4 ms·

"Any achievement in a video game is a fake achievement" This is a great soundbite to build an essay around but ignores two decades of learning, cognitive, and

"Any achievement in a video game is a fake achievement" This is a great soundbite to build an essay around but ignores two decades of learning, cognitive, and psychological research. There are too many examples to try to pack into a comments, but among the most obvious: - 3D games are have been demonstrated to have positive effects on spatial perception and to allow rehearsal-based training for real-world activities (http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~daniela/SeriousGames4thePolice_AhmedBinSubaih-1.pdf http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~daniela/SeriousGames4thePolice_Ah...) - Medical education in virtual worlds has also demonstrated the efficacy of training in synthetic worlds (http://www.jmir.org/2010/1/e1/ http://www.jmir.org/2010/1/e1/) - Massively multiplayer games' positive impact on literacy (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.114.4968&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.114...) Easy to go on and on, but the short answer is that it is preposterous to dismiss technologically mediated achievement as somehow fake. The author's other points about variable-reward based training and the lure of positive feedback are also well researched fields. Since Skinner we've seen evidence that small amounts of positive reinforcement with some randomness -- called variable reinforcement -- generates the largest behavioral changes and longest engagement, so it should come as no surprise that achievement games -- like gambling -- engage a large number of people. Of course, the 30,000' view of the article -- that variable reward games can consume a large amount of time and may not be making the player's life better -- is true. However, the simple assertions that games are fake and hurt their players are simply not supported by the data. For a very deep analysis of MMO players, you may want to peruse Dmitri William's work on the EQ2 data: http://dmitriwilliams.com/research.html http://dmitriwilliams.com/research.html

gridspy 17y ago
How about : Any achievement the game rewards you for is a fake achievement. Whenever I go up a level in WoW, or gain a kill in Quake, or beat a boss and pick up his loot I have a fake achievement. Sure, there are some real achievements in there, but they are not provided by the game world - they are almost a side effect. Most likely they are not the reason that people are playing these games, but they are a useful excuse to continue playing. Consider how much real achievement we would see if all the motivated hackers put down WoW and started up their development environment of choice. I'm not saying that games aren't cool (I love computer games and have been strongly addicted in the past) but don't delude yourself into thinking that they are more productive than applying yourself directly to the task you are trying to master. I might get HN points (i.e Karma) from posting this comment. That is not my goal, I don't care about those. My goal is to inspire fellow hackers enough to pay attention to my cool start-up (Gridspy). HN doesn't give me "pay attention to me" points - I don't think that is really possible.
- Retric 17y ago
  IMO, an achievement is "real" when your actions are what separates a reasonable chance of failure and success. Thus the classic MMO grind fest, or a slot machine could be called fake achievements, but most PVP kills are actually fairly complex achievements.
  - gridspy 17y ago
    Your skills are real, your achievement is meaningless. I am an awesome Natural Selection (the FPS RTS) commander. I have lead epic campaigns back and forth across the game map against huge odds. When I played, my team often told me that I was doing a great job. Then, I won. The game went "well done" and all that hard work turned into nothing. Sure, I had skill, but I had achieved nothing but entertainment and wasted weekends. At the time I was very happy with that. I'm not satisfied with that any more.
    - Retric 17y ago
      After the heat death of the universe everything done by anything becomes meaningless. Your actions increased the happiness of other people for some period of time, abstractly that's about all you can do. Granted creating a fun video game or a more effective solar cell are on a larger scale, but it's still the same basic thing.
      - gridspy 17y ago
        True. However some achievements will last after I am dead, some will not. I'm more interested in the former.
        eru 17y ago
        If you die sooner your achievements won't have to last for so long to qualify. (Though that's probably not what you want.) I guess your best stab at achieving immortality in your works is mathematics.
jaytee_clone 17y ago
I'm sure Guitar Hero players gain better rhythm over time too. However, will their musical skills be as good as someone who actually take the effort to learn guitar? Probably not. I agree with you that the author ignored some important facts. However, the thesis still holds that many achievements (i.e. education) have been dumb down to make people feel content about being less skilled. The problem is that we are getting better at hacking our own brains to give us more reward than we deserve.
Confusion 17y ago
But the short answer is that it is preposterous to dismiss technologically mediated achievement as somehow fake As preposterous as it is to create this strawman of the article and rail against that? It's crystal clear that he's not talking about the incidental advances one may obtain from playing video games and that he's not talking about the special niche of 'video games' where the game is an educational instrument. That dismisses your examples and probably your 'on and on'. Meta-comment: The parent is an example of a critical comment that is upvoted and subsequently hurts the community. It diminishes the chance that people will read and learn from the article. The remark about video games is a relatively minor part of the essay (mostly it was the sbject of the post that inspired this one) and the criticism of only that part probably gives a lot of people the wrong impression about the article. Comments touching only remotely on the article, however insightful, should not be voted to the top. (Please note that this meta-comment does not depend on me disagreeing with (part of) the comment)
andymism 17y ago
The real problem isn't that the line ignores cognitive research, it's that the rest of the essay is built around a statement that is on fundamentally shaky logical ground. See fallacy of equivocation. The OP intentionally misinterpreted 'achievement' in the context of video games (simple trophies or indicators that you're playing a game in the intended way) and applied the abstract, idealized meaning of achievement instead. While I more or less agree with the intent of his essay, writing that's based bad analogies and fallacious statements just end up sounding like fluff.

