I agree with your overall statement but you entirely missed the point. Achievments are not a replacement for good game design. GTA IV was not a good game because it had an achievement for flying under bridges. GTA was a good game in and of itself and is infinitely replayable. The achievements added a fun mini game that contributed to the greater whole of the game. Will I boot up GTA IV again in the future? Yes. Will it be to fly under bridges for an achievement. No, it will be to have fun with an amazing game of which the achievment were a minor part of. So again, I agree with your first statement but you entirely missed the point of my example.

However, you do seem to get the main point though. Achivements are a minor part of a game and dont hurt anyone who doesn't like them

Well you're right about one thing. None of us can comprehend what John Lucas is talking about. 

@Fusioncode All 3 of those movies flopped. Final Fantasy: Spirits Within is one of the biggest flops of all time

I understand what he is saying, I am even able to follow the logic in what he is thinking. I don't agree with what he is concluding, but it really is not difficult to understand his position. That said, I am very smart.

I trust you are able to see the argument even if you disagree with the example.

Anyway, if GTA V is a game that is so amazing that people will play it over and over it is my position that achievements for flying under a bridge is unnecessary. That said, as long as the game is great there is no harm done in slamming achievements in all sorts of weird places. Anyway, this is boring, we are pretty much in agreement.

Dv8thwonder said: @Fusioncode All 3 of those movies flopped. Final Fantasy: Spirits Within is one of the biggest flops of all time It's also the reason why Square became Square Enix and why it's foolish to think that designing a game like a movie or vice versa is not a recipe for success. The Last of Us wouldv'e been a better game had it dropped its Hollywood pretenses and was more like what is portrayed in its multiplayer. I urge you to read this http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=734251 This is a game deserving of sales. It's innovative, original and available to Sony faithfuls yet it goes ignored. You want to know why? It is because your much beloved cinematic Hollywood me-too games have stifled any and all creativity on the various platforms Sony provides. You have been conditioned to accept anything that has been focus tested and to reject any and all games that do not fit this criteria. Innovation is only a foreign concept if those conditioned against it agree to those conditions.

Once again, you gave me a few examples of Sony's movies flopping, I gave you many more examples of Sony's movies succeeding. I'm not sure what you don't understand about that. Every film studio in existance has their share of flops. I'm not saying Sony makes the best movies in the business but it's immature to just a list a few examples without looking at their overall portfolio. And yes I have read that Tearaway thread, I'll be sure to pick up a copy once I empty out my backlog. 

You say Sony's games suck because they try too hard to be "hollywood" which is a weak argument. Explain exactly what makes a game "too hollywood" or whatever. I could say Nintendo games suck because they don't try anything new anymore. Or Microsoft games all suck because they only appeal to preteens. Those arguments are weak, and so is your Sony one. 

Your kind of attitude disgust me. And yeah, I probably meant elitism more than hollier than thou. Although in that comment I replied to, you didn't come off to me as pretending to be smarter than the rest. You certainly don't come accross as being particularly smarter. What you think of yourself is of no matter to the topic at hand. Now, I'm not using my mother language to speak to you, so if you don't mind, it'd be better if we left the semantics aside if we're to discuss anything and achieve something from it.

Moving on. I agree with your assessment about the Wii U Gamepad. On the very day Nintendo revealed the console, I said they were recreating the dual screen experience of the DS with the Gamepad and a regular TV. When it comes to my own taste with control inputs, I thought it was a much better idea than the Wiimote. But it's clearly not so for the masses. The sales of the Wii clearly prove the Wiimote's genius and its appeal to the masses. But in the end, motion controls don't seem to have taken the traction Nintendo originally hoped for. Sales plummeted two or so years before they launched the Wii U, and barely anything other than Nintendo's flagship titles sold any good.

As for JohnLucas, I've read what he wrote. All single words of it. And the conclusions he jumps to are ludicrous for the most part. The result of focusing way too much on the subject, an aquired tunnel vision that you get when someone starts with the wanted conclusion, and works backward to accumulate the small details that could potentially support it. Too caught up in what he wants those details to say to see any other possible cause for them. There's a name for that, and it eludes me right now (backward induction, maybe?). But suffice to say: don't do that.

In any case, the Wii U is struggling right now. A shame, since it's a really good console. Even if it's not as high end as the PS4 and the XBO, it's still unique enough to warrant a purchase. Sadly though, third parties aren't on board again. And the real reasons are probably as many as there are third parties. Or... Maybe Nintendo really is to blame? Surely, an entire industry can't all be against Nintendo at the same time just out of spite for them? They play politics? On the Wii? That console had the biggest install base of its generation. Something doesn't add up. When you take a look at the big hits on the Wii, you realise that those games are all mostly cattering to a certain market. They're mostly motion control focused, casual in nature (dance, fitness, sports), or from Nintendo's long time selling mascot franchises.  

Could it be that Nintendo's consoles just aren't marketed at the people that most third party devs are interested in making games for?  When you look at sales history from past generations, you notice that most third party games, no matter the energy that went into making them, sell less on a Nintendo home console (I'm not talking about handheld here. This is an other market entirely where Nintendo dominates. Where games don't cost nearly as much to make, and where the risks are in turn much lower, with return on investment being incredibly high compared to what we call AAA productions on the home console side.).

Nintendo is basically its very own enemy. Their games are almost relentlessly of the utmost quality, universally acclaimed, beloved by most gamers, and they sell more than almost anything else on the market. Third parties know what they have to compete with when they release on a Nintendo system. They see how miserably those who try anyway to make a game for their console end up failing to reach sales projections, or worse, to actually turn a profit.  Who would want to develop a game in this kind of condition? It's not really Nintendo's fault, yet it is. Being the best can put you in a lonely place, they say. xD

I don't think it's all doom and gloom for Nintendo. There are some things they can do to make things better for third parties. But so far, their actions haven't paid up. Here's hoping Bayonetta 2 will prove that The Wonderful 101 was just a small miss in the grand scheme of things. But I suspect it will know a similar fate. Really unfortunate, since the franchise and its gameplay are really top notch.

That's how I view this matter. They're all suppositions and conjections based on what is known. No prophecy. No jumping to hasty conclusions, or twisting facts to make them fit an agenda like Lucas is doing. Just my honest view on the matter. You probably won't agree with me on many things. But that's alright. In the mean time, I'll go back to my Wii U where I still have 4 stamps to collect in order to finish collecting everything in Super Mario 3D World. An amazing game.

To be honest, there are achievements and achievements. The 2 you both mention are good ones, but then there are others (like "stage 1 completed" for example) that do nothing for the game.

At this point, the thread is going around in circles with users debating with each other without really listening or being interested in what the other side has to say. I think this thread has run its course and is now only creating tension between users which is why I'm locking it.