Any way you want it, that’s the way you need it
In E397’s Soundbytes we suggested that wanting to curtail the rise of achievements and other such “meaningless rewards” in videogames might be something worth exploring. It didn’t take long for a dissenting opinion to arrive, as you can see in Dispatches (p22). And fair enough. When it comes down to it, we shouldn’t be telling anyone how to play games, not least because following someone else’s rules doesn’t feel especially compatible with the very idea of leisure time. In fact, some of the most fun we’ve ever had playing games has involved defying expectations in order to see what might happen. Driving PS1 Ridge Racer’s cars in literally the opposite direction from where they were supposed to be headed was how we discovered that its tracks had secret mirrored modes, for example. (Thinking about it, when designers actually reward you for doing things in this way, are you really defying expectations at all? Probably not.)