Achievement Whore

Hi, my name is Aaron and I’m a recovering Achievement Whore

-Hi Aaron!

How did you get started down this addictive path?

It all started with Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter…a buddy of mine, IceColdKilla06, had bought his 360 on launch day and I spent most of the day over his house, skipping classes for the entire week, playing NBA 2K6 and GRAW.  It wasn’t until I created my Gamertag, Apollo, that I started earning my achievements and from that moment, I was hooked!

Do you remember the first Achievement you unlocked?

Of course I do, as Apollo, my 1^st gamertag, it was in GRAW.  And once I bought my own 360, and switched to my current gamertag Apollo1906, it was in NBA 2K6.

When did you realize you had a problem?

I didn’t realize I had a problem until I played all the way through the terrible TMNT game and after completion; I was pissed because I was not given my full 1000 GS!  And after trying multiple times I was still dicked out of my points.  I had never been so enraged in my life.  I still remember what that effin achievement is “Get your first coin” for 15 GS.  After that, I realized that I was no longer enjoying games for their entertainment, but only for how easy or hard their Achievement list was.

Wow!  Sounds like you became obsessed.

I did…I found myself playing the games irregularly for the Achievements and even restarting missions until I was able to get the “Achievement Unlocked.”  Since we’re being honest right now, not having achievements is the reason why I don’t play the Wii.  I was going through my achievement history and realized that I’ve played roughly 280 games, with about 270 being all retail games.

Wait...What?!?  You’ve played how many games?  You’re gamerscore must be through the roof.

Honestly, it could be higher if I stayed on the path I was on.  When I switched gamertags I lost over 4000 GS and I no longer had those easy launch titles anymore, being a new father and college student meant certain sacrifices.  So instead of buying games at $60 a pop, I started renting games from Blockbuster to keep up, but the downside was a set return date.  That meant I had to decide if I wanted to play and enjoy the game or mine for all of the achievements before enjoying the game.

So would you say that was the turning point for you?

Yeah, most definitely…well that and hearing my son yelling at his V-Tech, “You cheatin!”  That was a tough pill to swallow knowing he had got that from behavior from me.

So what challenges do you face? Have you experience many setbacks?  Any tips to anyone out there suffering from Achievement whoring.

Every time I put in a new game, I find myself going to check out the achievement list before even before selecting the difficulty.  Even though I do this, I make sure that I finish the game and enjoy my play through before I start to play through for achievements.  And if the game sucks then I stop playing it…no point in wasting my time on crap just because it’s achievement are easy (Avatar: The Last Airbender I’m looking at you)

But I want to make sure everyone reading this understands the beauty of Achievements: they were put in push the gamer into replaying the game.  As a gamer, I see the simplistic genius in giving us a reason to go back and play their games and if done right can add tons of replayability to games that probably wouldn’t have gotten anymore time after the credits rolled.

Well thank you for sharing your story with us and we wish you the best.