Home
Editor's Note: I've honestly never understood the appeal of achievements. With so many people seemingly addicted to them, this vision of the future terrifies me. - Jay
About a month ago I decided to start taking the steps, instead of the elevator, to reach my third story office every morning and today -- when I reached the top -- my phone dinged. I checked the message as I sat down in my cozy office chair and read "Life Achievement Unlocked - Stair A Habit - 400 Points." I clicked on the message to check the info, and it explained that I earned the achievement for taking the stairs to my office 30 days in a row.
That evening on the drive home, I received another ding, and I checked it while cruising down I-70. It read: "Life Achievement Unlocked - Cautious Driver - 100 Points." This time, the details explained that I drove at or under the speed limit for 10 miles straight.
At home I received an email explaining all the opportunities I missed to earn more "Life Achievements." I lost 50 points by not waiting until the car was stopped to check my message on the drive home. The message also said I was placed on my Family, Local, and Nationwide leaderboards, and it gave me a rundown of the "Achievements" that other people in my network earned. My wife was barely beating me, little Jeffrey earned 100 points for getting an A on his math test, and little Stephanie earned 150 points for practicing her dance routine after school.
At this point I am used to my wife having a higher score than me. It doesn't really bother me because, if I can get my entire family up to a collective 10,000 points this month, we will get a discount on our insurance plan.
Obviously, this is not my life, but it could be according to Shoe's recent post: The Future of Everything.
I think the goal of this system is obvious. The healthier and more responsible I live my life, the more "Life Achievements" I earn. By comparing scores with my family and neighbors I am encouraged to keep up and not falter. However, this goodie-little-two-shoes version is a utopia. The reality, I believe, will be much more depressing.
Instead of the Government or insurance companies successfully pushing citizens to a better life, we are more likely to deal with corporations playing on the obsessive whims of our species to squeeze every cent out of our pockets for things we don't need.
Your credit card company will give you "Achievements" for purchasing the entire matching set of Louis Vuitton products for your wife and for collecting all the different Miley Cyrus Memorial Pepsi Cans. You'll be stuck deciding between two cars you don't like because they will get you more points. You wouldn't care, but you know that your neighbor and in-laws are all waiting to compare their "Achievements" with yours. If you get the Mercedes, maybe you will finally pass that asshat from work who keep taunting you about not even having 10,000 points yet.
You relent and buy the Mercedes and you do pass him, but not even for 24 hours. He immediately goes out and buys a go-kart for his kids. It is "Keeping Up With the Joneses" for the 21st century.
Now, you are stuck with this poor life choice and you aren't even as worried about that as you are about figuring out the next best way to "Achieve" more than him.
That is the irony; in the pursuit of "Achievements" you will have achieved nothing. The word "achievement" will lose all meaning. You could be doing truly great work, but it won't matter. Actual achievements won't be tracked in this consumerist hell. You could invent the choke-free hot dog or bridge the gap between macro and micro physics, but if you aren't spending money you won't get points for any of that. Inevitably, the man or woman with the most money in the game will have the most achievements.
Contemporary video gaming achievements already suffer from this. The Gamerscore is a reflection of the number of games you've played more than anything else and that is exactly the way Microsoft, Sony, and the publishers want it. This would be less of an accusation if this meta-gaming was any fun, but it isn't. It is a burden.
I have little doubt that someone will try the "Life Achievement" system in the very near future. I also have little doubt that it will find some measure of success. I simply dread the possibility of it becoming as integral to life as Achievement Points and Trophies have become to gaming. As of right now we are only missing the point of gaming -- I don't want to miss the point of life as well.
