Almost Free With Gold
Jul. 17th, 2013 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owsf2000So Microsoft is running that "Free With Gold"(Membership) program up until they release the Xbone later this year. Basically every 2 weeks or so a different game is made "Free" for anyone with a gold membership to download.
This is the second game of that program going up, Assassin's Creed 2. The first was Defense Grid. Before this actually started, or perhaps it was part of the program as well, was Fable 3.
Fable 3 and Defense Grid both had handy download links if you went to them in the store.
When I went to download Assassin's Creed 2... it wasn't there, despite it also saying the game was free. Took me a couple minutes to figure out why there was an option to pay with microsoft points. There was a footnote for the price. Tax isn't included in the free. Meaning you pay it yourself.
Or rather, means I just laugh, shut off my 360 again and go back to playing Minecraft.
Expecting someone to pay the tax like that is laughable if not kinda rude. In my case I'm downloading them -because- they're free. I may never actually play them. Case in point, I got Skyrim downloaded since I got it for free with my 360 holiday bundle. I still haven't actually played that either.
I noticed that the free games so far have all been heavy on the DLC, meaning they're probably hoping/expecting people to go buy all the DLC since they saved so much on the base game.
But here's the thing. If I wanted the games, I'd likely already have them. At best they can only hope that I'll play the freebies, actually enjoy it, and then actually want to buy the DLC. As it is, I don't want the games anywhere near enough to shell out money for it myself. So it's more like they're trying to give me a birthday gift or Christmas gift. You know, where it's free but not exactly something you really wanted in the first place.
Now imagine at your party, you were given a 40 dollar gift for free!
With a bill inside for a couple bucks.
This is the second game of that program going up, Assassin's Creed 2. The first was Defense Grid. Before this actually started, or perhaps it was part of the program as well, was Fable 3.
Fable 3 and Defense Grid both had handy download links if you went to them in the store.
When I went to download Assassin's Creed 2... it wasn't there, despite it also saying the game was free. Took me a couple minutes to figure out why there was an option to pay with microsoft points. There was a footnote for the price. Tax isn't included in the free. Meaning you pay it yourself.
Or rather, means I just laugh, shut off my 360 again and go back to playing Minecraft.
Expecting someone to pay the tax like that is laughable if not kinda rude. In my case I'm downloading them -because- they're free. I may never actually play them. Case in point, I got Skyrim downloaded since I got it for free with my 360 holiday bundle. I still haven't actually played that either.
I noticed that the free games so far have all been heavy on the DLC, meaning they're probably hoping/expecting people to go buy all the DLC since they saved so much on the base game.
But here's the thing. If I wanted the games, I'd likely already have them. At best they can only hope that I'll play the freebies, actually enjoy it, and then actually want to buy the DLC. As it is, I don't want the games anywhere near enough to shell out money for it myself. So it's more like they're trying to give me a birthday gift or Christmas gift. You know, where it's free but not exactly something you really wanted in the first place.
Now imagine at your party, you were given a 40 dollar gift for free!
With a bill inside for a couple bucks.
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no subject
Date: 2013-07-17 06:17 pm (UTC)Also, there's the fact that you have to have Gold (like $10 per month, $25 for 3, or $60 for a year depending on the plan), so it's not even free to begin with. And do you keep access to these "free" games if you stop paying for Gold? If it's anything like the "free" Playstation Plus stuff, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-19 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-19 08:57 pm (UTC)If those free games they offer were in fact free after you dropped your Plus status, I'd have been all over it. And I'd probably have bought more games on the PS3 (And perhaps some downloadable PSP titles) based on their discounts offered to Plus members.
But. Meh. They're losing out far more than I ever will.