End Complacency Over Lack of Game Center!

Apple is never going to make GC mandatory for developers, so anybody trying to start that crusade may as well drop it before they get too wound up. In addition - and more importantly - a quick look at any site that tracks achievements over the various platforms that have them reveals that most gamers actually just don't care that much about them.

Take a glance through Steam's statistics, for example, and you'll see that the vast majority of achievements that people have picked up are mandatory, unavoidable, or otherwise easily gained through normal play; the rate of "achievement" begins to drop sharply when the optional ones are considered, and the number of people who have every achievement for any given game is incredibly low.

While achievements can be fun to work towards, the self-admitted obsessive extremists like Goofy, who has acknowledged passing on solid games with tens of hours of gameplay simply because those games didn't have achievements, number very few in the grand scheme of things. Polls on the subject show that most people don't mind having achievements in games, and will work towards them if they seem within reach, but the number of people for whom these are the key selling point of a game is negligible.

Acting as if a developer is lazy or insulting gamers by not including a feature that most people don't really care that much about is a strange and unfair position to take. In addition, if you're more concerned about racking up achievement points than the actual gameplay, then right off the bat you're not going to find much sympathy or interest from a developer. If a game is fun, play it because it is fun, not because you get popups giving you ten points for doing something. Conversely, if it isn't fun, don't play it; don't ask for achievements to give you a reason to force yourself to play.

I'd quite like game threads to remain about the game in question, and not keep turning into one man's crusade for GC/achievements. On a tangent, I'd also really like people to use spoiler tags, or post game spoilers in a related thread on the General forum; there's very little more irritating than no longer being able to read the core thread for a game because it has become filled with unmasked plot spoilers and puzzle solutions.

 

Lol! No I have not tried the Apple feedback line. If I can't even get a simple dollar refund for a game that had false advertising, why would I try that? Trust me I've had my run ins with apple and their support--trash if you ask me.

I understand the impression thing, but they drown out all the complaining anyways. I could care less if the thread is cleared out at 11pm. I just don't want NZ threads to be completely done with. Edit Or whenever the European releases come out.

@Appletini Just because the statistics show that people don't want to go for harder achievements doesn't mean they don't care about achievements at all. Also, they would help appeal to people that do like them. Thinking about it, I have plenty of games on Xbox where I enjoyed just getting the normal campaign achievements.

Also, I never said that I absolutely refuse to get good/lengthy games that don't have achievements. So...

Looking over your post it seems as if most ppl wouldn't mind achievements. So, because the dev has the option they should just opt out? I also never said that Apple was going to standardize it it. I actually alluded to the idea that they wouldn't.

Mostly, my posts were a clarification of my feelings. This is a forum and IMO achievements are part of the game discussion. How may threads have I been on where the games don't have GC? A lot! This is the only one that spiraled into this.

Also, I've expressed my thoughts towards achievements and why I like them, especially on iOS, so no need to write a long post about that.

Maybe, it's just me, but it's like telling someone to hush up about ridiculous IAP because others enjoy the game. And again, I never meant for this to even turn into this--somewhat happy it did though. I never was as this into achievements before Xbox live. The same thing with some of my other peers. Hell, I actually got some of them hooked on achievements.

Also, I bet I could find a ton of polls and articles that favor my point of view.

Edit Also, I know of devs that explicitly try and implement GC. It seems to have a decent sized impact on how games do, especially ones by smaller devs on iOS. I see achievement requests just as much as I see ones for universality and iCloud.

EA and gameloft don't want to include GC because they want to use they don't want to use it for personal reasons. Gameloft has GL Live! EA has Origin. Also, alot of games have in game challenges but they aren't linked to GC.
Anyways...

 

Maybe you just got a bad customer service person when you contacted Apple. The two times I've used customer support they've been extremely polite and helpful.

Also to the GC points: EA owns Chillingo (for one) and Chillingo is known for using Crystal, which while maybe not as good as GC, it still serves the purpose imo. It has achievements and all that....

Back on track to the game: Anyone know how big the levels get later on? At first I was gonna pass on this as another annoying casual game, but some comments are making me think twice. If I'm not looking for another casual puzzler type game, would I enjoy this one? Curious to hear some impressions on the game once it comes out...