Most gamers see the Xbox game achievements as a fun way to make their games more challenging. But for some, a high Gamerscore or a perfect achievement point score is a badge of game prowess.
Sure, you can’t do much with them, (except for the time when Microsoft offered swag for points), but other than that, Gamerscores are just ammo for bragging rights. But for others, they’ll go as far as cheating to get bigger numbers.
Last week, Xbox Live addressed the problem of gamers who cheated in order to enhance their Gamerscores. But what goes on in the mind of these cheaters? One gamer, Aaron "coldraccoon" Mesec, has turned from his evil ways and related his story to multiplayer.blog.
Mesec said of his life of cheating, "I started cheating, I guess, because I got addicted to gamer score completion. This means that I must finish the game 1000 [out of 1000 achievement points]. I would play through the game and get the basic Achievements, then do some saves or glitches to get the rest. I started because I wanted more and more Gamerscore."
He said that he started out as an honest gamer, but as the achievements got insanely more difficult to attain on some games, he started down the path of cheating to get the unattainable prizes.
"It’s when they started coming out with hard games with HARD achievements is when I started," he said. Mesec couldn’t really pin down which game started him on the path of the Dark Side, but he believes that Lost Planet was one of them. He couldn’t get through the hardest level setting. The last game he cheated on, before turning over a new leaf, was Dynasty Warriors 6.
So are achievements a blessing or a curse for gamers? They’re fun, but has the idea of Gamerscores backfired?
[via mtv.com]
