Achievements. Trophies. Badges. They go by many names, but the concept of doling out meaningless (and yet strangely compelling) “meta” rewards for completing a catalogue of in-game tasks (ranging from the trivial to the impossible, the obvious to the obtuse) has become practically mandatory for any new game or platform. Xbox Live popularised the idea […]

I really, really don’t want to make a habit of making posts just to comment on stories elsewhere, but I think this interview deserves a mention. Jeff Strain of Guild Wars developers Arena.Net draws attention to the barriers that Xbox Live’s business model puts in the way of MMO games for Microsoft’s consoles. “They know […]

As I write this, Microsoft are a few weeks away from launching their new, ‘next-generation’ home console, the Xbox 360. As with any new console, it’ll be a good few months beyond the feeding frenzy of launch day before it will be possible to get a clear picture of whether the machine is worth the […]