Xbox Live: Greed at it's finest.

    

It’s a few hours before midnight and there are hundreds of people gathered in front of the doors to the local mall. What has caused them to gather this late? Is this the newest #Occupy protest? Nope, at exactly midnight millions of gamers will finally get the chance to hunt for and destroy their friends in the latest iteration of the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 3. Not all of them will be able to play together; some are purchasing the game for Sony’s Playstation 3 (PS3), others are purchasing it for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (360), and a select few are picking it up for their home computers. The major difference between the three versions of the game? The PS3 owners can connect and play each other instantly, for free. The Xbox users must pay $50 a year to connect to those same servers. The PC gamers will have the game hacked and be operating completely free servers within the first 48 hours after the release.
    Microsoft should not charge for access to online/multiplayer functions of games because the consumer has already paid a considerable fee for the game, their competitors are offering comparable, if not better, services for no extra charge to the consumer, and most importantly, extra fees for online access lock out a significant portion of the potential audience.
    To be a gamer in this generation is to partake in one of the most expensive past times available to a mass audience. First, one has to invest in the hardware/system, which are currently anywhere from $200 -$400 depending on size of hard drive and case design. If one bought a 360 before the 2010 Christmas season one also had to purchase a wi-fi adapter for another $100. Add in the cost of a headset to talk to one’s fellow gamers, $50-$100, and at least one extra controller, another $50, and you are quickly approaching a $500 - $1000 investment. This is not even including the cost of a game, new games retail for $60 and older games retail for around $30. So, now that one has a new system, a wi-fi adapter, a headset, an extra controller for the friends/little brother to play, and even spent the extra money for the brand new copy of the game, one can just pop in the disc and be ready to have fun, right? Wrong! At this point one has to input a massive amount of personal information and charge one’s credit card with $50 to gain access to the online components of the game and one mustn’t forget which card they paid with because in a year Microsoft will automatically tag one’s account for $50 without the decency to send a courtesy e-mail afterwards. This doesn’t work in dating; it shouldn’t work in gaming.

    There are three major video game consoles in the world, the previously mentioned PS3 and 360, and the family-friendly Nintendo Wii. Both the PS3 and Wii offer free online gaming and support networks. I’ll be the first to admit that the Wii’s online service leaves much to be wanted, but alas they aren’t aiming to capture the “hardcore gamer” like the 360 and PS3 are. The Sony hub for online gaming is called the Playstation Network (PSN) and has almost the same exact features and connectivity as Microsoft’s Xbox Live (XBL), except that XBL users tend to get access to supplemental gaming content sooner than those on PSN. Both have friends lists, cross game messaging, the ability to invite one’s friends to join a game, both have access to the almighty Netflix and Facebook, and they both try and sell you thousands of pieces of pointless digital property just so you can customize your avatar (XBL) or your “home” (PSN) that no one, but yourself ever sees. Another qualm many have had with XBL is that one must purchase “Microsoft Points” to spend on products from their marketplace. That’s right, to buy that “awesome” new skin that makes one’s character look like he is a hippie from the sixties, one must first purchase a gift card that has a predetermined amount of points on it, the lowest being 800 points (approx. $10) and the highest being 4000 points (approx. $50). This seems to be okay until one stops and realizes that even if you want just one music track that retails for 79 points one must purchase 800 points and then allow one of the richest corporations in the world to hold onto the rest of one’s Hamilton until one finally breaks down and makes another purchase. There are no refunds for already purchased Microsoft Points.
    From a business standpoint it makes no sense to charge for something your competitors are giving away for free, that just seems to automatically alienate a large portion of one’s potential audience. A strange occurrence I have noticed in my hours spent gaming is that those who still live at home with their parents tend to have a 360 and play over XBL, while those gamers that are older and must pay their own bills tend to have a PS3 and play over PSN. I will give the 360 kudos for their superior security, last year hackers representing the group Anonymous were able to knock PSN offline for upwards of a month; XBL has never been successfully hacked.
    Microsoft should not charge for access to online/multiplayer functions of games because the consumer has already paid a considerable fee for the game, their competitors are offering comparable, if not better, services for no extra charge to the consumer, and most importantly, extra fees for online access lock out a significant portion of the potential audience.
    Why is it that one-third of gamers have to pay while the other two-thirds don’t? To put it simply, greed.

“But men are so full of greed today, they'll sell anything for a little piece of money.”
--Little Richard, Singer/Songwriter