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Loot boxes may be coming to Xbox Live in a rumored Career system

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Gamerscore and Xbox Achievements may soon be leveling up into a new and more elaborate “Career” system, replete with everyone’s favorite new feature: Loot boxes. Windows Central reports that Microsoft is in early days of developing the upgrade for Xbox Live, but “is actively committing code and other systems to support its functionality.”

Xbox Vice President Mike Ybarra teased the system to Window Central in an interview several months ago, explaining a hole in the Gamerscore system as it currently works. New Xbox games generally launch with 1,000 Gamerscore points worth of achievements (with more potentially added through DLC). This means that Gamerscore favors people that play a lot of different games, while, after a point, failing to recognize those that have poured a ton of time into one or two games, such as esports athletes. The Xbox team’s aim in upgrading their gamer profile system is, according to Ybarra, “to go big in the area of letting people show off and represent their gaming history and the type of gamer that they are, far more than we do with Gamerscore.”

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According to Windows Central, Careers will add a layer of RPG-like progression to players’ Xbox Live presence, with levels and prestige ranks. Players earn experience through play time, earning achievements, and completing new Quests with objectives such as playing certain games. Protecting the investment of players in the current system, Careers will exist alongside, rather than replace it, with achievements feeding into Career experience in addition to boosting Gamerscore. Like in many of the AAA games now available on the platform, loot boxes will serve as the reward, containing cosmetic upgrades for players’ avatars. There’s no indication yet that people will be able to buy loot boxes with real money, but there is no indication that they won’t, either.

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Supposedly, Microsoft reserved the domain Careers.XboxLive.com, which is not yet open to the public. This is all quite plausible, given Ybarra’s previous comments and general industry trends, but remains squarely a rumor without official confirmation, and could merely be an internal proof-of-concept that won’t go anywhere. We have reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update here accordingly.

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Will Fulton
Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
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