Microsoft to increase achievements in arcade titles - but is this a good thing?

Microsoft have announced that they will be increasing the number of unlockable achievements in all Xbox Live Arcade titles by 100%, raising the cap from 20 to 40. This will double the potential gamerscore, levelling it out at a respectable 400. DLC for Arcade titles will also have an increased number of extra achievements, rising to an average of 8 new achievements for 100 gamerpoints.

How excited you are by this news depends entirely on how important chasing those little pings is to you as a gamer. I personally love achievements when they reward us for completing something specific or particularly difficult (like beating Dark Souls for example – a lot of people simply couldn’t).

However, some games can be fairly accused of using achievements to “pad out” a relatively short campaign. Take the “We Have People Everywhere” achievement in Treyarch’s Quantum of Solace tie-in, where the sole aim was to shoot out all seven satellite dishes as you traversed the rooftops of Siena. It certainly gave you something to look for amidst all the under-par gunfights, but it served no purpose beyond extending the level. Achievements like this are almost completely pointless and out of context – and do nothing but extend a title’s run-time.

If Microsoft – and indeed those who develop arcade games for their platform – intend to introduce more unlockable rewards to increase the challenge of a given title, or in acknowledgement of the fact that many downloadable games are equal to retail games in play length and volume of content, then this can only be a good thing. If, however, the ultimate goal is to pad out arcade titles and generate the illusion of more replayable bang for our hard-earned buck, then we can probably all live without them.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Do achievements add anything to your gaming experience – or are they merely false content? Do you religiously chase after them all, or give yourself a little pat on the back when you happen across one accidentally? Hell, do you ignore them completely? And, ultimately, is an increase to achievements in downloadable titles something you’ve always hankered after, or do you take the more cynical stance that it’s yet another sly move in an increasingly money-centric industry to justify the over-pricing of an undersized product?

As they say in certain circles: Discuss.

Words by Mick Fraser (Twitter: @Jedi_Beats_Tank)

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