It’s no great secret that achievements on the 360 are almost as addicting as gaming itself. While your gamerscore has no tangible value beyond what you place on it, that doesn’t stop gamers from doing just about anything for a few more points. Personally, I’m dealing with a slight form of addiction myself, finding it hard to play games I’ve already milked for all possible achievements or ones that have none to offer (ie: XBox 1 games). Sites like achieve360points.com only feed the craving with tips, forums, and a healthy level of competition to keep everyone working at it. While it’s true that only people like Rance6 are going to be at the top of the heap (and this requires having no loved ones in your life), people like me can still feel proud that we (by “we” I mean “I”) are ahead of J. Allard, and absolutely kicking ass on our site owner Cain. Woot!

But nobody said you had to get your achievement points all on your own. There are gamesaves that can be shared, and while some scorn the practice with all the loathing usually reserved for piles of rotting feces, others jump at the chance for some quick points in games they would feel little inclined to pop in otherwise. All well and good, if that’s how you want to play the game.

What is not all well and good, however, is taking it one step further and getting another person to actually get those points for you. How? Well, give them your account information and password, and they can “recover” your account on their system. Once your account is there, they can play a game, and all points earned are credited to your existing stash. This might seem like a wonderful idea… until that helpful gamer on the other end decides to look a little deeper into your account and pull out your credit card information, delete your account, change your gamertag, pass your information to his friends, and so on.

I hang out in a lot of different forums, and I’ve come across more than ten different people who got screwed over in this manner. Usually with a little help from Microsoft it can be sorted again, but it’s a great headache… especially when phone sex charges show up on your card. Try as I might though, I can find little inner sympathy for gamers who get roasted like this. Essentially, such a road to gamerscore riches is the equivalent of giving a thief the keys to your house, leaving for the week, and trusting that he won’t get itchy fingers as he rifles through your drawers. If you wouldn’t do that, don’t do this either.

My short bit of advice is this: Never ever share your account information with anyone. Not even a friend. If you want gamerscore points that badly, either a) play more, b) buy/rent more, c) use a gamesave if you must. You might feel a little dirty picking option C, but it’s a lot better than getting raped by choosing the very stupid option D as outlined above.

- Martin VanWoudenberg

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