Not Quite An Achievement

Over April, my podcast runs a challenge for the community we like to call the April Achievement Challenge. For those that don’t know, achievements are rewards for doing things in games on Xbox and PC. Each one comes with a score attached. For example, you could get an achievement for defeating 100 bad guys and it will be worth 30 points. Everyone gets these points and it adds to their gamer score. This achievement system creates a sort of meta-game with the games you’re playing. Extra challenges, built into the game to extend its life, give you a new way to play, and just generally make you feel awesome.

The challenge is simple – get as many of these in-game rewards and add as much to your gamer score during the month of April as you can. At the end of the month we tally up how much everyone has gotten and declare winners. If you want to read the rules – check out this link. All-in-all, it’s a bit of fun if gaming is your thing.

This year, some exploits were found in a few games. One of the games being Surviving Mars – a game I bought on Steam and love dearly. The exploit for this game is a mod which unlocks all the achievements in the game when you start it up. This essentially tricks the game into thinking you have beaten all the in-built challenges and completed all the pre-requisites for each and every achievement.

When I heard about this, I thought it was too good to be true. I tried it. It worked.
And I felt really bad.
I had taken a game I love, and want everyone to experience, and cheapened it. This caused me to re-evaluate what and why the challenge is there for. I dropped out the competition a few hours later.

After some reflection, I think I see this the same way as doping in sports. While technically its not illegal to inject heavily oxygenated blood into your body so you can run faster, its still not fair. We accept genetic advantages in sports because everyone is different, but we do not accept it when we meddle with those genetics. You win because you put in the time and effort to train on top of your natural talent, and didn’t just snort a line of speed before hoofing down the track.

When it comes to competitions, winning should be something you feel proud for. And in my mind, if you’re willing to take shortcuts when it absolutely doesn’t matter, then what will you do when its important? This is something that stuck with me. I want to be the type of man who is upstanding and fair in everything. From things that don’t matter, all the way to things that matter very much.

Even when it doesn’t matter, is for a silly competition with no prizes, that’s when true character shines through. And for me, I failed that test.

Next time, I want to be better.