What if they enjoy enlarging their epeen?

Are we now judging what is and what is not fun? And belittling people who's source of fun is different than ours?

Take me for example. I usually enjoy riding my bike. I'm always going on big tours with it. I can guarantee you that 90% of these tours is pure torture, both mentally and physically. Yet I'm doing it until I complete them and I'm always looking back fondly to all of my tours even though I know that I hated it while I was doing it. Does that make my hobby a stupid endeavor since I'm not enjoying it all the time? Do you hate me because my goal is it to reach the next town instead of watching the scenery go by?

And this is what is wrong with gaming. Wish there was a poll for this thread.

No...I don't need an achievement system in a game to make me feel compelled to play it; I need compelling gameplay.

I think achievements and trophies are great ways to extend time playing a game, but not necessary for my enjoyment of the game. If I enjoy a game enough I will go ahead and try to platinum trophy or full gamerscore it.

I'm in the opposite camp. I used to care a lot about achievements (mostly due to an achievements arms race between me and my buddy) but then I realized I was playing the game differently just to rack up points. Since then I've disabled achievement and trophy notifications and I'm a lot happier.

In general, I think achievements have been a negative development for the industry. They are, by definition, extrinsic to the video game experience, and yet they texture and, in many cases, define how we play. It creates an uncomfortable relationship between internal motivators -- the rules and challenges of the game -- and external motivators -- achievements, trophies, etc.

They're not the worst thing in the world. You can turn off notifications, after all, and they can frame a second play-through, although that time could be spent playing a new game instead of inflating a largely meaningless number. But, overall, they've changed the way we evaluate and play games, and not for the better.

I think the thing that's most annoying about trophies isn't that they mark your progress and help you look for things to achieve, which can be nice, but that they pretend to be then end all be all of your game completion experience. Like, when you've "platinumed" a game that's when you're fully done with it.

What if I was done with the game when I completed the story experience the developer intended me to have? Alternatively, how should there EVER be a way to "platinum" a perfectly good game like Animal Crossing? There are too many different ways to play and I would feel punished if it told me I only completed 40% of the game because I chose just one play style over another. Not to mention the fact that the game should never really end. Completion level should not be a thing in a game like that, or any sim/endless games.

And I have to imagine "platinuming" a game like Pokemon wouldn't be actually 100%-ing the game (catching and leveling all pokemon to 100 with perfect stats, beating every trainer, obtaining every TM move and hidden item), or would it? That would be a ridiculously high bar. There's just an annoying discrepancy between completion by trophies and true completion. What would "platinuming" mean? Have you crafted a competitively viable team that can take others in combat? Have you really collected everything? If you don't have to collect everything to "platinum" then what's the point of collecting anything past the "platinum" mark where trophies end?

GAHHHHH!!?!??!?! What would platinuming a competitive/party game like Smash Bros. mean? Especially if you're mostly playing it with friends and not alone.
I just feel like the discussion of accomplishment and completion in games should be far more complicated and deeper than "I've got 80% of trophies." "Oh yeah well I platinumed that game months ago."

Unless it's an AAA game, I agree.

Even though I have both PS3 and 360 I care a lot more about achievements than trophies, simply because 360 was my first console.
Therefore there are a lot more PS3 exclusives I haven't played, simply because I'd rather earn some more achievements.

Also agree about Steam achievements being inferior.

I feel a bit ashamed but I do feel that way sometimes. I'd still play the game anyways if I really want to.

They're certainly nice little things I like to try and get, but I don't consider achievements something necessary for a game.

That is for people with too much time on their hands, I only play my games once and I still have a big backlog. I hate trophies, they ruin my enjoyment of the games, since I don't have too much time on my hands if I want to reach 100% trophies in a game I have to go before even playing the game to find a guide to see which is the shortest way to do it, use guides and ruin the plot, and even there many require multiple playthroughs, so I will never reach 100% according to the developers.

I take advantage of my games and I try to get the most of them, but I decide when I reach my 100%, like DKC: Tropical Freeze, I reached 100% and I was done with the game, if the game had trophies they will force me to play the game again on hard and pass all the extra stuff to get platinum and I will feel that I did took advantage of the game.

I think achievements and trophies are a waste of time. Between percentage completed markers and high scores in games already, achievement/trophies add absolutely nothing to the experience. I mean, you get an achievement for "killing 100 guys with a shotgun"...you were gonna do that anyway over the course of your play in the game. How is that something you've achieved or is an accomplishment that is trophy worthy. And then you get them for completing stages of the game. Beating a level and getting an addition 8% on my percentage completion is enough. I don't need a little blip to pop up and validate that I, indeed, played the game