Let’s make thy Marketplace better
Last month, Major Nelson asked for your suggestions as to how the 360, Xbox.com and the Xbox Live experience could be made better. This month, the Major is asking for suggestions on what would make the Marketplace a better place, suggesting what the Ten Commandments should be.
Last month I made a post, asking you for your thoughts and suggestions on how we can make the Xbox 360 experience better. This month, I’d like to kick off another conversation this time around Marketplace. The Xbox Live Marketplace is an area where the community has had some vibrant and colorful discussions. Last week we posted details on some of the polices around Gamerscore, but I wanted to extend that to Marketplace. As you can imagine, we have some very specific guidelines and policies in place for Marketplace, but I want to open up the floor for discussion and see what the community thinks. I’d like to frame this as what should the ‘Xbox Live Marketplace 10 Commandments’ look like?
Discuss.
So what would you all like to see? Perhaps the most obvious thing is not to abuse consumers by allowing companies to charge for things already on the disc, like extra fish, or cheat codes that help advance you in the game. Another one (which probably won’t ever happen) would be making content available for everyone across the world, and get rid of the region restricted Marketplace. Unlikely I know, but something which many still beg for. Some reduced Arcade titles would make a lot of people smile too.
So post away in the comments below about what you want to see. At the time of writing, comments had risen to 407 on the Major’s blog, but do keep adding to it, and let us know below what you really think.
UK to get the VID MP!!! DAm US get everythin first!
thats because microsoft is an american company so we’re its first priority =D
still not very fair, i kknow what ur saying but c’mon! uve had the VID MP foor ages, MS are missing out on a lot of my cash!
they let the US report all the bugs in the software that they find, then MS fixies the bugs and release it in EU =)
yeah good for the bugs, but we still need the VID MP, comeon without europe they wouldn’t be over 10M xbox360 sold would it, we count also, we already pay more than US and JAPAN and get products late is not fair.
You pay more because you have a higher standard of living.
Bollocks.
For their cash Americans have a far higher standard of living.
I know people in reasonable jobs that can’t even hope to own their own house in the city they work. Now thats just pish.
I know that it’s ilegal but to get the makertplace I had to create a fake id to get the VID MP from UK. So just give us the stuff and we’ll stay legal. Peace.
I agree with the statement in the artical about not charging for stuff thats already on the disk.
However thats probably never going to happen as EA would call shenanigans on it as they wouldn’t be able milk every single penny out of there customers.
You know “EA Sports - It’s all about the money”
Can we PLEASE get full HD film downloads please?
£3 for an HD rental? BRING IT ON!
Previews
I personally find it very annoying themes and picture packs have no preview. I’d like to know what it is before buying it, everything else has a demo or trial.
Faster downloads, no unlock sh1t, global downloads including video marketplace, ratings & tell a friend in downloads, screenshot previews of demos
for the love of God can we please get more than one person chat rooms at a time. I hate having to switch between rooms to talk to different friends. This also would have been perfect in Lost Planet online because apparently only 8 year olds played it online against me and my friends.
for the love of God can we please get more than one person chat rooms at a time. I hate having to switch between rooms to talk to different friends. This also would have been perfect in Lost Planet online because apparently only 8 year olds played it online against me and my friends.
Its more Japanese people i run into.
I agree with having multiple friends chat groups. Other than that. NO VID MP for those crazy euros hahaha j/k
All I wanted was Xvid/Divx codecs added to the system. Instead I have to use the superb Transcode 360 to do this. If the PS3 apparently has these codecs, then why can’t MS follow suit?
Group chat is needed, and VID MP!
1.clan support 2.group chat 3.50+ plus players in game(cod,graw and etc) 4.customize gaame lobbies( as u can play ur own music and have different backgrounds)5. better rep system 6.more independent server 7.in game feedback on the games
1. Not really the marketplace though is it?
2. Refer to point 1
3. Refer to point 2
4. Refer to point 3
5. Refer to point 4
6. Refer to point 5
7. Are you really this stupid or are you making a special effort to come across that way?
Anyway, discounts on items that have been sat there for some time (arcade titles, pics or themes etc.)
Can someone explain to me what the big uproar is about paying for content that’s locked on the CD? I don’t really understand why it’s that big a deal. Ultimately it’s all just data, whether it comes on a silver thing or comes over a wire or the airwaves into your house. Why is there so much outrage when the bits you’re unlocking are on the silver thing?
It seems like a holdover from the days where the material object was what you were buying. In the case of a video game, it’s not the media you’re really buying, it’s a bunch of bits (regardless of where they come from). If you’re happy paying $60 for a game on CD that only takes up 70% of the available space, why is it a big deal for the company to put stuff on that other 30% of the available space? It takes less of your time to unlock it if you already have the disc than if you had to download it, right?
