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larsig (780)   Sep 09, 2009 - 09:48 am

It's hardly bad for gamers. Without xbox live we wouldn't have nearly the online support from the other two that we have now. Of course that's not saying much, their services are still shitty in comparison. Just becaues you have to pay for something doesn't mean that its ruining gaming... Pay $6-7 or so for hours of more gameplay, what is wrong with that? If all games stayed at $50 on release with no alternate revenue streams (no adds, no dlc etc) then the games and services we see now would be much worse off. Companies would have no incentive to invest money in something of questionable profitability, and as it stands they barely have any initiative. True there are exceptions like Blizzard and valve of course, but consider how many companies like that exist. Activision/Blizzard has a cash cow and established name, they can afford to toss money around. Valve, they are an established name and know that whatever games they make will have a good chance of doing well. The other major publishers, EA, THQ and so on are in a bad spot even with the current model of dlc and so on. You may say they should just come out with better games, but think why are there bad games? Is it because the developers and publishers set out to make a bad game? Think about that. No one in the software industry wants their projects to fail, but it happens for various reasons, preventable and otherwise. You can go on your rantings and crusades about cheaper games and free additional content all you like. You can boycott all these games/systems all you want. But this is reality, the real world. No one is altruistic at the core, we're all greedy bastard (Not necessarily in a monetary sense). For a company, to be truly altruistic (For the sake of others and not caring about consequences to one's self, good or bad) is financial suicide and contrary to the very nature of a corporation. All those developers, artists, etc that spent thousands of man-hours on creating content, and they need to feed themselves and their families. To these corporations, they need to keep their employees and stockholders happy. How can they do this if gamers expect their main source of income to be cheaper (while cost of production increases) and provide free additional features? True valve is passing this content for free out to customers, but consider that this content is being distributed over Live, which wile is not additional content is a service like your internet and power. It takes a lot of time to develop for and maintain, do the people working on these projects not deserve to be compensated? The next time you ask for something free, consider the people working on the products/services. Do they deserve to be paid? Do they deserve to have their living sustained at a level fitting for their skill and knowledge? Free is only an illusion, it is being paid for somehow, either by people working or the customer. I prefer the customer take the hit. » Login to reply to this  doomtrooper (742)   Sep 09, 2009 - 04:11 pm Good points! I completely agree with you, but it still sucks for 360 owners. » Login to reply to this

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jacobvandy (1019)    Sep 09, 2009 - 02:07 pm

it's $5.60, isn't it? » Login to reply to this

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Yoshi (2319)    Sep 09, 2009 - 09:07 am

It kind of sucks for Xbox owners that they are going to pay for it but I guess that is what happens when you are a console gamer. Though I can understand why Microsoft would want to charge for it. They will make a cut of the money which stands to be a lot. Also free content for one game makes people think other companies should do the same (which they should) and if that happens the download content on Live ends up costing Microsoft money instead of making money. » Login to reply to this

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