Do you bother with trophies/achievements?

[Resileaf]

About the use of achievements as metrics, I think they might not be ultimately the most useful way for devs to get metrics (they've got better tools for it), but they're very convenient for players to get metrics that are easy to understand. It can make players have a look at what other players have done in this game, see how far they've gotten, maybe make them feel proud of having completed an achievement that few people have managed to do. And maybe even make them realize that there aren't that many people who even start up the game and complete the tutorial, which might make them realize that there are a truckload of games that they haven't started up and done the tutorial for.

[spectralphoenix]

But ..... they show fairly weak data for one like me, who quite frankly couldn't care less - and really strong data for completionists who deliberately chase achievements. It's .. skewed. Yes, you get the data, but the data itself doesn't tell you whether the player is one like me, who got the achievement by sheer chance, or someone who went out of his way to get it.

It tells you who Did The Thing, but not why.

On the other hand I'm sure they made a deliberate decision. If the data was collected without feedback (in the form of achievements), it would be less skewed, I feel. But then you wouldn't get to throw the completionists their bone.

It's an interesting topic - sadly, I'm sure you only get the real meat of it if you get hired into a games developer.

If anything, it's probably better for people who aren't chasing achievements. Let's say for each weapon in the game, they give out an achievement for killing 100 enemies with it. Assuming enough enemies, those are going to be pretty easy to get on purpose, and someone who wants the achievements will get all of them, no problem. Someone who ignores the achievements though, and doesn't use the weapons they don't like, will have achievements for some weapons but not others. And they're ultimately looking at percentages, not individual accounts - if 60% of the playerbase has 100 kills with the plasma rifle but only 30% with the submachine gun, that tells them something. Conversely, not every achievement is intended to provide meaningful data. But they're trivial to add, so why not?

And of course, some achievements aren't really avoidable as long as you're doing the content - if they make achievements for completing chapter 4, starting New Game Plus, or choosing the Evil ending,it doesn't matter how much disdain someone holds the achievement system in, they're getting the achievement.

Ultimately, achievements can serve a lot of different purposes. They can serve as a roadmap to explore some of the more open-ended games, they can provide challenges for people looking to spice things up a little, or just be little jokes. And some games have terrible achievement systems - the Age of Empires 2 rerelease comes to mind (nearly 300 achievements including one for each side for playing that side 100 times.) But every game mechanic can be misused.

[Resileaf]

Ultimately, achievements can serve a lot of different purposes. They can serve as a roadmap to explore some of the more open-ended games, they can provide challenges for people looking to spice things up a little, or just be little jokes. And some games have terrible achievement systems - the Age of Empires 2 rerelease comes to mind (nearly 300 achievements including one for each side for playing that side 100 times.) But every game mechanic can be misused.

Used to have achievements for playing each faction a thousand times.
Slightly over-the-top.

[Olinser]

I quite like achievements, actually.

In fact, especially for nostalgia games, whether they have Steam achievements or not is quite often the deciding factor in whether or not I actually buy it.

[Knaight]

Mostly no, but well designed achievements for challenges are an exception. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun really stood out here, with discrete replayable levels with optional achievements for level wide behavior. I'd beat a level, then strategize how to collect all of them (except the speedrun bit) in as few runs as possible, then do weird challenge runs using tactics that emphatically weren't my go to approach to deal with my go to approach being blocked.

[Kaptin Keen]

If anything, it's probably better for people who aren't chasing achievements. Let's say for each weapon in the game, they give out an achievement for killing 100 enemies with it. Assuming enough enemies, those are going to be pretty easy to get on purpose, and someone who wants the achievements will get all of them, no problem. Someone who ignores the achievements though, and doesn't use the weapons they don't like, will have achievements for some weapons but not others. And they're ultimately looking at percentages, not individual accounts - if 60% of the playerbase has 100 kills with the plasma rifle but only 30% with the submachine gun, that tells them something. Conversely, not every achievement is intended to provide meaningful data. But they're trivial to add, so why not?

And of course, some achievements aren't really avoidable as long as you're doing the content - if they make achievements for completing chapter 4, starting New Game Plus, or choosing the Evil ending,it doesn't matter how much disdain someone holds the achievement system in, they're getting the achievement.

Ultimately, achievements can serve a lot of different purposes. They can serve as a roadmap to explore some of the more open-ended games, they can provide challenges for people looking to spice things up a little, or just be little jokes. And some games have terrible achievement systems - the Age of Empires 2 rerelease comes to mind (nearly 300 achievements including one for each side for playing that side 100 times.) But every game mechanic can be misused.

Yes, you can design your criteria to suit your purposes - but the data will always be skewed by those who try to get 100 kills with every weapon to get all the achievements, and those like me who are completely oblivious. It'll be skewed by the Ironman Only for achievements, something that's quite common. And other things besides.

Any game* I play, I'm likely to rack up the most kills with the shotgun. It just suits my playstyle. Besides the point, but that's sure to be true regardless of achievements.

But I'm not saying achievements cannot produce data. They just cannot produce statistically correct data, unless you make allowance for a very substantial number of unknowns.

* Doesn't apply to solitaire, mine sweeper, or railroad tycoon.

[Olinser]

If anything, it's probably better for people who aren't chasing achievements. Let's say for each weapon in the game, they give out an achievement for killing 100 enemies with it. Assuming enough enemies, those are going to be pretty easy to get on purpose, and someone who wants the achievements will get all of them, no problem. Someone who ignores the achievements though, and doesn't use the weapons they don't like, will have achievements for some weapons but not others. And they're ultimately looking at percentages, not individual accounts - if 60% of the playerbase has 100 kills with the plasma rifle but only 30% with the submachine gun, that tells them something. Conversely, not every achievement is intended to provide meaningful data. But they're trivial to add, so why not?

And of course, some achievements aren't really avoidable as long as you're doing the content - if they make achievements for completing chapter 4, starting New Game Plus, or choosing the Evil ending,it doesn't matter how much disdain someone holds the achievement system in, they're getting the achievement.

Ultimately, achievements can serve a lot of different purposes. They can serve as a roadmap to explore some of the more open-ended games, they can provide challenges for people looking to spice things up a little, or just be little jokes. And some games have terrible achievement systems - the Age of Empires 2 rerelease comes to mind (nearly 300 achievements including one for each side for playing that side 100 times.) But every game mechanic can be misused.

Oh yeah, achievements like the AoE2 are STUPID. They don't show any particular skill at the game, you don't have to do anything special, they're just stupid time sinks. And for people that actually care about how many games they've played, a stat page with games played of each race is far superior.

Nobody interested in achievements looks at it and says, 'Huh well I guess I have to play 1300 games to get all these 'play games as x' achievements'. What they do is find another achievement hunter and trade 5 second wins back and forth until they both get the achievement in a minimum of time. Or Ninja Gaiden for XBOX (maybe it was Ninja Gaiden 2?) had a different achievement for each weapon.... beat the entire game using only that weapon. There were 9 different weapons, so that meant that at a minimum for 100% achievements you had to beat the game NINE TIMES. It's not hard, just time consuming, and practically nobody will get them unless they are specifically trying to get the achievement.