More Achievement Point Changes

Last week there was a news article on the rule changes around Achievement Points. This week even more information was revealed by BigVIP on Major Nelson’s latest podcast.

First to recap what we already know. For retail releases, games must have the ability to give you 1000 achievement points for the retail price. Publishers have the option to hold back some of those achievements to give them to you later via downloadable content, but that content must be free. Publishers can now add an additional 250 points over and above the 1000 via downloadable content that can either be free or pay. In addition, retail games have gone from 50 achievements maximum to 60 across the original game and any downloadable content.

Xbox Live Arcade games will see similar increases. They must give you 200 points for the initial purchase price and an additional 50 can be added via free or pay downloadable content. The maximum number achievements for Xbox Live Arcade games also increases from 12 to 15.

There are two new rules that haven’t yet been discussed and were revealed on the podcast. The first one is about competitive advantage in multiplayer games. EA last year started offering gamers the choice of buying content usable in multiplayer sessions which gave them a competitive advantage over people who didn’t want to pay. Microsoft has put an end to those practices. From now on any piece of downloadable content that gives a person a competitive advantage in multiplayer must be unlockable in the game for free. So this rule might also apply to the hugely popular Chromehounds that let you buy Mech upgrades for use in multiplayer battles.

The second new rule is more of a guideline. Microsoft has received a huge amount of feedback regarding the dislike of multiplayer achievements. If achievements are based on ranked play to try and stop ‘boosting’ (which doesn’t work at all), it affects the game play in a negative way a lot of the time. Microsoft has decided to relay that to publishers via their Guidelines and Best Practices documentation. Many publishers follow these guidelines while others may decide to go their own way. At least the publishers are made aware of what the gamers do and do not like when decided their games achievement awards.

All in all some very positive changes for Achievement points. Much like other aspects of the Xbox system, Microsoft is leading the innovation and blazing trails for others to follow. When you do that, not everything is perfect out of the gate and Microsoft is committed to listening to the gamer community and making the appropriate changes.