BrokenDesign
Shared on Thu, 04/12/2007 - 13:08I love my 360. It's got a great game lineup and future releases look to keep that pattern going through the end of 2007. However, in recent weeks I've become gradually less and less thrilled about my console. Not because I've fallen victim to the red ring of death, mind you, (however it does freeze up 4 out of 5 times that I'm playing) but because of all the BS that Microsoft is feeding us. I believe that this recent debacle over the upcoming Gears of War multiplayer map pack has brought a lot of stuff out of the woodwork and I'm going to cover as much of it as I possibly can, starting with the topic at hand in particular. First off, charging for the maps is a blatant ripoff of consumers. If Epic wants to offer the maps for free, they should be able to, and here's why:
So this brings me to a more general topic when it comes to lies. Not only Epic is being forced to charge for content; Kotaku reported that Bizarre Creations was forced to charge 400 points for Geometry Wars (http://kotaku.com/gaming/bizarre/bizarre-geometry-wars-shoulda-been-free-244692.php). It seems that anything that is going to sell very well is being charged for because MS will not allow it to be free. I've heard something about MS getting a 50% cut of all Marketplace content sold, and if that's true it's no wonder that things are not only at a cost but can be kind of pricey, they are making money hand over fist.
I truly believe that MS is really making a push to set a precedent of content at a price so that in the future when nothing on the Marketplace is free no one will raise a stink and MS will continue to make a great deal of money. It all comes down to greed. And you know what's very interesting to me, they claim that the $50/yr subscription (which in and of itself isn't bad at all) is for maintaining and enhancing the services offered with Xbox Live. It seems safe to assume from that logic that all the money they're making as their cut from Marketplace sales is going straight into the MS pocket. They could easily use the revenue from content sales to fund Live and offer it to gamers for free. As time goes by it seems that the 360 more and more is simply a vessel for MS to penetrate the gaming market and satisfy its own agenda, especially in the realm of locking down the PC gaming market in a similar way, getting gamers to pay for what they're used to getting for free.
MS states that it's completely up to game developers whether or not they sign on board with Games for Windows Live, but by offering for developers to simply use the infrastructure of Live for matchmaking, et al, instead of developing it themselves, it's an offer really too sweet to pass up. From that point, in order to get the most out of a game that a person is paying good money for, they have to pay an additional $50/yr to MS. And while on the topic of GfW Live... I find it very interesting that PC gamers who don't sign on with the service get to continue to play online with other PC users, however not Xbox 360 users (for compatible games, the list of which is pretty paltry at this point and who knows how populated it will be in the future). The subscription fee merely nets them the ability to get the Live services such as matchmaking, multiplayer achievements, etc.
Considering that multiplayer at all costs $50/yr for all Xbox / Xbox 360 users for a P2P experience... why exactly is it that I have to pay an annual fee to connect to someone else's system over the internet? Shouldn't that be free and, like the PC, simply get the offerings such as Matchmaking and playing cross-platform for the premium price? The reason why MS is charging that fee is probably because people like me would never pay them money if playing online at its most basic level were free. I don't care about matchmaking. I buy games that my friends have and I only play online with them. I don't want to deal with the stupid effing 12 year old Timmys running all over the place making my game experience much less fun. No amount of matchmaking filters them out, I've found, so I don't bother. This is all a big scheme for them to get very, very rich and control the online gaming market and I wouldn't be surprised if it exiles gamers in droves.
Who agrees? Who disagrees? Let me know why.
1) Epic put forth the effort to develop the maps. They have a right to charge for them or not.
2) MS may have marketed the game, but they marketed the retail game and this is after the fact; besides which, after selling over 3 million copies I can't imagine that MS hasn't made their money back and then some.
3) MS has been telling the press in recent weeks that the developers of the content that appears on Marketplace are the ones who decide what the pricing is for each. This was evidently a blatant lie. (speaking of lies, who else remembers the promise of "Every game published by Microsoft Game Studios will be priced at $50"? I do. When was the last time a game that they knew would be a big hit was priced that way? Never.)
3) MS has been telling the press in recent weeks that the developers of the content that appears on Marketplace are the ones who decide what the pricing is for each. This was evidently a blatant lie. (speaking of lies, who else remembers the promise of "Every game published by Microsoft Game Studios will be priced at $50"? I do. When was the last time a game that they knew would be a big hit was priced that way? Never.)
So this brings me to a more general topic when it comes to lies. Not only Epic is being forced to charge for content; Kotaku reported that Bizarre Creations was forced to charge 400 points for Geometry Wars (http://kotaku.com/gaming/bizarre/bizarre-geometry-wars-shoulda-been-free-244692.php). It seems that anything that is going to sell very well is being charged for because MS will not allow it to be free. I've heard something about MS getting a 50% cut of all Marketplace content sold, and if that's true it's no wonder that things are not only at a cost but can be kind of pricey, they are making money hand over fist.
I truly believe that MS is really making a push to set a precedent of content at a price so that in the future when nothing on the Marketplace is free no one will raise a stink and MS will continue to make a great deal of money. It all comes down to greed. And you know what's very interesting to me, they claim that the $50/yr subscription (which in and of itself isn't bad at all) is for maintaining and enhancing the services offered with Xbox Live. It seems safe to assume from that logic that all the money they're making as their cut from Marketplace sales is going straight into the MS pocket. They could easily use the revenue from content sales to fund Live and offer it to gamers for free. As time goes by it seems that the 360 more and more is simply a vessel for MS to penetrate the gaming market and satisfy its own agenda, especially in the realm of locking down the PC gaming market in a similar way, getting gamers to pay for what they're used to getting for free.
MS states that it's completely up to game developers whether or not they sign on board with Games for Windows Live, but by offering for developers to simply use the infrastructure of Live for matchmaking, et al, instead of developing it themselves, it's an offer really too sweet to pass up. From that point, in order to get the most out of a game that a person is paying good money for, they have to pay an additional $50/yr to MS. And while on the topic of GfW Live... I find it very interesting that PC gamers who don't sign on with the service get to continue to play online with other PC users, however not Xbox 360 users (for compatible games, the list of which is pretty paltry at this point and who knows how populated it will be in the future). The subscription fee merely nets them the ability to get the Live services such as matchmaking, multiplayer achievements, etc.
Considering that multiplayer at all costs $50/yr for all Xbox / Xbox 360 users for a P2P experience... why exactly is it that I have to pay an annual fee to connect to someone else's system over the internet? Shouldn't that be free and, like the PC, simply get the offerings such as Matchmaking and playing cross-platform for the premium price? The reason why MS is charging that fee is probably because people like me would never pay them money if playing online at its most basic level were free. I don't care about matchmaking. I buy games that my friends have and I only play online with them. I don't want to deal with the stupid effing 12 year old Timmys running all over the place making my game experience much less fun. No amount of matchmaking filters them out, I've found, so I don't bother. This is all a big scheme for them to get very, very rich and control the online gaming market and I wouldn't be surprised if it exiles gamers in droves.
Who agrees? Who disagrees? Let me know why.
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Comments
Submitted by codemonkey on Thu, 04/12/2007 - 13:13
Submitted by Gatsu on Thu, 04/12/2007 - 13:17
Submitted by Falelorn on Thu, 04/12/2007 - 13:48
Submitted by BrokenDesign on Thu, 04/12/2007 - 14:09
Submitted by Rhysode on Thu, 04/12/2007 - 20:41