Achievement Points Pump Profits, Review Scores, Report Finds

Want to pump sales and profits on the Xbox 360? Incorporate more achievements into the game.

That's the message to developers of a recent report issued by the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, which showed a "strong connection" between a game's profitability and its diversity of achievements.

Achievement points are a Microsoft brainchild launched with the 360 that allows gamers to collect said points throughout the course of a game and cash them in for in-game rewards and bragging rights.

The study examined 4,615 achievements throughout 124 retail and 63 downloadable games for the console between November 1, 2005, and June 1, 2007, compared 16 different kinds of achievements with gross sales and Metacric scores, among other things.

Review scores, profitability and re-playability were all positively affected by the inclusion of achievements, the report found.

Games that integrate online aspects into their achievement system garner 50 percent more money than those that do not, and games that openly note their inclusion of achievements make more money than those which hide them, the report also noted.

"Our research shows that incentives such as Accomplishments impact sales choices such as which game title to buy and which platform to buy it on; they also extend the replayability of a title," EEDAR COO Geoffrey Zatkin said.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz