Xbox LIVE Rewards Adds Rewards for Earning Achievements

Well, kind of; you get rewards if you've hit cetain gamerscore goals, but I'll get to all the juicy details a little later. Xbox LIVE Rewards has been a decent service that no one, not even Microsoft, really talks about. I’ve earned 3130 MS points over the course of the service’s existence and that’s not too shabby in my book. Now, Xbox LIVE Rewards is offering special rewards for hitting certain achievement goals, with three different tiers: The “Contender,” for those with 3,000-9,999 Gamerscore; the “Champion,” for those with 10,000-24,999 Gamerscore; and the “Legend,” for those with 25,000+ Gamerscore.

It’s nice to see a little kickback for playing a shitload of games, earning countless achievements, building up a still rather meaningless score—I love them, but I would never deny their utter worthlessness—but the rewards don’t seem particularly well thought out. Xbox LIVE Gold members (you must be a Gold member) in all tiers get a “Special Gift” for their birthday, but “Champions” and “Legends” get a small rebate for all Xbox LIVE Marketplace purchases. Better than nothing right? Yes, but there are a few problems.

One, the “Special” birthday gift has an approximate retail value of $0.25 USD. I don’t know about you, but a quarter is not that special; it’s not even enough to buy one Xbox LIVE Indie Game. Two, the rebate percentages are 1% for “Champions” and 2% for “Legends.” It is better than nothing—that is true—but it would have been nice to see a little extra, especially for “Legends,” something more like 2% and 5%. And maybe my Gamerscore is more unique than I think, but 25,000+ Gamerscore seems like an awfully low bar for reaching “Legend” status, says the man with just under 175,000 Gamerscore.

That’s it and that’s all folks. What tier do you fall in? Me? I coulda been a contender. I coulda been a champion. I coulda been somebody, instead of a legend, which is what I am…