked: Didn't search
20G

We have had this thread and a few variations on it fair number of times.

What's the point in anything? Why should I wash myself? We're all going to die anyway, and I want to stand before Saint Peter and say 'so man, how long did it take you to get zen and the art of reloading?'

Money making gimmick.

I have a friend who'll buy a game for his 360 instead of his PS3 for the simple reason of getting more gamerpoints...kinda stupid in my opinion.

For clicks and googles?

If you get them all, you get to be king of the world for a year. No, really.

Look, man, if you're gonna say there's gonna be a poll in your thread, you gotta put a poll. You can't just go around screwing with people's heads like this.

It's not cool.

Seriously.

Don't do it again.

Bragging Rights.

The market for 360 is stereotypically either casual "frat boy gamers" who only really dip into sports and combat titles, or 16-30 male gamers, who are part of a community that loves to profess their supposed gaming skills. While serving no functional purpose, they are digital hallmarks of what you can do (and in some instance what you can't)

I don't like the concept of "totaling" them. That indicates how many games you have, not how good you are. I do think they feel a bit rewarding on their own, though.

Achievements are what allow me to say "Ha, I have more Gamerscore than you"

I used to wonder that, but I think I know now. When I was scrolling through my dashboard bored looking for something to do after coming back from a college intro party, I stumbled upon my achievements. I started scrolling through all the games I'd played...and suddenly games I thought I had beaten fully and was done with started to look like I'd missed a bit of the gameplay. Devil May Cry in particular had a low score, somewhere around 275. Considering myself a Devil May Cry 4 guru, it was a slap in the face. I ended up playing it for about 20 more hours, going through the various modes. Looking at the achievements also made me play Unreal Tournament 3, battlefield 2, Shadowrun, and Crackdown (gasp!) again.
Oh, and Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Played through it on the hardest difficulty just because I wanted to prove I was a ninja.
Edit: I think if my DS had achievements, I'd probably have beaten more than two of them (having like 16)

Look, I see the argument people have against acheivments and gamerscores (they're pointless bragging rights and don't give you anything). Well there is plenty use for them.
And as an intelligent 360 advocate, I would like to list those reasons for you now.

1. Yeah, they're bragging rights. Everyone likes bragging, and most importantly it adds friendly (usually) competition to your gaming among your friends, which is good.

2. The feeling of accomplishment you get from getting an acheivment, especially one you've been working towards for awhile. Boosts your self-esteem (mine atleast) and adds to the feeling of accomplishment you normally get from completing games.

3. They push you to play more of the game, replay it and do things you normally wouldn't do, letting you get more out of your games and more for your money. Usually I just play through a game once then go on to multiplayer, and even that usually doesn't last long. With the promise of acheivments, I end up playing through games multiple times, on different difficulties, and doing alot more in multiplayer. I feel better about spending money on games now.

4. Repeat #3 for emphasis, it's the best reason.

I think that's just about it, but that sounds like a good argument for me. I truely believe acheivments are one of the best features of xbox.

ElephantGuts:
3. They push you to play more of the game, replay it and do things you normally wouldn't do, letting you get more out of your games and more for your money. Usually I just play through a game once then go on to multiplayer, and even that usually doesn't last long. With the promise of acheivments, I end up playing through games multiple times, on different difficulties, and doing alot more in multiplayer. I feel better about spending money on games now.

For me the biggest advantage of Achievements is a slight variation of your point; they encourage me to try something different with the game. I'd never have thought to try climbing the Agency Tower in Crackdown if that wasn't suggested by an Achievement; I'd have explored a lot less terrain in Gears of War if there weren't those Achievements for finding "Cog Tags"; "Pacifism" in Geometry Wars was a great idea, so much so that it's a separate game mode on Geometry Wars 2; Portal's "Terminal Velocity" was a hoot to do; and so on.

I view the Achievements list in a game as a menu of suggested alternative ways to play more than a checklist of "things to do". I pick which ones look fun and give 'em a shot, and some of them I'd have otherwised missed trying.

-- Steve

I think it just gives you a goal to strive for, to do things you might not normally do if there wasn't an achievement for it. I might not ever blow up 10 cars in 4 seconds if it wasn't an achievement on gta 4 but it gives you a chance to explore the game more. THis a reason why I prefer xbox to PS3 sorry, haha, not that I dislike the PS3. Although I feel you should be able to delete the stupid little arcade games from your profile history grrr. haha ^^

If you don't like them, don't go for them.

If not, they can add life to a game, give you something to work towards etc. replay value, ego-boosting, make you do things you wouldn't have thought of doing.

Yeah, I agree with the general gist of the comments so far.

They're mostly just something that adds a little bit more accomplishment to playing games, and also encourage gamers to explore aspects of the games that many wouldn't think of.

Unfortunately, not all games' achievements are set out well. For instance, I didn't think much of the achievements in Oblivion, because they were all based around completing the main quest and factions, rather than encouraging the game to explore the world, or do certain things, which seems more the point of a game with such an open world.

But it was a really nice touch playing the CoD4 campaign and getting an achievement for little things that weren't obvious achievements, like saving yourself from an attack dog. I don't think it's a reason to play a game, or a reason to continue to play a bad game, but a very nice touch, nonetheless.

They're just things that make you stride harder to do certain things. And they're also bragging rights. I love getting 1000 points in a game like CoD4 and showing off to my friends.

Personally, I don't get them. Why would you want to brag? Apart from the ones you get while enjoying the game, I wouldn't go back and try for it again unless:
1) I get something out of it
2) I was going to replay the game anyway

If you want to brag, play a multiplayer game with your friends/enemies and kick everyone's ass.

Eh, some games are more liberal than others with the achievements. Phantasy Star Universe gives you all it's points for just playing through the single player game. Eternal sonata gives you crap for points on your first playthrough. Blue dragon wants you to master every one of the stupid little minigames and kick everything in the world. Mass effect pretty much wants you to replay it all the way through like ten times as different character classes (which isn't too bad, since it's an awesome game). The Orange Box gave us some cool challenges that made sense (Ravenholme Gravity gun only challenge) and some that made us want to kill babies (Save all the buildings on the last level of Episode 2? I can barely save myself!) while others were for the most persistant motherfuckers out there (GNOME!!!!).

It would be cool if more games gave you permenant bonuses for unlocking achievements like Mass Effect, but I'll still try to get the points without that bonus because it is really cool that the game records the notable things you do. Heck, World of Warcraft is gonna come out with an achievements system soon too.

Zombie_King:

Anton P. Nym:
Um, there's no poll in your poll.

Also, Acheivements are for fun; it's like getting on the top 10 list of one of those old arcade games and signing your initials for the world to look at. They're just a way to show folks you've done something nifty or tough or weird in a game... if that's not your bag, well, there's no harm in skipping them.

-- Steve

Plus bragging rights! How many people can manage 'One Free Bullet'?

Actually anyone can. I recently found a list of cheat codes for half-life 2 and the episodes, and I tested whether or not they disable achievements. The codes do not disable achievements, so anyone with an internet connection and a browser could have it done with minimal effort...Using the cheats obviously. so in reality if many others caught onto this many people could've cheated thier way to one free bullet and little rocket man.

They are there to make it seem like playing through a game for the 57th time is a good use for your feeble mortal existance.

/existentialism

I think it just provides an out of game reward for accomplishing something: So you comleted x game, now you get y reward within that game, now why would you even want to keep playing? So, you get a cool tank for beating gta sa 100%, now what can you do with it? Achievments display in game progress in other venues.