Microsoft really nailed it with Achievements and Gamerscore when they tried to make gaming more addictive than it already was.  Universal bragging rights to compare your gaming prowess is like heroin to an addict.  It was really only a matter of time, as popularity grew, that someone would figure out how to “game” the system… but in true gaming fashion, you don’t always win… sometimes you lose.

Read on to see exactly what some enterprising gamers lost…It seems through a variety of methods, some less than honest gamers figured out various ways to earn credit for games they hadn’t played or Achievements they didn’t earn.  Microsoft is a software company, I’m not sure if these gamers figured Microsoft wouldn’t (or couldn’t?) figure out what was going on or how to deal with it, but in true “Scarlet Letter” fashion, not only did Microsoft figure it out, they permanently branded the offenders as “cheaters” by changing their comment to “I’m a cheater”, removing all Gamerscore points, and making them ineligible to re-earn any Achievements they’d already earned.  That would really sting if you lived, ate and breathed to boost your Gamerscore, wouldn’t it?

I think deep down inside that most people like to see the bad guy lose and when people cheat to boost their Gamerscore, it sucks the value of the whole metric down for the rest of us.  That’s why seeing them get branded cheaters and having their gamerscores reset to zero is one of the top gaming moments of 2008.

Tweet This Post