Meet the Xbox player whose 1,000,000G speedrun hit 25% in just one day (2024)

How quickly can you earn 1 million Gamerscore? Back in the early days of Xbox achievements, it seemed almost impossible. Now with the influx of easy title updates and quick completions, one TA member aims to find out and shine a spotlight on how easy a once unfathomable achievement has become.

"With the floodgates opening on easy 1,000G games and title updates, I was curious about the amount of score someone could put up in a day, week, or month and how fast they could reach a million," Martel18 said. "After the most recent account to do it in six months was set to 'No Tracking' for egregious account sharing, that solidified my decision to do it, solo, of course."

Earning 1 million Gamerscore was once considered a near-impossible task by many back in the day. It took the first 'Gamerscore millionaire,' Stallion83, years to achieve such a feat, but thanks to the flood of quick completions, 1,000G title updates, and other easy achievement titles, 1 million Gamerscore can be earned relatively quickly. Gamerscore is in such easy abundance these days that on the first day of Martel18's speed run attempt, they earned a quarter of a million Gamerscore.

"I had Grounded loaded up, waiting for midnight to come and launch the save file for that instant 2,400G start, then I put on Aabs Animals to idle while I speedran signing up on TA since you can't sign up with 0G beforehand."

Of course, while 245,000G may come quicker these days, earning that much Gamerscore in just 24 hours is a real test of endurance and a commendable feat. Martel18 said they were "wide awake and coherent" all day, thanks to already having to flip their sleep schedule due to work commitments and "some ADHD hyperfocus." Martel18 even went as far as to meal prep for the first day so they had some decent meals to eat instead of just junk food.

The rest of the speedrun is fully mapped out with a spreadsheet that features 772 games, split into publishers with a general timing tab. Around 60% of these games were previously owned, and they've bought the rest since then, utilising sales and $400 worth of Xbox gift cards earned from Microsoft Rewards Points. Martel18 tells us they are avoiding games with completion estimates over four hours but will be making exceptions for games they enjoy and speed through, such as "Unicorn Princess, Goldeneye, My Little Riding Champion, Metal: Hellsinger, Horse Club Adventures 1+2, Microsoft Games on my phone, My Horse and Me 2, and Minecraft." Martel18 has 21 days off in April and is aiming to get 600,000 of the 1 million Gamerscore target done this month.

"It was okay at first, having a few easy games to cleanse the palate after grinding longer or harder games for a while," Martel18 said. "Ever since that infamous Xitilon debacle, it's just been too much. We shouldn't be adding 1,000G every six months for content that is already there. We shouldn't be dumbing down achievements for sales.

"If your game has ten worlds with ten levels each, there should be achievements for reaching the end and then some miscellaneous achievements in between. Get creative with them — jumping 150 times in a playthrough isn't an achievement unless there's something special you have to do to jump. Way too many games hand you 100% by the quarter mark in the game.

"I'm hoping maybe for a policy change from Microsoft. The 5,000G limit and title update score limit is meant for games to keep adding content, not to add Gamerscore for something that was already there. I'm not saying no title updates, but a reduction in the cap. Maybe 250G every six months. Bigger budget games can always apply for an exception — maybe a policy that makes it mandatory to have achievements for at least finishing the story in a game."

You can follow Martel18's progress here on TA (BabyGamersSuck) and on Twitch. Martel18 says they are also donating $3 for every game completed during the speedrun to children's charity Child's Play.