Gaming
Games
Nintendo, earn a Trophy, Achieve... something in our lives for brags sakes!
Or, we’re not ragging on Nintendo at all, but we do think it’s time it rewarded players with the chance to brag about their Switch, 2DS and 3DS accomplishments, in a persistent social sense…
This has been written about before, and largely ignored by Nintendo proper, because Nintendo does Nintendo – you be you, N-Boo.
But with the success of the Switch, and the types of games Nintendo makes, in line with a growing third-party support base, we think it might be time Nintendo did something punters actually care about instead of being all high and mighty. We know you’re always going to do things your way, Ninty, but sometimes it’s about the kids, you know?
Sony did it with Trophies. They might not ever freely admit they were adopting an Xbox initiative by looking to Achievements as inspiration for a bragging rights platform for players, but they did, and did it in their own unique way. And there’s nothing wrong with taking something popular, or successful, or not wholly your own idea, and running with it in your own way. As long as you honour the idea in its original principle or expand upon it in your own creative way, then you’re all good.
Nintendo makes games about bragging rights. It might be incidental, but their basic design of games is essentially a service to completionism...
That last point is where Nintendo comes in. But first, why should Nintendo look at adopting a rewards program its competitors already have a massive lead on? Well, it sort of turns out that Nintendo’s way of making games is kind of the reason Achievements and Trophies exist in the first place. So let’s explore that...
Achievement Unlocked: You took a breath, in the wild!
© Nintendo
Nintendo Games, the Nintendo Way
Nintendo makes games about bragging rights. It might be incidental, but their basic design of games is essentially a service to completionism. The bare minimum still exists for non-completionists, because that’s how Nintendo goes about it, but their in-house games are designed for gamers to explore every little thing; to find new secrets and hidden goodies -- to collect ‘em all, if you will.
120 stars in Super Mario 64. Skulltulas in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Routes and Medals in Lylat Wars (or Star Fox 64 for non-Aussies). Chozo Artifacts and 100% scan completion in Metroid Prime. Racing ghosts in Mario Kart(s). Your damn Pokemon collection, from common to rare, to legendary – Nintendo’s game-design philosophy is about 1-Up-manship (heh). But beyond personal accounts, or playgrounds and watercoolers, there’s no tangible evidence of any level of completion for players in a digital social sense. And we live in a digitally-shared social world now. “Achievement Unlocked” is a part of the modern pop-culture vernacular when describing something of merit in your life.
But Nintendo has bucked this since its inception, despite being largely responsible for it in the first place.
You Earned a Trophy! Became a Goombah!
© Nintendo
Why Do They Even Matter?
Being passive is a loser activity for losers...
Well, we touched on it above, but games are a challenge. Being passive is a loser activity for losers. Even games like The Sims and Minecraft, where you can essentially just ‘live’ in the space, have challenges. We talk about “gamification” and “meta” all the time -- even around modern life movements. And our world is dominated by sports, heroes and heroines; awards and winning. Someone currently and consistently talks ad nauseam about having “the best people; the greatest people” around him, without ever even proving the statement. Which, in a sense, also proves our point -- bragging, or “bragging rights”, even if intangible, are culturally important to both the modern psyche, and to social assertion of some form of dominance.
Testimony
“From the second my Xbox 360 chimed and its on-screen toast celebrated my first Achievement – Fable II’s “The Whippersnapper”, worth a whopping 25 Gamerscore – I was hooked,” explains local games journalist Steve Wright of stevivor.com. “Long before smartphones and their multitude of notifications became the primary delivery method of dopamine, I lived for the electronic hunt.
Achievement Unlocked: Overtook your slower brother!
© Nintendo
“I was always a game completionist – aiming for 100%, or whatever I decided was equivalent before it was possible to actually gauge – with each game I played,” he adds. “[And] Microsoft’s ‘new’ system made it easy to actually quantify my progress. I started as innocently as any other player, aiming to earn all Achievements in games I liked; that quickly shifted though and I found myself buying games merely for the Achievements they contained. I’ll admit to playing all of three minutes of Avatar: The Burning Earth for a cool 1,000 Gamerscore.
“I’d do it again if I could.”
We asked Wright to comment, because at one time a few years ago he was among the top 20 Gamerscore earners in Australia, which is no mean feat (he's currently on 331045). It also speaks volumes about what we’re getting at here -- quantifiable, socially active ‘reports’, if you will, on your gaming prowess are rewarding. Though Wright admits to being somewhat obsessed beyond measure at a point before needing to pair it all back a bit.
“My passion – I almost called it a sickness – lead me to buy a Windows Phone (and struggle with a clunky UI daily) just to try to maximise my earnings. That’s when I realised that Achievements were becoming more of an obsession to me than anything fun.
“However, my primary interactions with Achievements are far more social nowadays,” Wright admits. “Engaging with quick checks of the monthly Xbox Gamerscore Leaderboard -- a great addition to the platform on Microsoft’s account I might add; it’s become a fun, mildly competitive contest.”
You Earned a Trophy! Made a big mess!
© Nintendo
How Would Nintendo Do It, the Nintendo Way?
The solution here is simpler and more optimal than it might seem. No one’s asking Nintendo to have a numerised scoring system. This is Nintendo -- they know PC and Xbox have that market wrapped up. Trophies are closer to where Nintendo would lean, but again, it’s intangible -- a bragging system as dictated by Sony.
What about Stars or 1-Up Mushrooms? Rupees or Koroks, maybe? That seems to fit. But would likely fall into a category of numerical value, or too similar to Trophies. This idea needs a “Nintendo” concept. So what about a sticker book? Players earn stickers for achieving milestones in games, but can pepper them out in their own way and make their own milestone stories. Other players can flick through their books, and each sticker comes with a description of how that sticker was achieved. Maybe there’s even a meta game where certain combinations of stickers and stories unlock unique items for other games or Mii avatars?
Then there’s this. Nintendo turns achievements into a fully-fledged — but balanced — game. Maybe a unique roguelike that features unlocked characters...
Or maybe, just maybe, in-game Amiibos? We’re probably giving away a million dollar idea here, but what if you can earn in-game Amiibos that then, when you actually fire up said real-life Amiibo, shares new content exclusively based on that unlocked achievement? But these are transferable to in-house, second-party or Nintendo exclusive games. It would be hard to manage, and maybe just a cosmetic thing, but if anyone could pull this off, it would be Nintendo.
Then there’s this. Nintendo turns achievements into a fully-fledged — but balanced — game. Maybe a unique roguelike that features unlocked characters via achievements so progress is kind of meaningless, but not. How deep you get into the roguelike experience is your Leaderboard system, while added characters or items achieved through achievements simply helps. You can also have cosmetic additions through your other achievements to brighten up the ‘game’. Maybe you can even share ghost data of specific playthroughs, for your friends and others to try an beat.
You’re welcome, Nintendo.
Achievement Unlocked: Served an ace!
© Nintendo
/End
So Nintendo, it’s not that we want you to copy the other platforms, but we do want you to adopt something of similar note, in your own style. It’s all about them bragging rights, you see. But also, that rewarding feeling you get being able to quantify all those Nintendo-built or inspired player-achieved… well, achievements. It doesn’t need to be about Leaderboards or Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze. It can be Nintendo being Nintendo. Supporting your fervent, passionate and most importantly: loyal, players with a record of why they’re loyal, passionate and fervent in the first place. Think about it — we reckon it’d go gangbusters.
For more gaming coverage, follow @RedBullGames on Twitter and Instagram and like us on Facebook.
