If Sony/Microsoft took away all achievements/trophy tomorrow, I honestly believe there wouldn't be a single soul in the entire world that would stop playing videogames because of it.
While I can agree with this statement and personally this would be something I would say, there actually is a website entirely devoted to Xbox 360 achievements, and they have like 250,000 more members than Forge Hub has, pretty crazy that there's that many people that actually like achievements that much.... I personally could care less, it would be less to worry about, and I actually think it would allow me more time to work on the game, and not have to worry about achievements, yet achievements are just one more thing that make one's game play time with the game last longer if they really want to go for it, since it's essentially like an optional game play experience for anyone who wants to get achieveables.
When achievements are designed as cool feats..they really add to a game. I don't care about 100% on most games, but if I really enjoy it I will go out of my way for all the achievements. Achievements for completely said level on said difficulty are rather pointless though. It wouldn't effect me a whole lot..it would just be back to doing things like No sphere grid, Tidus only runs of FFX and such. Personal glory and not digital points. As for trophies..I don't even notice them on my PS3..much less cool than achievements.
Also note FH has been out since 2007, while the Xbox has been out for even longer. Now on-topic, if you're going to play for a little number beside your name on the Xbox, don't even bother playing. I know people that buy games, play them for achievements, and sell them back in a week. Gaming was supposed to be fun... Now people are just whoring for a number.
Human beings have this strange number fetish. All they have to do is pretend this number means something and they will do everything in their power to raise or lower this number, whichever means the number is better...even though it's extremely unlikely they'll get to the "top".
Whether or not achievements are involved doesn't matter to me. It depends on the game and quality of the DLC. Like the MW2 pack. I won't be buying it regardless if there's achievements included because I'm not satisfied with the content and I'm not fond of the game. On the other hand, I bought all of the DLC for Fallout 3 because I enjoy playing it.
Shadow would die if there weren't any achievements. I've come to believe they sustain him like ongoing life support.
Achievements are fun, but I wouldn't notice if they were scrapped. If I really like a game (like Halo 3 and ODST) I will try to get as many achievements as I can. The MW2 achievements don't interest me, cos I didn't like Spec Ops or the campaign much. So I will get a game if there weren't any achievements for it. A bit off topic, but the Halo 3 Vidmaster Achievement Annual... that was so satisfying to get.
I would definitely still be playing games if there were no achievements, in fact, I played games before achievements came around. But IMO, the only achievements that I try really hard to get, are the one which are really satisfying to get. For example, Mongoose Mowdown, I didn't have to try particularly hard to get this one, although I was prepared to at the time, however; I still goose on Halo now because I find getting mongoose splatters really satisfying. Hell, I've even started trying to get mongoose splatters in real life, I've got 20 so far, I just need to find how high I am on the Real Life UK Mongoose splatter leaderboard.
If there were no achievements, I would be able to play games so much better. I've fallen into the trap of (after one playthrough) aiming for the achievement, not the simple fun.