I might be one of the few people who enjoyed the fuck out of those Zup games.
I just wish they were longer.

+1

Also, a lot of games have trivial achievements and no one is bitching about that (IIRC telltale's achievements are all unmissable, you just need to finish the game)

+1

I'm pretty sure valve is interested, they just need to think how to place a paywall without getting people upset

Valve has actually outlined a plan for how to hide these "fake games" as they call them internally, with the upcoming Steam Direct

That's why I want to code like you someday, teach me all, Tux master.

Since when a 2hu is allowed to play games you liar ?

I had no idea such a thing was possible. This changes things a lot.

the moment I reverse-engineered steam client routine responsible for giving [achievements]

Is that against the Steam TOS/EULA I wonder? I usually think of reverse engineering software as being against these rules, but tbh I've never actually checked.

A lot of people use http://astats.astats.nl/astats/ for a sort of metric on rarity.

+1.

The "I don't give a fuck, people can do what they want and "abuse" is a bit much" option is missing.

^ x100
I've spent hours trying to get some achievements and now it feels devalued

the true meaning on "achievements"?
abusing the achievements system?

funny stickers

Pretty much. Weird to think that someone'd consider funny stickers to have a "true meaning" or to be "abusable". There never was any formalized system of standards for them, nor any indicated intent to them. As such, they lack the foundation to have true meaning or to be abusable.
And, y'know, even from the start, Steam game achievements were nonsensical [compared to achievements on other platforms], lacking any coherence, and often being based around grinding or luck rather than skill or completionism. And then there was that wave of achievements that couldn't be completed by any means at all..
So even from the perspective of an achievement hunter, being disappointed by steam achievements shouldn't be anything new.. o.O;

I would vote for Funny Stickers
Achievements is far too pretentious :)

Like with clicker games, it's a fad that will eventually slow down

I'm hoping it's a fad that will slowly evolve, instead. Idling/Clicker games tend toward inane, mindless simplicity, but at heart they're still part of the management/simulation genre. With enough care, you can manage a game rich in management and simulation features, but with all the accessibility, lack of demand, and easy time investment that are traits of the idle game subgenre.

Tap Adventure and Soda Dungeon, for example, already include light touches of RPG elements [character upgrades and loot farming, respectively]. Idle games are starting to try and tweak themselves to be slightly different from the basic formula, and eventually someone may realize that being very different would have a much more impressive and favorable impact.

Even before the idle genre was recognized as being established, we had browser-based/Facebook-integrated city management apps with idle-game features- a city that existed on its own, with events that changed it over time, combined with your ability to interact with the citizens (even sending them to other cities, if you wanted to mess with your friends), and daily political decision prompts.

Be it that direction of management features, enhancement of the RPG features already listed above, or something different- there are plenty of ways to enhance the depth and appeal of the genre, without weakening the elements which make it appealing to casual gaming.

Yeah, so often I read "hey devs, maybe add this game-mode" and one of first comments about it "just remember, rewards or I'll never play it".

My favourite ones are "the gameplay is great, but I'm not playing it anymore because I'm not rewarded in any way".

Any sort of system with that design needs to have a regulated system of assignment and valuation. At that point, it simply becomes another game that uses other games as its foundation- much like SG is for some of its users, or Steam games on the whole are for +1 library users [though that one seems the most unfathomable of all- why waste 7000 games if you only ever play 3 of them? You can't even claim you have any investment in gaming..].

Add in proper rewards for the achievement hunting (like a leveling or ranking system), and it could be compelling as its own sort of game. With proper design, it could even maximize the appeal of games, by playing to their strengths.
As everyone has their own tastes, I couldn't knock playing based around that system [even though I couldn't begin to see the appeal myself]. On the other hand, placing any value in the Steam achievement system is like placing value in getting gold star stickers from a perpetually drunk, emotionally unstable, and half-senile elementary school teacher. They have absolutely no firm meaning or value, they're random, arbitrary, and sometimes outright impossible to get.

To put value in something as simple as the inclusion of such rewards, to the point of basing your purchasing decisions around them, strikes me as a bit of an odd pursuit. Like throwing money on a lottery where you know you're never going to win [because there aren't even any prizes to begin with].

But yeah- everyone has their own hobbies and things that make them happy, and no matter how weird it may seem, if it's not hurting anyone else, then there's presumably nothing wrong with it. That said, it does sting to see people waste excellent games because they all they care about are steam levels, steam library size, trading cards, or achievements (which may not have any relation at all to any fun way to play the game). And, of course, as soon as people take the opportunities for playing such games away from those who would enjoy them far more, then it becomes far less agreeable a pursuit. For example, I never get why the +1 crowd bothers with AAA games, especially when junky games get fewer entries and have lower points-to-enter costs.

I suddenly want to play both of those!

This is partly to be blamed on "participation trophies" so no one is left out, no one feels more or less special than anyone else. Problem is people are special, in different ways. "It's not fair that Bob has worked hard to become skillful at that game and got the achievement and I cannot get it in 10 seconds of play." Bunch of snowflake whiners. Back in my day.... nevermind. ha ha

cough I ...um.... for... science... um..... "tested" this "honor system" for science.. and... um... science? I feel a strong overwhelming sense of pride for conducting this science... pride sure feels a lot like self-loathing though, so I learned that today!

I played this game after seeing your post, it actually isn't that bad. It isn't that good, but it actually is pretty decent for what it is. The achievements were interesting and not related to the game. It was a novel idea at least.

To tell truth, some of those are good way to see if people are actually playing or not.

It's so easy to make a reliable points system, though-
For example, a simple formula off the top of my head, with minimal issues:

1000/TotalValue = PointMultiplier
AchievementValue / TotalValue * PointMultiplier * DifficultyMultiplier = AstatsPointsEarned

I'm not familiar with Astats (having no interest in achievements whatsoever), but if they're managing to fail with something like that, then that's pretty poor management on their part.

Edited to include reply:

adam1224
Why so cocky? You don't know what's the system, what's the point, you made up a system and then mocked the site without - again - knowing how it works and what are it's goals, yet you sure that you made a better system.
It's using relative rarity compared to the game's most common achievement, for one, not difficulty. Nobody wants to tag each and every achivement with an arbitray difficulty multiplier. Simply if it's easy to get the first achivement and the others as well, or a lot of people will do so then they will lose value. Dark Souls story completione - first bonfire worth 0.1 point and one ending 2.8, while random HOG worth 10+ to complete. But generally this was fine because again - the site rewards rarity, not following subjective difficulty scales, and gets the points data from the number of unlocks.
And as there is a minimum score (0.1) for each achivement, these games just overwhelm the system with sheer numbers, making 1k easy achivements still worth 100++ points, simply because when the system's fundamens were done originally nobody foresee devs churning out games that throw a dozen achievement for you just for breathing. Pretty poor management for not foreseeing the future I guess.

Well said :)

If we'd stop to constantly compare ourselves to others
but a lot of people just want achievements to show off

To whom, though? If everyone that's interested in achievements only looks to their own, it's not like there is any reciprocal crowd to get appreciative feedback from [and certainly, non-achievement-goers don't care about someone else's badges]. Sounds like a bit of lonely self-delusion, in that context.

Maybe Valve should implement profile unlocks based on achievement count- having EnhancedSteam-style effects (such as being able to shade your profile, change border design, or add other graphic elements to it) based on your achievement value would probably get even non-achievement-minded people at least mildly interested in them.

Being able to show off a snazzy, rare profile design probably would have more effect on everyone involved than adding one more meaningless badge to a long list which (you indicated) noone but their achiever ever looks at.