RetroAchievements

Appearance

Claims System ​

Claims System Guidelines ​

The right to work on a set is made by utilizing the site's Claim System. This is the only recognized way to reserve a set.

  • Do not claim sets that you are not actually interested in immediately working on
  • Do not claim sets in order to hold or reserve them for someone else who is unable to make the claim for any reason
  • Do not claim sets to prevent others from claiming them
  • Do not make a claim if you have an unaddressed ticket

Making a Claim ​

To make a claim, go to the Developer panel of a game entry, which will contain one of the following links:

  • Make Claim
  • Make Claim and Forum Topic (Junior Developers require a forum topic to be made on their behalf)
  • Make Revision Claim
  • Make Collaboration Claim

Dropping a Claim ​

Dropping a claim is as simple as selecting the "Drop Claim" link in the Developer panel.

Extending a Claim ​

  • When a claim is within a week of expiring, an "Extend Claim" link will become available. Selecting it will extend the claim an additional three months.
  • Progress Reporting: Prior to extending a claim, post your progress in a new forum post. Progress should comment on RAM digging/code notes, a roadmap of achievements and your progress towards them. As further extensions are made, reports are expected to become more detailed and development priority is expected to increase.
    • At Developer Compliance discretion, additional requirements may be given if there is insufficient progress during a claim period, including claim drop. Game length, total claim duration, and other considerations will factor into any decision.
    • Prior to the 4th extension (the one-year mark) and all subsequent extensions, a thorough progress report must be made and the progress report must also be sent to Developer Compliance for consideration in allowing the extension.
    • Any claim with no progress during the standard claim duration (3 months since claim/extension) may be subject to a claim drop.
  • Once a claim has expired, the set is available to be claimed by another developer.
  • If a reservation reaches the point where it's more than a year old, a detailed progress report must be sent to Developer Compliance for subsequent renewals. The report should provide an overview of the development situation and include details such as:
    • List of planned achievements
    • List of achievements already coded (local or unofficial)
    • Memory digging status
    • Progress of badges creation
    • Rich Presence and Leaderboards Status (if applicable)
  • If the renewal is denied or dropped due to no-progress, a cooldown of one month will be applied. After this period, the developer may reserve the set again, if available. Detailed progress reports will continue to be required for any further renewals.
  • If a claim is dropped and resumed in within a month, the initial claim date before dropping the set will be maintained.

Exception

Claims that are automatically extended, such as In-Review and Release Scheduled, do not need a forum post made at the time of extension. It is recommended you post in the forum when your claim is set to one of these statuses, and comment that your set is awaiting code review or its scheduled release.

How to Complete a Claim ​

To mark a claim as complete, you can select the "Complete Claim" link in the Developer panel. Doing so will free the claim slot and notify users who have a set request for the game, via email, that new achievements have been added for that game.

When selecting "Complete Claim" within 24 hours of making the claim, a prompt will inform the developer that they should have approval before marking it as complete. Approval must be from someone on the Developer Compliance team. Revisions to your own sets can skip approval for early release.

Collaboration Claims ​

Before entering into a collaboration, all interested participants should do research on potential partners to ensure a desired level of confidence that the collaboration has a high likelihood of success. It is prudent to check other potential partners' history with claims, sets, tickets and overall behavior before requesting a collaboration or accepting one.

Additionally, as with any other claim, a developer who drops out of a collaboration forfeits any authorship and any work they leave is considered abandoned. If all collaboration developers agree, then achievements authored by a dropping developer may be promoted under their name with a remaining claimant as the assigned maintainer, at the discretion of the remaining claimants. Dev Compliance must approve another claimant to be the maintainer and assign the role before the collaboration is promoted to core.

Collaboration claims are made when there is already a primary claim on a game and acts as a "child" of said primary claim. It will inherit the primary claim's expiration date. Extending or completing a collaboration claim can only be done by the developer with the primary claim.

  • Let others know if you welcome collaborators.
  • If you have claimed a set and someone expresses desire to work on it beyond suggesting ideas, consider ways in which you can collaborate with them.
  • If someone claims a set that you were interested in, do not get frustrated. You are encouraged to contact the developer and request a collaboration. If denied, you have the option of presenting a revision plan after the set is published.

Viewing Claim Info ​

There are several ways to view claim information:

  • Every game entry will show if it has a claim or not
  • A developer's profile will show which claims they currently have active.
  • The site navbar contains New Sets & Revisions, Sets in Progress, My Claims, and Expiring Claims.
  • The set request list will show if a game has an active claim.

Claim Allotment ​

Each developer is allowed four claims. Junior developers are allowed one claim. However, the following claim types can be marked as free claims and therefore will not take up a slot:

  • Special Claims, such as claims made during rollouts. This is due to the unpredictable nature of rollouts as well as a way to reduce stress/pressure on developers.
  • Collaboration claims after the developer's part has been completed. To request a free claim on a completed collaboration claim, the lead of the collaboration sends a message to DevCompliance when they agree that the work of one of the collaborators is ready for release. This includes having serviceable badges.
  • Own revision claims upon request, including subset claims where the developer is the author or claimant of the base set.

