Games are virtual. When you turn on the console, a world appears; when you turn it off, no trace remains. Except for the achievements you earned -- which fortify your Gamerscore and self-esteem, blip by blip. The Underachiever tracks the productivity of one gamer playing to catch up to his peers. What do games feel like when they're used for work?



Crackin' Down on Crackdown

When I first signed on to Xbox Live, it was the first month of 2009 -- more than three years after the Xbox 360 launched. I'd been away from console games for approximately a decade, gaming primarily on my PC. The 360's massive library immediately burned through my retinas and into my brain. Bathed in green and silver, these games looked and felt profoundly different; and I understood why when I saw the Gamerscores of my friends.

Achievements meant these games were no longer simply games. They were status updates; they were pet projects; they were accomplishments. At some point, games got real. It's not that they became more meaningful or sophisticated or relevant. What really changed was that it became productive to waste our time. Gamers now generate data, which become achievements, which become known quantities. And in 2009, my Gamerscore of 0 made me feel like an underachiever.

I've since made headway, but still have a lot of work left. This column looks at games as productivity tools. Is a game still fun to play when I use it for business? What value do I get from hunting its achievements? And how much will I earn when I work overtime?

This week, I blew the dust off Crackdown. I'd initially abandoned Realtime Worlds' sandbox game after wiping Pacific City clean of gangsters began to feel like a chore. Climbing up the sides of buildings and bounding across their rooftops in search of Agility Orbs had been addictive. But trying to smoke gang leaders out of their lairs quickly grew tedious.


Still, Crackdown had been generous with the goods. I'd earned Gamerscore points for unlocking supply points; playing the game once with a buddy; maxing out my Strength, Agility, and Explosives ratings; eradicating two of Pacific City's three criminal factions; and performing stunts like climbing to the top of the Agency Tower -- the panoptic skyscraper between the city's three islands. Most achievements, I'd kicked up naturally while exploring the world and raising hell on a whim. I took a more focused approach this time.

I had scaled the Agency Tower for 10 points, but missed the Base Jumper achievement for diving from the roof of the building and into the river below. I'd stumbled off the rooftop, broken my avatar on the ground hundreds of stories below, and thrown 10 easy points to the wind.

The building, like Pacific City itself, is a puzzle. You can see the top clearly -- a red beacon shines brightly at the center -- and it's just a matter of finding a way up. My second climb was no easier than the first, and no less mesmerizing. There's a point at which you've climbed so high that you forget what you were doing. The hum of the street has dissolved into the dull roar of high-altitude air. Jeep beats have been replaced by plaintive notes straight out of Blade Runner. You turn around and notice that the sun has gone.

I couldn't help but see the sharp angles and twisting tubes of the Agency Tower as visible extensions of the game's hidden code. These oblique surfaces invited me to take a handhold and go forever upward. The changes in atmosphere, music, and light as I ascended were subtle cues that I was doing what the game intended. The serenity of elevation made me appreciate the complexity of the living, breathing city below. When I reached the top, I took my time figuring out exactly where and when to jump -- I wanted the moment to last. I made a tremendous splash right next to a concrete pier, narrowly missing another death. I held my breath.