The head honcho at Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, made a statement in the latest issue of the Official Xbox Magazine, claiming that easy achievements equates to more sales. I am sure many of you, alongside me, have purchased a game at least once on the grounds of some easy achievement points.

“The Achievement hunter, who’s going to make purchase decisions around the Achievements per minute to ratio – he’s probably buying ten to twenty titles a year, or at least playing that many. He’s playing a lot. So he’s a very frequent customer, and you want to be in that pile. That’s just business.” – Randy Pitchford

Reaping the benefits

It is imperative for game developers to remember the fundamentals before looking to quick fixes for cash. Ensuring a game is high quality alongside having some easy achievements is a step in the right direction for balance.

For the gaming community, this could mean more achievements with value and reward, other than just “X Achievement Points Earned.” I would like to see more achievements that unlock new armour pieces, avatar customization and perhaps even on-line rank classification. This could work where if you complete a game on ‘heroic’ difficulty, you unlock the ability to play in the elite matchmaking when you use multi-player modes.

Veteran Rewarding

Another thing on my list would be veteran rewards. I would like to see a system where your achievement points creates a ‘bank balance’ of the same value. If you reach 10,000 achievement points you can purchase a VR to display on a certain game, next to your name or avatar that shows the effort you put in.