MS lays down new Achievement rules @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on February 02, 2007

News: If you believe it, you can Achieve it.

Microsoft has gone and made a few changes to the rules for implementing Achievement Points in games. From the always-excellcent Gamerscore Blog, here are the updated rules:

1. All regular disc-based games MUST have 1,000 Gamerscore in the base game. This means that any consumer who buys a retail game will have the opportunity to unlock the full 1,000 Gamerscore without having to pay for any add-on content. Note that a publisher may decide to deliver a portion of this Gamerscore via add-on content, but the add-on content will always be free to the consumer.

2. Game publishers will have the option to deliver another 250 incremental Gamerscore on top of the 1,000 via add-on content from Marketplace. This add-on content could be either free or paid. So if you complete a game and earn the full 1,000 GS, you could by getting new add-on content earn up to a total of 1,250 points from a game.

3. Xbox Live Arcade games will operate in similar fashion, but given the size of these titles they will allow you to earn up to 200 Gamerscore from every game and up to another 50 points from add-on content.

While this doesn't really change anything (99% of all 360 games operated within these rules to begin with), it does make the amount of Achievements uniform across all games (and possibly lends a little credence to the "prizes for Acheievement Points" rumors that are floating around).

All of this came about because many gamers were puzzled by the realization that Crackdown would ship with only 900 points. These rules were issued to assure gamers that the other 100 points would be obtainable through a free add-on pack that will be available in the future.