Japan’s Video Game History: “Yarikomi” and Achievements
1. Introduction
For us gamers, Achievements (for Steam andXbox) or Trophies (for PlayStation) have become commonplace features. Competing for the number of achievements completed has become a way to enjoy video games, and some have even been recognized by the Guinness Book of Records.
So how did achievements and trophies come into being? And how have achievements and trophies changed since their birth?
In this article, I would like to show the history of achievements and trophies. I will also introduce the history of Yarikomi (やり込み; playing through a video game for additional challenge), which is closely related to achievements and trophies.
2. Late 1970s to late 1980s: Dawn of “Yarikomi”
The yarikomi in video games, it all started with score attack in arcade games.
The arcade game “Space Invaders,” released by Taito in 1978, exploded in popularity and swept Japan. Arcade games prior to this title also had the concept of competing for scores. However, with the success of this title and the spread of high-score aiming techniques such as “Nagoya Attack,” score attacks for high scores gained general recognition.
The score attack by avid players continued to heat up in “XEVIOUS,” which was developed by Masanobu Endo and released by Namco in 1983. The book named “How to Solve 10 million Points of XEVIOUS,” created by Kosuke Ohori and sold by Game Freak (later known for creating the “Pokemon” series), would be a symbol of this trend.
In Family Computer (or Famicom, known as NES in United States), “Star Force” and “Star Soldier” were released by Hudson in 1985 and 1986. Since nationwide caravan tournaments were held for these titles, high-score-oriented style of play became popular among many game players at the time.
However, from the 1990s onward, as the mainstream of arcade games shifted from single-player shooters to fighting games such as “Street Fighter II,” score attacks gradually fell out of the mainstream game-playing scene.
3. Early 1990s to early 2000s: The establishment and development of the “in-game challenges”
From around 1990, the main battleground for yarikomi shifted to home video game consoles. Particularly active were a number of challenges targeting RPGs, such as the Dragon Quest series and the Final Fantasy series.
I believe that there were two main reasons why RPGs became the mainstream for yarikomi during this period.
The first was the widespread use of video cassette recorders (VCRs), which made it possible to record the entire gameplay, and the second was the enrichment of in-game challenges that were not directly related to finishing the main story.
VCRs became widespread in households from around the late 1980s in Japan, and even young people were able to use them with relative ease. This made it easy for people to record their gameplay.
A video game magazine “Famitsu” started the “Yarikomi Game Award” in 1992, soliciting such recorded Yarikomi videos from a wide range of readers.
At that time, it was not as easy to share videos as it is today, so the magazine only introduced the outline of the challenge, but the categories ranged from low-level clearing to time attack. (The award could be positioned as the ancestors of many other speedrun events, such as “Games Done Quick” and “RTA in Japan”.)
As it becomes more common in RPGs to challenge elements that are not directly related to clearing main story, games also began to include so-called in-game challenge elements.
The collection of “little medals” in “Dragon Quest IV” (1990) is an early example of this trend. In “Dragon Quest V” and “Final Fantasy V,” both released in 1992, there were hidden bosses called “Estark” and “Omega,” respectively, which had nothing to do with clearing the story.
In subsequent titles, the challenge elements such as hidden bosses, hidden items, and hidden dungeons have been enhanced and have become commonplace.
As the challenge elements in RPGs became more and more extensive, they were also introduced to other genres, such as action and adventure games.
One completed form of this trend would be “Grand Theft Auto III” (2001). In this game, there were various challenging elements such as side quests and hidden package collection. The completion status of these elements was summarized as an achievement level and aiming for 100% achievement was presented as another goal, separate from completing the storyline.
In this way, the soil is now in place for the creation of “achievements” as a “system for visualizing the progress of work done”.
4. 2005 to early 2010s: Invention and expansion of achievements and trophies
The world’s first platform with achievements as a standard feature was Xbox 360 (2005). Its competitor, PlayStation 3 (PS3), did not have an equivalent feature at launch in 2006, but followed suit in 2008 with its trophy feature.
When it was first introduced, developers did not seem to have a good handle on this feature, and many of the point allocations were strange. For example, in the Xbox 360 launch title “Ridge Racer 6,” a player of average skill could not earn even 100 out of 1000 points. Or in the RPG “Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream,” (titled “Eternal Sonata” in US) only 340 out of 1000 points could be earned in the first playthrough, with all of the remaining 660 points going to the second playthrough.
However, as the acquisition of achievements and trophies became recognized as a new way to enjoy games, their use gradually became more sophisticated as a means of motivating players.
In the 2010s, sharing achievements and trophies on SNS (especially Twitter) became commonplace, and the term gamification introduced the concept of achievements to fields other than video games.
The term gamification refers to a method of motivating users by incorporating game-like elements into non-game areas. When users complete a set task, they are given a badge, which motivates them to try to earn more badges. I believe that this kind of typical structure of gamification was clearly brought to light by the achievement function, rather than by video games themselves.
Thus, by the early 2010s, the achievement as established in much the same way as it is today. As discussed in this chapter, achievements have come to play a major role in guiding how video games are played and enjoyed, as well as influencing the video game industry outside of it.
5. Late 2010s and beyond
Since the late 2010s and up to the present, achievements and trophies have remained an important feature of the platform.
With the PS4 and Xbox One generation, it is now possible to see not only the status of acquisitions, but also the percentage of players who have acquired those achievements and trophies. Steam on the PC has a similar feature called “Global Achievements”.
Since Steam, various launcher apps have sprung up on PC, including Origin, Ubisoft Connect, and GOG Galaxy, most of which also feature achievements. Epic Games Launcher, the last of these, initially did not have an achievements feature, but it was updated in 2021.
In the 1990s, Famitsu’s “Yarikomi Game Awards” were held as a magazine project. Unlike back then, today, with well-developed distribution platforms such as Twitch and YouTube, speedruns are attracting players and viewers on an unprecedented scale.
Looking at the fact that the PS5 and Xbox Series, which came out at the end of 2020, continue to include achievements and trophies, it seems that the role of these functions will continue to grow and the way of playing “enjoying the challenge of the game” will develop even further.
6. Conclusion
In this article, I have taken a look at the history of video games, starting with achievements and trophies, and expanding our perspective to the “challenge of playing games,” which is closely related to these functions.
In terms of the future of achievements and trophies, I personally would like to focus on Nintendo’s platforms.
Nintendo has never had an achievement feature like other platforms, as it only allows friends to check the approximate playing time of the games they are playing. How Nintendo evolves the means of sharing game play and progress outside of the game may be the key to the future of achievements and trophies.
What did you think of the contents of this article? Even systems and features that we now take for granted always have their beginnings. By unraveling the history of these systems and functions, I believe that we can begin to feel a richer sense of the world of video games.
I would be more than happy if this series of articles could help you, my readers, to experience a part of the rich world of video games.
Stay tuned for the next installment!