Achievement Points: Why Players are Crazy for Them?

What makes people so crazy for these Achievement Points? Paul Hyman discussed it in his article in the Hollywood Reporter. It’s different from any other rewarding point accumulation system. You can never cash them for anything, and it’s only shown on your Gametag, along with your most recent games. Rather than any real-world reward, it’s the sense of achievement and pride in the virtual community that drives people to unlock those points in the games. What’s more, it allows people to exchange ideas and opinions on the games they like with other community members easily.

Achievement Points are not a new idea, but they were wisely implemented by Microsoft. In quite a lot of MMORPGs, people show their status by their score or the equipment their virtual characters have. The most popular instant messaging platform in China, Tencent’s QQ, implemented a similar system in late 2005, as the longer you use QQ, the more icons will be added to your tag, such as a moon, a star or a sun, each with a different status. You can also access different features for your avatar, and thousands of people leave their computer on to run QQ just to have those icons.

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