I'm not really bothered by them. Usually I hardly notice.
But that is to say I've never paid any attention to them whatsoever. I find that if I'm not able to think up my own challenges in a game, I either haven't played it enough to be on that level of skill and familiarity, or I don't actually enjoy the game very much. And it's funny how one can sometimes rationalize continuing to do something they don't really enjoy only to look back on it and think "Why did I put so much time into that?!" Personally I try really hard to minimize that. If I'm enjoying a game a whole lot, I play it a whole lot. And eventually I hit a point where I've gone maybe a little beyond having my run with the bulk of its content, but maybe I want there to be more... I don't want to stop playing. In my mind, nothing else I could do would be as enjoyable. So I start coming up with own play styles in order to keep going... maybe give the game some challenges of my own or do things that it seems like you shouldn't be able to do... or things the game doesn't want you to do. And this all comes from spending a lot of time on the game, just observing and imagining. That's part of the experience. It's no fun if the game does it for you... following achievements the game lays out for you takes the personal element out of it. A lot of times, they're not even very creative. The ones worth doing, you will likely think of organically, as you hit that level of skill and understanding of how the game works. Meanwhile, the ones that aren't are arbitrary to the point where all you're getting out of playing the game that way is that short little dopamine poke from the meager accomplishment checking one more off that list. It's like they have a suggestion jar at the studio and office.
I dunno... to me it's more fun to make your own game out of the games you master. It's about what it symbolizes... and trophies and points aren't it. Not for me. They're just a waste of time. It's only satisfying when it means something to you personally.
I get the appeal - it speaks a little to the completionist in me. A tedious list of tasks to check off... I happen to enjoy playing very meticulously and tediously. But something is still off to me about them. The mindset behind ticking off a list of tasks presented to you by the game is night and day from manifesting a series of tasks with no set ending point from within you. It's a different way of playing games. Difference being there is an end to it... whereas when you come up with your own reasons to exhaust a game of all of its potential, the stopping point for when you have 'conquered' it is based on your level of satisfaction with the amount of aspects you've explored, as well as your personal perception of what is left to explore that is of interest to you.
Every time I think about chasing down some achievements, I imagine myself eventually, with great relent, trudging through some that don't even interest me just because they're there along with the ones I actually want to pursue. Bound to hit a grinding stone eventually. Know what I mean? Turns me right off. I don't feel like I need a game to tell me when I've officially played the shit out of it. It feels a little hand-holdey for the game to try and tell me when it is "my game" for real... to give me some sort of path to that and a way to make it known. That's not very appealing for me. I want to know that I went that far with it on my own and I don't care if anyone recognizes it. I think if you like a game enough to attain that level, it will happen naturally. Where's the excitement in knowing when/how you're gonna run up against the great void at the end of all games. For me, whenever I have reached a point where I've been playing a game for months (or sometimes years,) and just exhausted it of every fun little thing I can possibly think of, no amount of achievements is going to increase my desire to continue playing. That level of paradoxical utter satisfaction and almost existential remorse is hard to replicate... it's like if you're just following a path laid out by the game the mindset that actually gets you to the intended destination is missing. The intent is the key distinction. It's inherently more superficial when the highest limit is imposed. No longer is there unexpectedly more that you can do.
Maybe it does get you there... maybe it really works. But then it's just getting you to the end of your time with the game faster. I'm a quality over quantity guy, though, so I don't really want that. I want to play games that naturally inspire me to pursue made-up challenges all on my own, without even realizing it. Otherwise, all that says to me is that the game is not up to my standards for immersion and enjoyment-factor. The experience I want isn't there, and I don't want fabricated reasons to continue to play it. I guess the crux of it is that achievements don't offer me any replay value... or more, the replay value that they attempt to present to me can only be generated by the player in my case. I either like the game enough to play it just to play it and continue doing stuff, or I don't and nothing is going to ever change it. I'm just never going to sit down and want to put in that kind of time. And if I do want to put in the time, I prefer to choose how I go about it for myself... because for me that's half of the fun of delving so much deeper into the game than the developer ever expected of the average player. It's not supposed to be part of the game. That sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