As an extreme example, it’s not going to be long before storage capacity has the potential to vastly exceed the size of any one game. While I think it’s more likely that distribution will head towards the internet, there’s always the possibility that you could get free discs from somewhere that have 50 games on them, each of which has to be unlocked by purchasing it.
I guess it just seems to me that at this point it’s really about bits and how much you’re willing to pay for those bits, and that’s the end of the story. It doesn’t really matter to me how I get those bits or if they happen to live on a piece of plastic I already “own”.
Sorry about the (lack of) paragraph breaks in that comment. I thought the “br” tag was one of the allowed tags. Nope…
The issue is you are buying the disc and all of it’s contained media. Which is not what is being delivered. If it’s on the disc then it ain’t new downloadable content, it’s something which you have already purchased but not been given access to.
Would you be happy if you bought a car/house, paid for the lot only to be told that yes, it is all yours, but sorry you can’t actually access or use it until you give me some more money for the key to said car/house.
Of course I wouldn’t be happy in that situation. But I don’t think it’s comparable, because the house/car itself is the material good. In this case, there are two distinct different items changing hands. One is the game itself, and the other is the transport medium. In some ways I think of it like a CD. When I buy a music CD now, I rip the files to MP3s. At that point, I’ll probably keep the CD as a backup, but I don’t really care if it gets broken or scratched. I was only getting the CD to transport the music from the store to my computer/iPod. Once that’s done, I don’t really care too much about the media used to get it from one place to the other.
Another example might be a DVD movie. If I were to buy a DVD, and the last 20 minutes of the movie were locked, I would be furious. If I were to play through 30 hours of Oblivion and then the last 10 hours of story/endgame were locked, I would definitely be pissed off.
But if I buy Dance Dance Revolution and it comes with 50 songs on it (as advertised on the box), with the ability to purchase more in different genres that are already on the disk, I’m perfectly okay with that. I bought a full game and received a full game. If I only want to purchase the additional Country Hoe-Down song pack and not Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Polka, then that’s my choice as a consumer. I don’t really care if the songs are squirreled away on my disc somewhere…in fact, I would probably appreciate the convenience.
I suppose it really comes down to context. For me it depends on how the product is advertised, whether I feel the company sold me less than promised, and whether I feel like I’m getting what I paid for (both in the original purchase and in purchasing additional content).
Here’s another spin on it: what if the last 10 hours of Oblivion content had to be downloaded and paid for separately? Would you feel like the company was justified, because the 10 hours wasn’t actually on the disc you bought? After all, you only paid for the disc, so if the disc doesn’t have the complete game you shouldn’t be upset, right? Of course not. You would be pissed as hell, and it wouldn’t matter whether the remainder of the content was locked on the disc or was available on XBox Live. Ultimately (for me at least) it’s about whether the company gave me what I paid for, not how they gave it to me.
As I said you are buying the disk with and all media contained therein. Which I believe you are agreeing with to a point as you stated with the comparison to a DVD or CD.
If the media is on the transport tool that you have purchased then by rights you should have access to that material, otherwise I don’t think it should be transported on the disk in the first place.
Obviously this leads into your point on (hypothetically speaking) the last ten hours of oblivion being downloaded rather than being on the disk. While I take your point and see what you are getting at I would argue that this would not be legal. If you release a product without completing it fully, you would then be aware before putting anything like this on sale that a download would be required to have the complete product you are advertising. If this was not made apparant to the consumer then I feel you would be in danger of breaking advertising standards on mis-selling. So while you do have a valid point I don’t think it is something that could legally happen without the consumer being made aware before purchase that they are buying an incomplete product and will have to pay later. If this was advertised in this way then I would have no real problem with it, the problem would lie with those stupid enough to buy it.
And therein lies the crux of the whole matter, as I said previously you are buying a disk and all media contained within (or this is at least how the product is marketed to me) there is no sign of any upfront advertising confirming that you will not have access to all features on the disc unless you are willing to pay more in the future. So by that reckoning alone I would surmise that to lock content on a disc to be sold to the consumer without any knowledge that they are not being given access to all the media contained in the transport device is not perhaps in itself ileagal but can you really deny it is morally wrong or misleading?
And this is why I would agree that people have a right to be a tad peeved about content locked on the disc.
My opnion anyway.
Yes, those are valid points too. I guess ultimately it comes down to your level of tolerance. If I feel like I got what was advertised, then I don’t mind if there’s additional stuff on the disc I have to pay for, and I don’t care if they didn’t disclose it up front. Other people would see that as a deceitful advertising, and I could definitely see their point.
Preview on gamer pictures is needed like someone said above, a browser like on the ps3 would be sick, but thats a lot to add in a patch, we’d probably be downloading for a while. Downloading during gameplay would be nice, I mean when do you come across something youd like to dl, when you are on ur xbox, then you cant play anything til its done.