Trophies and Achievements Need to Stop

I still remember my first experience with achievements on the Xbox 360 back when I first played Dead Rising.  I remember that for one of those things, you had to escort 7 or so people at the same time back to safety.  That shit was fucking HARD, and you felt good when the little message popped up.

This was originally a cool idea because all the extra stuff that you would challenge yourself to, you were now being given something for.  Secret bosses in RPGs, for example, and just generally hard things to do were no longer just stories you told your friends, you could display that shit and anyone who gave your profile a glance over could see what you had achieved.

But then something changed.

I don't know when exactly it happened by now achievements and trophies are a fucking joke.  We're now being given trophies and points for doing things like watching cut scenes or killing main story bosses.  These aren't achievements, you're just being given a nice message to make you feel good for doing something you were supposed to do anyway.

Take the Dark Souls achievements for example, pretty much all of them boil down to "Kill X boss", "Upgrade X Weapon" or "Join a covenant".  The worst offenders are things like "light a bonfire" because that's something you HAVE to do in order to progress.  A real achievement in that game would be something like "Kill X boss without taking any damage" or "beat the game with no weapons", you know, something that requires effort and skill on part of the player, not just something you were going to do as part of the main fucking game.

What was once originally a cool idea has been ruined by developers pandering to people with ADD and people who just flat out aren't good at games and want to get some sense of satisfaction for turning on the machine.  I wish they would just fuck off but unfortunately they are here to stay.