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Microsoft Guilty of False Advertising?
Submitted by James Munn on October 23, 2006 – 9:38 am4 Comments
No doubt about it, Lumines Live on the 360 has caused a shockwave across the gaming community. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the quality of the gameplay, it has to do with how truncated and deceptive the initial $15 purchase of Lumines Live really is. The evil in micropayments have reared their ugly head, surprisingly early in it
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I would love to purchase Lumines… But… I do not agree with this whole business concept.
I think there should be a price and that price should give you the whole experience. The thought of publishers holding back content for special editions or premium content stinks.
I have been trying to vote with my dollars, only giving support to games that are interested in servicing the customer and not their bottom line. I truly hope that the publishers find serving the customers will serve them a lot better than pissing them off. My greatest hope lies with Epic now because Mark and Cliffy B want to do free content or truly “micro” transactions.
That brings up an interesting question… What happened to the microtransaction? I thought the points were developed so that publishers could charge small amounts, less than a dollar or two, for content and capture a market they could not do with credit cards. I think that is where the true success will lie for publishers, charge 50 points vs. 1500 points for a map pack and I think you get the community to embrace that content and the concept of MICROtransactions. The publisher also wins because they will still see income for the work they put into the project and there will also be greater repect from the community. Halo 2 anyone?
As much as I like the 360, I just don’t like the company behind it. I saw this coming a long time ago. Once it was clear the xbox was successful enough to warrant a followup console, I knew we would be seeing some things this console generation we didn’t see much of before. The worst of these is the shipping of unfinished product. MS has done it for years with its OS and games, and now it is doing it with its consoles. Also, the movement to a subscription model. They are doing it with their OS and I think they are really going to push this type of model in the console space. Sure it make sense financially but there are some negatives. I am all for a publisher releasing a game and due to its popularity, later releasing additional contect at additional cost. However, what is ACTUALLY happening now, is that publishers are releasing stripped down versions with the immediate intent of releasing more content later. In the end, the additional content is actually part of what should have been the full game. This is a gross alteration of the model and one that scares me if others start to pick up on it.
I think the bsuiness concept is valid – release a game, release additional optional downloads in the form of maps, cars, characters or whatever at a later date to increase longevity of the title.
In this case it has been abused so badly it’s just not funny. The game has almost no modes of play that don’t require an add-on pack. Hooray I thought, I’ll battle the CPU. Nope. 1 level of vs. CPU before I get prompted to buy another pack. IMO they should have left CPU mode out altogether and had the whole mode as an add-on, or at least given me a few damn levels of play.
Same with all the others. As soon as you start getting into the game – Bang! Additional purchase. Miserable bastiges.
I’ve never been a MS hater. It’s a successful business that was run by a genius. Some of the business ethics may have been questionable, but I’ve seen much worse.
In my opinion, Lumines is a great game that is perfect for live. It’s a complete game. I don’t mind paying 30 bucks online for it in one shot. By approaching it in this sideways manner, I’ve now lost a lot of respect for the company and am not as happy with my 360 purchase. I don’t like to pay money to thieves and tricksters. That’s my bottom line.