While the importance of Achievements has been recognized by the videogames industry and players as contributors to both player motivation and game selection, little attention has been paid to them by the academic community. There exists a need to better understand Achievements and the opportunities they offer as there is an absence of research into basic foundational knowledge about them. For example, only two previous studies exist that attempt to identify types of achievements, and both of these studies suffer problems of limited scope, limited currency and limited consistency.

This paper will provide a current and detailed classification of Achievement types that spans multiple platforms, multiple genres, multiple pricing structures and multiple types of delivery. The new classification provided is a superset of those generated by previous research and can be used as a foundation for much future research on game achievements.