Special Claims ​

Special claims are granted during a console rollout and select developer events. These claims do not count against the maximum claim allotment.

  • Special claims made during a console rollout are expected to be completed during the rollout period.
  • Rollout claims that are not completed within 7 days of the rollout launch will be changed to a normal claim. Other special claims will expire after a duration specified by their applicable events or follow rollout claim rules if unspecified.
  • Special claims that are converted to a normal claim are immediately subject to standard claim rules.
  • Developers must prioritize maintenance of rollout sets during the 3 month release window following the rollout. Tickets should be addressed within 7 days.
  • Abandoning a set after release will result in exclusion from future rollouts. Participation and claim priority in future rollouts may be granted again at the discretion of the Rollout Team once the sets are restored to the guidelines set by the Developer Compliance team.
  • If there are extenuating circumstances that might prevent a developer from meeting these requirements, Developer Compliance may grant an extension upon request.

Important Notes ​

  • It is recommended that you post a complete plan in the forum topic. When doing so, be open to suggestions; you can get excellent input and suggestions this way.

Additional Rules for Specific Types of Sets ​

Hacks ​

Refer to the Achievements for ROM Hacks document for full information.

  • May not make a set claim for a cosmetic hack; these can likely just be linked to the base set with proper testing.
  • May not make a set claim for a simple QOL hack that does not significantly change the gameplay.

Games with Parallel Releases ​

Refer to the Games With Parallel Releases document for full information.

  • You may not claim a merged set. Example: May not make a claim for Pokémon Black Version | Pokemon White Version. These releases must have separate sets.
  • You may not claim a parallel version of a game for which you've already made another set. Example: Cannot make a set for Pokémon White if you have claim for or already made a set for Pokémon Black

Post-Rollout Compilation Set Claims: ​

Upon completion of a rollout, compilation sets for that system shall become eligible for claims. Special rules shall apply to these claims, and will proceed through the following phases:

  1. Developer Compliance shall create a poll: "Which of these compilations are you interested in claiming as the primary claimant at this time?"
    • The poll shall be multiple choice.
    • For each choice, developers will mark down any they'd be willing to claim at the current time.
    • There must be at least one game in the compilation that the dev has not worked on in order to be eligible as the primary claimant.
    • The poll shall last 1 week.
  2. At the end of the polling period:
    • Any games with no interest shall revert to standard claim rules.
    • A lottery will be held for games with multiple developers interested in the primary claim. This lottery will be done live with a witness via wheel spin or other similar random method.
    • Lottery selections will be offered the primary claims for each game that garnered interest.
    • This process will be repeated as necessary (i.e. if a selected developer turns down the primary claim)
    • Claims made under this special claims period must be collaborations if there are interested collaborators.
    • Collaborators may not work on multiple games in the compilation, unless there are fewer interested developers than there are games in the compilation.
  3. For each game, interested collaborators will be given a form to fill out to poll which games in the compilation they are interested in developing, and which games in the compilation they have worked on.
    • Collaborators may not work on a game they have already worked on in another platform.
    • After the form's time period has ended, the results will be provided to the primary claimant.
    • The primary claimant is then free to talk to the interested collaborators and determine who is working on which games in the compilation.
  4. Any games unclaimed after this process shall revert to standard claim rules.

REASON FOR SPECIAL RULES

These rules are in place to ensure a fair chance for any developer to work on these compilation sets immediately as they become available, rather than whomever happens to be awake when the rollout ends. They are designed to give everyone interested a chance to work on these sets.

Claiming Multiple Ports of the Same Game ​

Letting other developers work on other ports of a game is encouraged. For this reason, developers cannot hold claims for two ports of the same game at the same time.

Moreover, for the 6 months following the publication of their set for a game, developers shall ensure no other developers are interested before making a claim on a port of the same game. This is done as described below:

  1. Contact DevCompliance and express your interest in claiming a second port.
  2. DevCompliance will privately reach out to developers that have the game on their Want to Dev list on-site.
  3. The other potentially interested developers will explain how likely they are to claim the game before the cooldown finishes. For example, if 4 months have passed, they will say how likely they are to claim in the remaining 2 months.

Collaborations are exempt from this cooldown as long as the repeat developer does not do a majority of the work.

For the sake of this rule, different ports of a game are releases on different platforms where the gameplay is largely replicated. Differences in presentation, theme or license is not enough to be considered different games. Content being cut in one port due to technical limitations such as lack of space doesn't make them different games either. When in doubt, contact DevCompliance before claiming.

Changelog

Released under the GPL-3 License. There are no copyright-protected ROMs available for download on RetroAchievements.

Copyright © 2012–2026 RetroAchievements. All rights reserved.