The Value of Xbox Live Gold

[Red-X]

I just read this article on Gamespot and though it warranted some discussion.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/xbox-live-no-longer-the-gold-standard-6401861/?tag=Topslot%3bXboxLiveNoLongerTheGoldStandard%3bXboxLiveNoLongerThe%3bReadMore

So what is your opinion on the value of Xbox Live Gold?

 

[skywolfblue]

I'd agree. For a service that charges money, AND shows Advertisements, they don't offer a lot of value in return.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Charges through the nose to support anything but multiplayer, like all the irritating apps that I have no interest in.

I could get behind a subscription if it actually provably went towards a consistently high-quality and better service, but seeing that the PS3 can do it for free proves that it's unnecessary.

I'd personally much rather a subscription that revolves around a certain number of hours of Gold, as opposed to a monthly thing; unless you play multiplayer pretty seriously it's impossible to really get yer money's worth, and what with many console games being 50/50 singleplayer/multiplayer focused, the more multiplayer-casual gamer like myself essentially buys half a game.

It's not so good, basically.

 

[Batou667]

Man, it's considered etiquette to at least outline the point being made in your post, otherwise you may as well have just have posted the URL and "discuss".

Anyway, as somebody who owns XBL Gold, I'm happy with it. The fact that XBL is better than the free alternative offered by Sony and Nintendo justifies the cost to me (I pay £40, which is the cost of a newish game. For 12 months access that really isn't so bad, and at any rate is eclipsed by my Internet and phone line bill, my electricity bill, and other running costs).

Could it be better value for money? Arguably. Well. yes, actually. One industry standard I would like to see becoming standardised is dedicated servers. The fact that Halo 4, for example, requires XBL Gold to play online and yet Microsoft can't be bothered to stump up the cost of some decent servers, is absolutely disgraceful. There's no excuse for that. Similarly annoying is when DLC becomes unsupported (Halo Reach), or the multiplayer component of a game is dropped completely (I think think this was the case in Chromehounds?)

The idea of paying for online access is in theory fine by me - it means I have less screaming 12-year olds in my multiplayer games, and the fact that it's a paid service discourages modders, hackers, and offensive players. What I would like to see in return is a bit more premium service in return for the steady cashflow. A few more free games wouldn't go amiss, and the Games On Demand could certainly stand to be a little cheaper than they are now (frankly, if you pay to download a game more than a month after release you're a mug, since you're paying launch price for a game which is now 25% cheaper in physical form).

Also I didn't enjoy the article and the writer seems like a whiny, entitled manchild who doesn't realise he can play System Link if £40 a year is out of his grasp (which it isn't).

 

[Cronq]

You cannot use the word value and Xbox Live in the same sentence.

The fact is, you're forced to pay for things that are FREE on every other competing platform. Steam DESTROYS Xbox Live's platform and is free. PSN+ gives you massive amounts of value for your money and PS3 is an extremely capable and useful living room box that doesn't require a subscription to access your subscription of other services.

 

[squid5580]

I pay for XBL and I don't play much mp or use the party system all that much. And I am still happy with it (except for all the ads and the destruction of themes). Early access to demos plus all the money I save from their weekly deals more than pays the initial 60 bucks I pay. Free apps that I use and the odd free game is just icing on the cake.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I feel that, if MS is going to change for online play, there should be three levels of service. One, the current Silver, that is free but offers pretty much nothing. A second that has a lower subscription but includes online play and maybe a few other features. A third that has online play plus all of the apps, demo access, etc. that the current Gold has.

Currently, while I don't necessarily mind paying for online play, I don't bother keeping my Gold level up most of the time because I don't play online all that much and the extras are largely useless to me. Outside of multiplayer, Gold has pretty much no value for me. If, however, I could have online play and only online play at a lower cost I would probably be subbed all the time.

 

[baddude1337]

I do pay for it but I do think it's a bit of a con I'd feel more keen for it without the constant ads in my face. As someone who doesn't have a great internet, the video ads on EVERY part of the dashboard really make the marketplace hard to use as it is so slow, which is kind of funny. The ads are making it harder for me to buy things. Not to mention all the useless apps they make I'm never going to use.

