In this blog post I want to rant a bit about steam achievements, and compare them to their console counterparts.
Most gamers are familiar with achievements and trophies, some care for them deeply and strive to unlock every single one when playing a game, while others don’t see the point.
So what exactly are achievements or trophies?
When players accomplish specific objectives or meet certain conditions within a game, they are awarded achievements / trophies. These objectives can vary widely depending on the game, and they can include tasks such as completing a level, defeating a boss, reaching a certain score, unlocking a special item, or discovering hidden secrets within the game world.
The cool thing about these systems is that they allow players to do extra things in a game they wouldn’t normally do, and encourage replayability. another fun thing is that achievements and trophies are stored online, and as such, act as your gaming history of sorts.
Some history
Originally Achievements were introduced back in 2005 with the release of the Xbox 360 console, when a user unlocked an achievement they earned gamerscore, with different achievements having their own gamerscore value. soon after Valve released their own version of achievements, and Sony came out with their own system, calling their equivalent “trophies”.
Some differences between each major system
Microsoft achievements – you can earn those playing on Xbox, smartphone, and PC. The original system, that is still quite popular, every achievement have their own gamerscore value that can be seen on your Xbox profile. by default if you unlock every achievement in a game it will net you with 1000 gamerscore, this excludes DLC’s that can add even more achievements further increasing gamerscore. Microsoft used to give you rewards for earning gamerscore that you could use to buy games.
Steam Achievements – Steam Achievements don’t have anything special to them, there is no special rarity or value assigned to them, if you unlocked an achievement showcase on your profile, you can see certain statistics. like seeing average came completion, number of games perfected ( earned every single achievements) and total number of achievements.
Playstation Trophies – In my opinion playstation came up with the best system out of the three. On playstations trophies have different grades, ranging from bronze to platinum. when you unlock every single trophy in a game you would be awarded with a shiny platinum trophy that you can view on your profile. Sony also used to award players that unlocked trophies with funds that allowed users to buy games.
Profile Feature limited Achievements
Back in 2017 Valve opened the floodgates with the release of Steam Direct – it allowed any developer to publish their games with a low fee of 100$. this led to the release of many “fake games” from shady developers. these developers abused the Steam Achievements system making it even worse then it already was. some games only required you to open the game, and you would unlock every single achievements, others included thousands of achievements that you unlocked through simply launching the game and waiting for a few hours.
A year later, Valve decided to put a stop to it, and banned developers that abused the system, as well as introduced a new way to check if a game was legit or not.
The majority of indie games that launch on Steam have this tag, and in order to get approved developers need to reach a certain sales threshold, to make sure the game is legit.
Why Steam Achievements needs to be reworked
If you ask me the biggest issue with achievements on steam is that they can easily be hacked, and Valve doesn’t really care or try to improve the system. On consoles hacking trophies or achievements is close to impossible because it’s a closed system, and Microsoft & Sony take their systems very seriously and can ban cheaters.
On Steam on the other hand players can easily download mods, save files, modify files that comparing achievements pointless. not to mentioned a software called S.A.M – Steam Achievements Manager for short, that allows its users to freely modify achievements and unlock everything with a click of a button.
How to fix steam achievements?
I think the best solution would be to make achievements server side. meaning make the server check that everything you unlock is legit, comparing it to an unmodified game. while it would mean that you would need to be online to unlock achievements, it shouldn’t really be a problem as most folks that use Steam are online anyway. (unless you’re playing on Deck).
Valve should also tie some rewards with achievements, or creating a system similar to Microsoft’s Gamerscore, tho first priority should definitely be fixing the cheater and then moving forward to incentivize players to use the system.
Some sort of discount coupon or a special reward for unlocking every single achievement can also be a good thing.
