Spicollidriver1

Plus what morons like the writer doesn't realize is if you get a crappy price for your game it's because they have a billion of them and your copy will probably never sell . If I give you $5 for a game list it for $17.99 but it never sells how is that a good deal for me.

iggystar

Exactly, and if you trade your games when they have a special it's even better. Recently I took in about ten games that had been gathering dust on my shelf, with the additional percentage for trading over six games I was able to get a new DSi for my daughter without forking over any money.

They were no good to me since they weren't being played, I didn't have to deal with the e-bay hassle and I walked out with what the kid wanted.

Gizmo

You mean I have to pay money for new levels that were produced after the game went gold? So lame. That should be free!

fujishig

If you read the quote, he praises stuff like Burnout Paradise. He's complaining about the micro transactions, stuff that was clearly planned to be downloadable content (or more likely, a downloadable key to unlock content already on the disc) from the get go, which could have easily been fit on the disc. As he says, Madden has a ton of these "shortcuts" you can buy if you want to improve your create a player. He's not complaining about stuff like Oblivion or Fallout's additional content (with the possible exception of stuff like horse armor).

Gizmo

How do we know that stuff was meant to be in the game that was released? It's possible that stuff was pre-planned months before (i.e. they spent money working on it) and included on the disc so it could be sold for a cheaper price since it is essentially unlocked.

fujishig

Here's a sample of Madden's micro-transactions:

from: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/08/ma...nt-prevention/

Not that they're not brilliant ways to get money from people if it works, but it is a rip off. I'd also say that the various themes, gamer pictures, and now avatar clothes are pretty big rip offs too, though I guess people buy them.

PixyJunket

Microsoft Points are a rip-off?

Man, the internet gets sillier every day with this kind of drivel.

maxfisher

Wireless Adapter - It's a rip off, but I don't think it's as bad as the hard drives. I place my router in my entertainment center, which seems like an easy solution to avoiding buying the adapter, but you really have to have a good sized hard drive to get the most out of some games.

Microtransactions - Some of these are great and well worth the money and some are a complete ripoff. The only ones I find a little unsettling are when they're selling stuff in the first month of a release, when it's clear they could've just included it in the game. If they want to piecemeal game elements out, publishers should be selling the affected titles at a discount.

Best Buy Installation - I just can't get upset by this. I'll go so far as to say it's a fair price, so long as the Best Buy geek monkeys aren't lying to customers about what they do. If I called an electrician to come to my house and change all my light bulbs, I'd expect to pay an amount disproportionate to the labor performed. That's what you get for being incredibly lazy or incompetent.

Live Points - Who cares? All the games are a multiple of 400. If you can't figure out the $5, $10, $15, $20 price points, you probably should put someone else in charge of your finances anyway. If you're that worried about the little transactions and can't do simple math in your head, break out a calculator.

Downloadable Games - Hands down the one thing on the list that's a huge rip off.

Trade-In Values - GameStop will rip you off if you let them, but will also give you a fair price if you play along with their promotions. I recently pulled 24 games I was going to get rid of. Looking at half.com, I figured I'd get between $300 & $350 for them before sellers' fees. I took them to GameStop and between the Edge card and current promotions, I got around $290 in store credit. That seems perfectly fair to me, considering the reduced hassle.

Jeremy517

If Microsoft Points didn't exist, I wouldn't have bought a lot of the stuff that I did. I've never paid full price for points and never will.

porieux

How about charging full price for a Halo3 expansion pack?

Drexl

Maybe it's just me, but I didn't expect games to get cheaper when they went to digital distribution. That's about control and higher profit margins, not passing the savings along to us.

Gizmo

Neither have I. I picked up 4000 MS Points for like $22 a few months ago.

boredsilly

I'm one of those people that wishes there were no points. It's not a huge deal, but I would be happier just buying the game, without having to buy points first. It is a nuisance having to buy more points than you need, and having those batch of points left over that you have to sit on until something else comes along that you want. Hearing about PS3's system, it seems like there is no way around doing charges for things that are less than $10. I make charges smaller than that all the time in real life, but I guess the powers that be over at Sony and MS don't want to deal with whatever fees they incur for charges of less than $10, whatever they are.

I get how some of you save money getting deals on points, but I just buy the few games I want for the listed prices. Since I'm paying what they cost anyway, I would be much happier if I didn't have to deal with space bucks.

starseed1981

Win!

Raul3

I came here to read about that. And get enraged! ODST deserves full price.


Oh and Xbox Live Points are a good thing. And I didn't know about the Xbox Wireless adapter support a/b/g. Maybe that's why it works better than my PS3 wireless connection, for home networking (streaming videos and music).

Groucho

I swear I'm the only person on this board (and possibly on the Internet) who likes downloadable games.

Raul3

I like Justin too, I mean downloadable games.