What keeps you going back to a game you have finished or even one that you have not? All 360 games have achievements, new PS3 games have trophies and the Wii has waggle. I started thinking why I play the games I do and what keeps me coming back to them, what gets the game home is definitely the game, but what keeps me going back on most is the things I can earn to stuff gamer score. After I beat a game I usually leave it at that unless it has some reward I can earn. One extreme example is Shrek the Third, I bought it for my daughter and I to play, turns out the main game is not co-op. It sat on my shelf for a long time, then I got into a achievement mood and play though it to get them all, unfortunately it had a trophy bug and had to play it twice as much as needed, but I now have 1000/1000 on it. On the other hand I have 65/66 achievements for Fable II including both DLC I bought, but I have those because it is a great game to play and working for the rewards a great addition to adding more fun.
On the other hand, if there are no rewards that are shown off to compare with friends do you still enjoy the game as much? It is nice to have some where you can just concentrate on completeing the game and having fun, not looking for 400 flags spread around a large map (Assassin's Creed).
I guess me going back to school and deciding to study philosophy has got me thinking about things, specifically are Achievements and Trophies good for games or not, the scores do nothing except be able to brag. You can still have in game rewards and goals, but leave them in game.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
