Comment on Are achievements still relevant in 2026—especially when mods disable them?
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
They were never relevant. It’s a Skinner box mechanic that really triggers certain people’s dopamine production in an addictive manner.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We have very different understandings of what a Skinner box is, and I don’t think achievements count.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
Variable timed “rewards” which trick your brain into performing repetitive tasks for longer than you normally would? Achievements definitely count.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They tell you exactly what rewards you with them in most cases. They’re finite and not random. They’re hard coded and easily searchable. The point of a Skinner box is that the mouse doesn’t know when the next reward comes. I’m not prepared to say “most” definitively, but at least many achievements don’t require any repetition and are given out for one bespoke action exactly one time, often just as checkpoints for how far you made it into a story.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
Most people do not look up all the achievements before they play. So, to them, it appears random, as they just pop up spontaneously as they play. And they usually start of with a bunch and get further apart as time goes on and the harder achievements take longer, so the time varies in much the same way as all those mobile games that have some sort of action economy