In an interview with Official Xbox Magazine, Gearbox head man Randy Pitchford said that achievements in Xbox games can boost sales by up to 40,000 units! Wh-wha-what?
"You can probably affect your sales by something like 10 and 40 thousand units," Pitchford said. "If you're talking about a triple-A game selling between 1 and 2.5 million units. You're talking tens of thousands of units of impact there."
Seriously, 40,000 people in the world are so into video games that they buy titles just for the achievements! Wow! So what are these Achievement Whores looking for? According to Pitchford, it's all about the speed they can acquire points, and catering to the achievement-addicted and trophy-obsessed can equal money.
"The Achievement hunter, who's going to make purchase decisions around the Achievements per minute to ratio - he's probably buying ten to twenty titles a year, or at least playing that many," Pitchford said. "So he's a very frequent customer, and you want to be in that pile. That's just business."
It seems to me that Pitchford's number is way too high. I could see a few people out there caring so much about their points that they'd buy a game just for that. To me, the achievement points and trophies are a nice little addition to gaming -- I get a tiny thrill every time I get an achievement -- but to buy a game just for the totally meaningless points you earn while playing it? Ridiculous! But maybe I'm wrong. How important are achievements to you?
Here's Attack of the Show's take on Achievement Whores:
Comments
Displaying 1–20 of 40
122
Zabbai
Not...important...at...all. That guy is a fool. His ignorance is offensive.
BONERJAM
Achievement are for replayablilty not for selling systems.
Not_FAT
In an interview with Official PlayStation Magazine? I thought it was about xbox 360
Silverweed
Admittedly it's true. I have a PS3 and an Xbox and if a game that I want to play comes out on both platforms I'll always get it for the Xbox just to get the achievements. Right now I'm actually playing a few games over that I played on my PS3, but not on the 360, just for the achievements. I'm a whore, I know. I can't help it. I loooooooove achievements. I've even got this cool little gamer card posted on my myspace that let's all my friends know what I'm playing and how many I have. :)
Cokebeard
i don't care about achievements, but i know a handful of people that do.
what i'm saying is the number 40K seems high, but 10k could be close. if every gamer knew one guy/girl like that (or to take it out of integers and say on the average everyone knew .5ish people like that), then it's not completely ridiculous. and 10k at 60$ isn't bad.
top8cat
Randy works in the gaming business and Gearbox(his company) probably watches these this like crazy I'm not to proud to say that I Love Trophies/achievements if its like a game and i myself might not buy games for that reason, but if feels like a bonus. when a game has them
chocosquirrel
You know what else increases sales? Dumb people.
AlexBloodlust
40k sounds low to me, I know A LOT of people who would buy a game for easy achievements, or atleast rent it.
mindsale
I bought Terminator Salvation for my first Platinum trophy. Of course I returned it 6 hours later on grounds that it was buggier than an anteater's arse - but trophies alone made me plunk down 50 bucks. I don't pursue my Gamerscore as fervently. The points there have no cohesion - no reason for me to 100% my games. They need to add stupid little Platinum stars or something to give incentive for continued play.
SourProphit
That there are actually people out there who would buy a game (in general, not a multiplatform decision) solely for the achievements is a blight on humanity.
I like achievements, I feel a competitive urge to outscore the people on my friends list in all the games we have in common, and I'll occasionally wind up squeezing a few extra hours out of a game specifically for certain achievements, but that's just adding to the longevity of a game that has to be good to begin with.
lookatthisguy
Everyone needs to be good at something...
Some people need to be good at everything...
I'm nowhere near that bad, but not knowing just how many people purchase games annually, I'd be more interested in seeing a percentage--what percent of game sales are influenced by reward systems? Pitchford didn't give enough info to infer what his number might be (or else he wasn't quoted enough to figure it out).
If I had to guess, I'd estimate 10-15%, maybe 20% for the "bigger" titles.
partyboy8967
When i first got into xbox i rly rly loved achivements i dont think it rly raises sales but i would just rent a bunch of games and get a bunch of achivements but i could see it gaining around 10,000 extra units sold im sur 10,000 people out of the 30,000,000 xbox users really want those achivments.
WhiteWolfAssassin
While I have never purchased a game based on achievements, it is a very addictive feature. What makes achievements and trophies important, is that they are usually an incentive and encourage you to replay the game again instead of just trading it in once your finished[of course that means nothing if the game is bad]. They also offer a sense of accomplishment, rewarding your effort of completing a goal that the developers have set and the achievement system acknowledges that accomplishment. In many ways , their is a sense of pride knowing that you where able to achieve something in a video game that others did not. Do I think achievements alone are enough reason to purchase a game? Hell no, but they are definitely an added incentive.
xegster
I won't ever buy a game at the stores for the achievements. But half of the Xbox Live Arcade games I bought were only purchased because I could use the extra 200 for completing it.
I wouldn't ever buy a game I didn't like, but if I'm on the edge of deciding, the achievements push me one way or the other.
That's another interesting point - do games with impossibly difficult achievements seem less appealing?
TheSiwentKiwwah
I think that's absurd. People make a final decision to purchase a game based on achievements, sure. But If that were true, the games that had ridiculously simple achievements would have sold more--i.e. Avatar, and most of the kids games.
Not_FAT
trey 4 life
Bulbachar
I won't buy games for achievements but I will work my butt off getting achievements in games I like. I believe good games deserve to be totally finished.
backerman
without achievements, you play the game and that's it. with achievements, you play the game again and again. i like achievements, you work hard to earn it and no cheating.
Fex_Anderson
For me, it's replayability. I don't obsess about 1000-pointing games... I just don't see the point. I have friends who are all about getting as many achievements as possible, but really... What do they do for you? Honestly, I don't think they do anything. That's why I don't obsess over them. I buy games for the merits of the games that I play, not for the achievements they unlock. If I play a game, don't unlock any of it's achievements or trophies, but still have a good time playing the game, that's still money well spent for me. Metal Gear Solid 4, for example, doesn't even have trophies... Yet still that's the game I've dumped the most time into over the last year.
Jackal904
I don't think a person will buy a game just for the achievements. But if they are on the fence about buying a game and they see that the achievements are pretty easy to get, that may help push them to buy the game.
Displaying 1–20 of 40
122
Add a Comment