It's been five months since Xbox's corporate vice president Mike Ybarra revealed that the company was working on fundamentally changing their achievement system. He agreed that the system we have now isn't as enticing for people who play fewer games over a longer period of time as it is for those who play a wide breadth of games, so they were looking into ways of rewarding the former in new ways. Now we might know what these changes will be.
The folks over at Windows Central, the same outlet that Ybarra shared his thought with last year, claim to have seen something called a "Career" system for Xbox Live, and that this might be the extended Gamerscore system. This will apparently not replace the achievement system, but instead, work alongside it.
That's possible because "Career" has a different level-based rewards system that will allow us to prestige ranks and even obtaining rewards such as loot crates containing cosmetic items for the new Avatar system. The documents Windows Central has seen indicates that we'll earn experience points and loot crates by completing certain challenges called "Quests", which includes playing certain games. Meanwhile, it seems like our achievements might be incorporated by rewarding us with experience points in the new system, while also increasing our Gamerscore.
"Career" will also track our progress and play time in different games, so it's possible that we might earn experience points based on how much we play as well. Especially considering Ybarra's statement last August. This is pure speculation, however, as Microsoft has yet to confirm these details. Windows Central's report even states that they don't know if the system is in active development or simply a test run for something, so take this with a grain of salt for now.
What do you think of these sort of incentives to play and play well?