Several years ago, I attended a funeral for an ‘uncle’ of mine; my uncle, as my father had been, was a member of a monastic order. Vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and all that stuff. Spent their time teaching in urban hellholes. These guys couldn’t compare incomes, wives, or possessions, since they didn’t have any of them.

Instead, they figured out how well they could game the Catholic educational system in order to accumulate degrees – if they were teaching in Indiana, they’d go to Notre Dame. In Pittsburgh, Duquesne. They figured out the most efficient way to acquire as many degrees with as few credit-hours as possible (this is also responsible for some very odd impressions I have of Catholicism; for years, I thought all that nuns did was hog seminars). When my uncle died, he had 9 master’s degrees, three of which were MBA’s.

The result of this? I am firmly convinced that in any situation, if you get enough people together, they will figure out a way to establish some kind of “look at me!” hierarchy. I’m fairly sure that if you had a “hit myself in the face with a hammer” award with a nice shiny medal, people would be not only aiming for it, they’d fight each other for it.

Achievements also encourage you to play the game in different ways and get more value out of the game you just spent an awful lot of money on. Alright, if it’s a truly brilliant game it won’t need any extra incentives – but the archetypal example is the “pacifist” achievement in Geometry Wars – who would otherwise try and last a whole minute in the game without firing a shot? It took me quite a few attempts to achieve it, so that was another half hour or so added onto my enjoyment of the game. In other games, similar achievements have opened up whole areas of the game I never even knew existed – seeking 1000 gamerpoints in Tomb Raider Legend nearly doubled the length of time I spent with that game.

Let’s be honest, and being someone who develops 360 games I’m as aware of this as the next man, a next-gen console (of whichever flavour) and a decent selection of games to go with it adds up to a LOT of money. Anything that extends replay value even slightly is a Good Thing in my book.

Sure, it makes no sense to you, but then you’re a well adjusted adult who has plenty of other things in his life to help him appreciate his own value. Think of the children! Those poor sods, sitting at home, awkward and ill-prepared for real interactions get a genuine sense of social value out of their achievements, post count etc. When the news about Home broke here, my boss and I basically said to each other, “It’s not for me, but the kids will love it.” And I think they will.

As I said in another forum, people will pay real money to trick out their virtual lives, and since the products they are buying have no manufacturing or distribution costs, Sony are essentially developing a way to create money from nothing, like credit card companies. Bragging and posturing are a part of basic animal psychology, and I am sure they will be very successful.

While you play the game, it feels like a short little “thanks for playing so far” thing. Since all of it is exposed online, there are websites where you can compare your achievements with your friends, on a per-game basis. They are the shortcut to prove your mad skillz. Yes, some achievements are cheap – but not everybody will get the hard achievements, ever. I mean, once you played R6:Vegas, only very few will replay it on the harder difficulty level.

Yes, it’s a fairly cheap psychological trick. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. It’s a virtual “attaboy”.