theweaselking | Dear Microsoft.

I would like to give you money to purchase your product.

*How fucking hard do you have to make it for me to do this?*

I have to sign up for *TWO* different online accounts, reboot twice, and run a fucking piece of network spyware just to find the *PRICE TAG* of a third-party app you're reselling? And even then, the price tag is in "points" and *you will not tell me what a point costs me to buy with my credit card until I sign up for another account* and install fucking Silverlight?

My love for Bethesda has limits. You are reaching them in a right fucking hurry.

EDIT: All that for a fucking $15 expansion. How hard would it have been to put, right up front, "This costs 800 Microsoft Points. If you're starting from zero, paying cash, have no rewards or deals, and don't want to get a bulk discount on points, this will cost you $15 and leave you with 200 Microsoft Points left over to use to purchase other fun stuff!"

Would that have been too fucking simple?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kierthos.livejournal.com

What were you buying? I'd like to know so I can avoid it.

From:

theweaselking.livejournal.com

Fallout 3: The Pitt

But the problem isn't that game, it's the Live Marketplace, which, since I don't have an X-Box, I don't use. However, it's the only place to get The Pitt. So I go there, tell them I want to give them money, and it's a fucking nightmare. MONEY. I WANT TO GIVE THEM MONEY AND TAKE THEIR PRODUCTS. When I could have pirated the game in half the time and 1/1000th of the hassle of buying it legit, THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Live is insanely stupidwrongbad, no matter what you're trying to buy from them.

From:

frith

My guess is that they want you to buy their X-Box and to do whatever it takes to accumulate "points". They are trying to train you to play by their rules by making all other legitimate means difficult. That is the hallmark of training -- not only do you reward the correct response, your make the correct response easier than undesired behaviour. I figure the point system also increases retention time (the time the client spends with your product). I bet the more points you collected, the more adverts for Microsoft products you see. Microsoft _gave_ you 200 points: they really _really_ want you to play their marketing game.

From:

theweaselking.livejournal.com

Well, partly. And partly it really is the micropayment system it says it is - credit card fees on a $0.25 purchase are insane, so if you want people to be able to toss each other quarters for uploaded custom car paint jobs in a racing game or the like, you need to find a way to do that. Giving people "points" at $15 for 1000 and then charging no fee for points transactions makes sense.

And OF COURSE they don't want to sell me 800 points when they can sell me 1000 and get me looking for more things to spend my leftover ponts on. That's a given.

My problem is that it was so goddamn hard to get my software, and, from the outside, it was *impossible* to know what the cost would be. They wouldn't tell me if it was $5 or $50. They wouldn't even tell me how many Microsoft Points it took, and they wouldn't tell me how much a Microsoft Point cost until I signed up with an account for *that*, too.

The fact that I was willing to jump through these hoops should be taken as a testament to Bethesda Software and how good Oblivion and Fallout 3 really were: I was willing to put up with *this amount of shit from their reseller* to get the game.

From:

frith

"The fact that I was willing to jump through these hoops should be taken as a testament to Bethesda Software and how good Oblivion and Fallout 3 really were: I was willing to put up with *this amount of shit from their reseller* to get the game."

Suddenly I have a flashback of a video of a horny rhesus monkey desperately hammering on a lever to get to the female in the other cage. X-D

Is there a way to get Microsoft Points 'for free'? Like, as a certificate delivered with an game console or as a reward for filling out a survey on their web pages? If the only way to get Points is to go through the pain you experienced in buying them, then yes, this business model is seriously borked.

From:

theweaselking.livejournal.com

Buying *more* would be easy. Now that I've jumped through all the hoops, I can hit the little bar and get all the shiny, shiny crack I want.

The problem is, I don't have an X-Box and I don't use any LIVE services and I wouldn't touch Hotmail or a Zune unless you paid me to. So I was starting *from scratch*.

And yes, once you've got a Live account and start using it, you get MS points for in-game acheivements, for hours spent playing, for participating in multiplayer games, for all kinds of things. And they do add up eventually so that you might get your next game for free. I just wanted an 800-point (so, extremely expensive, pointwise) purchase with my brand new account, so I had zero.

From:

frith

Ahora yo comprende, gracias. I commend you on your dedication. When a company forces me to go through half as many hoops as you had to endure, I just give them the finger and go without.