gridspy 17y ago

How about : Any achievement the game rewards you for is a fake achievement. Whenever I go up a level in WoW, or gain a kill in Quake, or beat a boss and pick up his loot I have a fake achievement. Sure, there are some real achievements in there, but they are not provided by the game world - they are almost a side effect. Most likely they are not the reason that people are playing these games, but they are a useful excuse to continue playing. Consider how much real achievement we would see if all the motivated hackers put down WoW and started up their development environment of choice. I'm not saying that games aren't cool (I love computer games and have been strongly addicted in the past) but don't delude yourself into thinking that they are more productive than applying yourself directly to the task you are trying to master. I might get HN points (i.e Karma) from posting this comment. That is not my goal, I don't care about those. My goal is to inspire fellow hackers enough to pay attention to my cool start-up (Gridspy). HN doesn't give me "pay attention to me" points - I don't think that is really possible.

Retric 17y ago
IMO, an achievement is "real" when your actions are what separates a reasonable chance of failure and success. Thus the classic MMO grind fest, or a slot machine could be called fake achievements, but most PVP kills are actually fairly complex achievements.
- gridspy 17y ago
  Your skills are real, your achievement is meaningless. I am an awesome Natural Selection (the FPS RTS) commander. I have lead epic campaigns back and forth across the game map against huge odds. When I played, my team often told me that I was doing a great job. Then, I won. The game went "well done" and all that hard work turned into nothing. Sure, I had skill, but I had achieved nothing but entertainment and wasted weekends. At the time I was very happy with that. I'm not satisfied with that any more.
  - Retric 17y ago
    After the heat death of the universe everything done by anything becomes meaningless. Your actions increased the happiness of other people for some period of time, abstractly that's about all you can do. Granted creating a fun video game or a more effective solar cell are on a larger scale, but it's still the same basic thing.
    - gridspy 17y ago
      True. However some achievements will last after I am dead, some will not. I'm more interested in the former.
      - eru 17y ago
        If you die sooner your achievements won't have to last for so long to qualify. (Though that's probably not what you want.) I guess your best stab at achieving immortality in your works is mathematics.

jaytee_clone 17y ago

I'm sure Guitar Hero players gain better rhythm over time too. However, will their musical skills be as good as someone who actually take the effort to learn guitar? Probably not. I agree with you that the author ignored some important facts. However, the thesis still holds that many achievements (i.e. education) have been dumb down to make people feel content about being less skilled. The problem is that we are getting better at hacking our own brains to give us more reward than we deserve.

Confusion 17y ago

But the short answer is that it is preposterous to dismiss technologically mediated achievement as somehow fake As preposterous as it is to create this strawman of the article and rail against that? It's crystal clear that he's not talking about the incidental advances one may obtain from playing video games and that he's not talking about the special niche of 'video games' where the game is an educational instrument. That dismisses your examples and probably your 'on and on'. Meta-comment: The parent is an example of a critical comment that is upvoted and subsequently hurts the community. It diminishes the chance that people will read and learn from the article. The remark about video games is a relatively minor part of the essay (mostly it was the sbject of the post that inspired this one) and the criticism of only that part probably gives a lot of people the wrong impression about the article. Comments touching only remotely on the article, however insightful, should not be voted to the top. (Please note that this meta-comment does not depend on me disagreeing with (part of) the comment)

andymism 17y ago

The real problem isn't that the line ignores cognitive research, it's that the rest of the essay is built around a statement that is on fundamentally shaky logical ground. See fallacy of equivocation. The OP intentionally misinterpreted 'achievement' in the context of video games (simple trophies or indicators that you're playing a game in the intended way) and applied the abstract, idealized meaning of achievement instead. While I more or less agree with the intent of his essay, writing that's based bad analogies and fallacious statements just end up sounding like fluff.