I’ve shared this many times, but I’ve been a video gamer since I was a small ball of bitterness. I got the Atari 2600 when I was 7, and got the NES when it first came out in 1985. I was a Nintendo stan for so long, that I missed out on some of the biggest gaming experiences. But as a dumb person, I remained loyal, because I thought Nintendo would eventually create an amazing bunch of games that Xbox and Playstation would be envious of. I thought that was going to be the Wii, and in a way, it was kind of a game changer, but in a weird way. The Wii was impossible to get for a year and half (luckily I got one pre-ordered), but the best games for it weren’t really games. The most popular game was Wii Sports, which was basically bowling and tennis that you could kind of do with motion control. It was fun for a bit, but very gimmicky. For a “hard core” gamer like me, I felt like I needed some more significant games. I started thinking that it was time for me to grow up. That moment came when my brother asked me if I wanted to buy his old Xbox360.

I contemplated it for a bit, and was like…yeah. There were some absolute bangers out on the Xbox at the time, and I wanted in. I was ready to take my gaming to the next level. So I chucked my Wii Remote and its weird nun chuck attachment in the dust bin of history and picked up the Xbox controller. All of a sudden, like Thor when he summons lightning down from the sky, a mystic force descended upon me from the sky above and I leveled up from my E for Everything Nintendo Mario form to my M for Mature rating of Master Chief Xbox form.

When I moved from Nintendo to Xbox, it was like putting on the Nintendo Power glove, and according to Nintendo’s slogan, “Now you’re playing with power!” except I was taking the glove off and playing the powerful Xbox console instead of Nintendo. I went from a guy who was deep in debt to a tyrant racoon named Tom Nook in Animal Crossing where I collected bells from trees to pay him back, to a guy that didn’t take orders from anyone in Gears of War. I went from being a plumber in a red hat who jumped on tiny mushrooms with legs, to a guy that injected superpowers in his arm so he could protect Little Sisters with Big Daddy issues. I went from slashing swords and saving princesses in Hyrule to saving the galaxy as Master Chief.

In my time as an adolescent gamer, games were meant to be fun, carefree and with no goals in mind. Just run around a village, collecting money that literally grew on trees. Decorating my home and having no real job, and interacting with talking animals. No responsibilities, no accountability. But as a mature and grown up gamer, I started having grown up responsibilities, consequences and objectives. I had a planet called Sera to protect from subterranean reptilian humanoids known as the Locust Horde. I had to figure out how I got amnesia, and how I needed to navigate my way through a dangerous underwater world. I had to learn difficult things about this world and its consequences, and I had questions like why these Big Daddies were attacking me, and who are these Little Sisters? I had dozens of worlds and galaxies to protect or conquer. In this grown up Xbox world, I had accountability. Therefore, I also had something to keep my accountable. Achievements.

On the Xbox, there is this systemwide achievement program. For every game, you can earn achievement points for completing certain tasks on the game. Some are easy, some are hard, and others are darn near impossible. It’s a pretty simple concept, but amazingly effective. To a gamer, it’s an instant hit of dopamine, and also a way to compare yourself to friends and other gamers, both gamewide and systemwide.

You know you’ve received an achievement when you hear a crisp, metallic bloop, followed by a pop up on your screen with a text that says the name of the achievement, followed by how many achievement points you got. Some are easy, early game introduction achievements like completing the tutorial. Some are medium achievements like completing the 20 or 30 hours of story mode. Then there are the exceedingly rare achievements where you’ve done something that less than 10% of gamers have ever done. I have some achievements in Gears of War that have only been done by 0.1%. For that, I got the amazing experience of getting the exceptional diamond symbol, along with the ethereal twinkling diamond chime. As a rare achievement gamer, this means I command respect by not only the gaming community but the entire world and galaxy. Getting that diamond achievement is more important than discovering gravity or creating a space shuttle to go to space.

The achievement system has been so successful for Xbox that others have started to copy the system. I don’t know if you’ve all seen it yet, but our beloved WordPress, which this blog post is being published on, has started an achievement system of their own. So far, I’ve received a few achievements, including Globe Trotter, which I achieved by getting views from 50+ countries, and World Domination, which I received for getting views from 150+ countries. I always knew I would achieve World Domination, and now WordPress has given you proof that it’s true.

I’ve already looked at the list of achievements that are possible, and some of them are easy, some are medium, and some are darn near impossible, and not even worth trying. I knew they had copied the Xbox pretty explicitly though, because some of the achievement are listed as “secret” and you will only find out if you actually get them. I’ve been pretty unenthusiastic about blogging for a little while, but these achievements might just juice me back up after being a little lackadaisical for a bit.

In fact, I think it might be time for my work to start doing an achievement system. If they aren’t going to give me more money, they could at least start allowing me to get work achievements. It’s working for Xbox and WordPress. I need a little carrot at the end of the stick.

For those of you that completed reading this blog post, you’ve received 100 Bitter Ben Achievement points. If you read all 1,618 posts, you will get the diamond achievement that has only been done by 1 person so far out of 8 billion humans (and only because I had to read all of them after I wrote them). I will also have a bunch of secret achievements for streaks and other things. Good luck, achievement hunters!

To get you started on your achievement hunting, look at these Bitter Friday Giftures for additional achievement points.

I’ve been a gamer every since…

I was bit of a Nintendo Stan…

Little did I know that Nintendo was just…

And graduate…

It was time for me to put aside my kid gaming experiences of…

And being a plumber who jumps on…

It was time doing more grown up things…

Or going off…

As a grown up gamer…

And start saving…

With grown up gaming…

And the Xbox did that by giving you…

WordPress saw that worked for gamers…

And now the Bitter Blog also has an achievement system…

Bitter Achievement Hunting…

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH

Bitter Achievement Hunters Ben