TITLE
In 2005, games started rewiring our brains
AUTHOR
William Hughes
PUBLICATION
The AV Club
YEAR
2025
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
“Plink!” (“Donk”? “Plonk”?) Spell it however you like: It’s the sound of sweet, sweet dopamine hitting your system—the sound effect that Microsoft’s Xbox gaming ecosystem has been using, for twenty years now, to indicate a player has unlocked one of those precious little nuggets of arbitrary gaming accomplishment we know as Achievements. Of course, you don’t have to be playing on an Xbox to get that rush these days—or even be gaming, period. Achievements have infiltrated every aspect of modern life, gamifying, incentivizing, and Plink!-ing tasks and chores that past generations were forced to perform simply because they needed to be done in order to keep your family alive, and possibly un-ravaged by wolves. Now, though, you get the relief of paying off your car loan and the thrill of seeing a penguin holding a cartoon balloon pop up on your phone to celebrate it—and the pervasive influence of the phenomenon can be laid squarely at the feet of the video game console that made them ubiquitous in modern life: Microsoft’s Xbox 360.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Microsoft
GAMES MENTIONED
BioShock
BioShock 2
Dark Souls II
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
PLATFORMS MENTIONED
Xbox 360