Xbox 360 Achievement
From GameWiki
The Gamerscore(G) is a measure that corresponds to the number of Achievement points accumulated by an Xbox Live user. These Achievement points are awarded for the completion of game-specific challenges, such as beating a level or amassing a specified number of wins against other players in Xbox Live matches. Initially, retail Xbox 360 games offered up to 1,000G spread over a variable number of Achievements, while each Xbox Live Arcade title contained 12 achievements totaling 200G. These possible totals per game have been raised to 1250G and 250G, respectively; see below. Achievements became a potent system seller for the console.
GameSpot published an article on how to achieve 6,000 easy Achievement points due to the lax requirements that some early Xbox 360 titles had for Achievements, notably EA Sports and 2K Sports titles, that would require almost no effort from the gamer to get the maximum 1,000G. The following year's sports titles (2K Sports' 2K7 and EA Sports' 07 titles) featured far more challenging Achievements. On February 1, 2007, Microsoft announced on their Gamerscore Blog some new policies that developers must follow related to Gamerscore and Achievements in future releases. All games must have 1,000 Gamerscore points in the base game - the title can ship with fewer than 1,000 points, but anything added later must be free. Game developers also now have the option of adding up to 250 points via downloadable content (for a total of 1,250 points) - this content can be either free or paid. Xbox Live Arcade titles may add up to 50 points via downloadable content (for a total of 250 points).
On May 26, 2007, Halo 2 was the first Games for Windows game to feature Achievements, which counted towards a player's Xbox Live Gamerscore.
On March 25, 2008, Microsoft cracked down on "Gamerscore cheaters" (those who used "external tools" to artificially inflate their Gamerscore), and reduced their Gamerscores to zero without the option to recover the scores that had been "earned", and branded the player by denoting on their Gamertag that they were a "Cheater".
