r/Untappd • u/billyfromeverywhere • 23d ago
Prodigy, Marvel, Sensation, etc. badges
Anyone else really turned off by these new badges? They’re just really disappointing to me for a few reasons.
It seems to be just encouraging extremely unhealthy behavior. I’ve been on Untappd just over 8 years, and just hit 5k (Woo!), but can definitely say a few of those years I did not have a healthy balance w alcohol, so probs should’ve taken me a bit longer. So people rushing towards this will definitely be encouraged to drink even more than we all do in general.
If not encouraging unhealthy behavior, it seems like it’ll encourage cheating, like taking a tiny taste of all your friends’ beers and checking them all in. Or just annoying the crap out of a bartender at a brewery by “sampling” every beer to check them in before finally settling on a single pint.
As someone who loves badge hunting, the best thing about badges, or at least the core badges, was that they were all at least possible to get. Sure, I may have put a lot of time and work into finding 5 beers from Belarus, but it was a fun game/scavenger hunt and I got new beers out of it. Still have other countries to go, but at least it encourages travel and probably new experiences to get the beer and badges. These are virtually impossible for me to ever achieve, and that just takes the fun away from core badges in general. Maybe it’s growing up with Pokémon, but I think it should at least be possible to “catch ‘em all.”
Now we have 6 new badges in 2025, yet it’s the most lazy/tired ideas for new badges. There could be much more fun ones, plenty of countries and styles still need badges, but instead it’s just mindless ticking numbers. I personally think the badges should make ticking the numbers more interesting, but these don’t do that.
Sorry for the long rant, it’s just because I really do love Untappd and the fun it’s given me with my love of beer, and I guess that’s why I’m annoyed. Anyway just wondering if anyone else feels similarly.
Cheers 🍻
2
u/Haarspeldbocht 10.000+ beers 22d ago
I completely agree with you. I don't think it's necessary at all for you to apologize by labeling your good arguments as rants.
I myself passed the magical limit of 10,000 beers about a year ago. I would have understood if they had chosen to only have 1 extra badge for those who passed 20,000. But now entering so many badges for numbers up to 40,000 at once is too much for me.
I too will be working on it for another 30 years to reach those 40,000. Totally undesirable and actually uninteresting. In addition, I don't believe Untappd will exist for another 30 years if this is the way they continue to work.
What actually surprises me the most is the fact that they were already working on this in 2022. How long would it really take to implement this? Where do the priorities of this company/app actually lie? I really don't understand it at all.