Like Moses, the XBL team have stood atop the mountain and issued forth declarations of rule and regulation. Seems people were getting confused and somewhat concerned about the discrepancies in available achievement points for certain games. Crackdown, for example, which only has 900 available points instead of the normal 1000. NO MORE!

1. All regular disc-based games MUST have 1,000 Gamerscore in the base game. This means that any consumer who buys a retail game will have the opportunity to unlock the full 1,000 Gamerscore without having to pay for any add-on content. Note that a publisher may decide to deliver a portion of this Gamerscore via add-on content, but the add-on content will always be free to the consumer.

2. Game publishers will have the option to deliver another 250 incremental Gamerscore on top of the 1,000 via add-on content from Marketplace. This add-on content could be either free or paid. So if you complete a game and earn the full 1,000 GS, you could by getting new add-on content earn up to a total of 1,250 points from a game.

3. Xbox Live Arcade games will operate in similar fashion, but given the size of these titles they will allow you to earn up to 200 Gamerscore from every game and up to another 50 points from add-on content.

I kind of like the fact they've been quick to act on this and have laid out such clear and simple rules. I kind of don't like the fact that publishers have now been given the green light to charge for 250 points on top of that 1000. Sounds petty, I know, but this is the kind of stuff that's really going to bust their chops if they decide to start rewarding people for gamerscores. Luke Plunkett

Addicted to Achievements? [Gamerscore]