XBLA Titles and DLC to have double the achievement points!

If, like us, you like playing Xbox Live Arcade games as much for the gamerscore as you do the enjoyment, then news of a policy change over at Microsoft HQ might put some spring in your step – according to a report over on Xbox360Achievements, the amount of points that each XBLA game can provide is about to be doubled as of 1 June.

Essentially acting as a 100 per cent increase on all the established rules, the new guidelines see the score limit for all XBLA titles increased from 200 to 400 gamerpoints, while the number of achievements allowed increases from 20 to 30. What's more, the amount of gamerscore and achievements allowed from downloadable add-ons is also on the rise – originally set at an additional 50 gamerpoints spread over 5 achievements every three months up to a maximum of three times, now developers can add up to 100 gamerpoints across 8 new achievements every three months for a full year. That means the maximum total for a single XBLA title can be up to 800 gamerpoints, just 200 shy of the minimum for a full-price game.

Yes, we know... it's just a gamerscore, it's not important. Except speaking from the 'gamerscore matters' camp, we find that achievements help add value to our games since we play them more to try and max out as many as we can. As such, this policy change is actually quite a big one... for us, anyway.

This is not really a surprise given how much the way titles have progressed on XBLA - games like I am Alive & Trials Evolution for example, look like they will be offering not far off retail boxed game levels of content so a hike in chievo's is a good move.

Also, quite a clever one as all the score whores out there will be a little more likely to stump up for them now