 

[lord's voken]

xbl shouldnt have went free a long time. the pc does what it does and does it better and all for free. as long as people keep buying, then m$ will keep doing. no reason to throw away free money right? why would anybody pay money to play games on a peer to peer network is beyond me. i could see if m$ or publishers provided servers or something, but really as it is just more proof that people are tools and sheeple.

why is cross game chat so wonderful that it justifies the cost? do people no longer have cell phones or house phones with 3way calling? just saying

 

[Zeckt]

I hate to distrupt your unprovoked mud slinging Batou667, but ps3 has much improved since 5 years ago from whatever point of time your comparing it to. Free games, better game discounts and "benefits" like netflix and multi player are not held hostage. Xbox was great 4 years ago at the height of the arcade that made it great but now the arcade games can't hold a candle to the 50 zillion more arcade like games on steam or exclusives like unfinished swan and journey on psn.

As it stands, I see no reason for paying for live other then wanting to support the microsoft exec fund so they can all afford sports cars. Why give them money when the alternatives are not only better but free? xbox live is a distant third, and you have to PAY for it.

Xbox is in third place in terms of service and benefits, yet its the only one that charges AND plasters their add filth all over the place. But hey, it's your money.

 

[Weaver]

I think it's a complete rip off and I refuse to pay for it.
Steam offers me a far better service for absolutely free.

Hell, most of what XBL does Battle.NET was doing in 1998... also for free.

 

[Red-X]

Seems we have a nice variety of opinions here.

I like how the article points out how the other consoles do not charge for players to play online, which seems to be one of the main selling points of the service. I don't play online games hardly at all so that didn't interest me, but some of the apps do. Unfortunately to use these, you need to have a Gold account. Some of these require a monthly fee as well, such as Netflix and Hulu. To me, paying a monthly fee to access a service that requires another monthly fee is not really that productive. On the flip side, some of these apps are free and require no charge to view as long as you have Gold. But these are usually services you can access online without the aid of your Xbox.

I would like Microsoft to make the service free, but I just don't see that happening.

 

[StupidNincompoop]

Yeah i think that having a monthly subscription fee to xbox live is a terrible thing and shouldn't be repeated in other consoles.

Firstly, i found the playstation network alternative to be better most of the time than xbox live, it seems like xbox live is sometimes more laggy and just not really worth paying extra for it when PSN is free and basically the same thing, sometimes even outperforming it.

Secondly, it's really looking like xbox live will soon be just completely dead. It might've been good a few years ago, but since there's been so many factors resulting in a lower amount of people, it feels like xbox live isn't as good now because there's very few games that actually have people still playing them on live.

For example, i've recently been playing CoD blops 2, and it's actually quite difficult to find matches on it, there hardly seemed to be any matches available on it, and only the odd person with a headset. Feels like there's more people who use mics on the PC. It took like 5 minutes to get 8 players for a zombie mode on the game, and this is supposedly the most popular game on xbox right now.

Once the new console generation comes out, xbox live will be very quickly completely dead, where as there might still be a few people playing on playstation network. You wouldn't want to keep paying for a service if you can hardly find anybody else to interact with on said service.

 

[lord's voken]

as infinite_713 so nicely put it

But we are already paying for netflix and paying for internet. Why should we have to pay for Gold to access something else we're already paying for(netflix) used by something we are already paying for(internet)

also just going to link to a PA article about how m$ is really screwing over all its xbox users. he ads they put up on the dashboard are making more money than god and yet you still pay $60 a year to view them.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/ads-up-games-down-the-ugly-profitable-truth-about-xbox-live-advertising

 

[GiantRaven]

When the Xbox 360 became the first device to stream Netflix movies to your television, the extra cost of Gold was a no brainer.

Personally I think the opposite is true. Asking for a subscription to use a service that also requires it's own subscription is beyond ridiculous.

 

[CommanderL]

I used to buy it then over time I realized it wasnt worth it for a paid service there are a fuck ton of ad's then I jumped to pc and have never been happier

 

[Colt47]

I finally got around to stopping automatic renewal this year. Xbox Live is a freaking disaster now compared to what it was before they changed the dashboard. I've gone PS3/PS Vita/PC at the moment and it is working out a lot better for covering the bases than Xbox Live.

 

[Lunar Templar]

yeah, knew that, years ago.

I could never get my head around why I should pay some one, to use something, I was already paying for.

But then my first 'online multi-player' experience was City of Heroes (RIP), where the monthly fee went to paying the staff to keep the game running.

 

[thesilentman]

Value is zero. If I can get Steam to do this for me for free, I really don't see why MS needs to have it be paid. There's absolutely no reason unless they're worried about their money stream lessening. I don't see how they'll lose money.

Oh, nevermind. Windows will, if they tabletize the desktop.