NOTE: I’m going to use 360 terminologies in this article, because that is what I play.  It will undoubtedly apply to the PS3’s Trophy system as well, though.

Not too long ago kids would gather in the school cafeteria and talk about the latest game they had played.  They discussed strategies.  They bragged about how far they gotten without dying.  They called ‘BS’ when somebody claimed to have made a complete run on release day.  Games were played because they were fun.

Then Microsoft introduced Achievements and the whole thing went to hell in a hand basket.

There is no way I can go on the interwebz and even hint that the Achievement system may have problems without getting flamed, so I’ll go ahead and slip on my Nomex underwear while you follow the cut.

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Imagine getting a dollar for every gamerscore point you got in a week. That’s a potential 5000 or more dollars if someone really set their minds on it. Over at redvsblue one staff member made a bet with another that went something like this:

Achievement Marathon begins

Just fifteen minutes ago, Geoff began his week long marathon to get 10,000 Gamerscore in seven days. This all started during one of our DrunkTank sessions a few weeks ago when Geoff claimed he could “easily” score this monumental total during any given week. Here are the rules:

1. Contest runs from Friday Dec 26th to Friday Jan 2nd @ 10AM (Central times).
2. Geoff has to use his existing Gamertag (DGGeoff). He cannot start a new one.
3. At the end of the contest, for every point that Geoff has over 9,000 points, Burnie will pay him $1, up to 10,000 total points or $1000.
4. Geoff must pay Burnie $1 for every point under 9,000 points, down to 8,000 points.
5. Geoff sucks.
6. There is no rule six.
7. Burnie can do anything he wants to distract Geoff or derail his attempts to achieve gamerscore. (Addendum: Burnie may not burn down Geoff’s house or sabotage the Austin power grid),

It’s an interesting bet don’t you think? I’d love to start one of these with a friend someday. If you want to track it, you can from Geoff’s Gamerscore

I admit that the competition would have been much more spectacular if it had been a dollar for every gamerscore point he had gotten in a week with no limits to the maximum and minimum. Still it’s an interesting idea that even Microsoft could adopt for a fundraiser? Though it does preach some achievement whoring. That’s something you see quite regularly on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 community, you have people who play games so they can better their gamerscores so they can totally SHOW PEOPLE ONLINE, it reminds me a lot about this (May be NSFW).