Xbox's Games With Gold announcements often seem to be met with similar feelings these days - disappointment. There's no denying that it's delivered some great games and everyone's tastes won't line up with one another, but the general feeling seems to be largely negative on the whole, especially since the emergence of Xbox Game Pass. But is it justified? Does Xbox deserve the criticism that's being thrown its way?
April's selection is... debatably mediocre. Especially when compared with PlayStation Plus this month which includes Oddworld: Soulstorm. The argument could be made that these are 'free' games, but they're not - not really.
With the requirement of a Gold membership, you're still contributing to a service which is becoming more and more meaningless by the day. Free-to-play games are finally taking away the requirement for Xbox Live Gold, and Xbox Party Chat is becoming free to use. Even long-term fans of GwG are beginning to question these titles and decisions.
Microsoft originally tried to increase the price of Xbox Live Gold earlier this year, but in a quick U-turn, decided against it and made some of those decisions listed above. Even so, it's becoming very abundantly clear that Xbox Game Pass is the focus moving forward, and these small changes feel like a push, rather than a nudge in that direction.
Games With Gold at this point has become one of the only elements keeping Gold afloat, but if the quality of titles is detrimental to its reputation, where does that leave it? Is it time to just put the service, and Xbox Live Gold, to bed?
What do you think about Games With Gold? Let us know in the comments below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 28
It's a perk. Not a reason. A free game every now and then is nice.
I'm not really bothered either way. All though its nice to have 4 games i dont aready unlike PlayStation Plus. I own both PlayStation 4 games.
I'm mostly just annoyed they have 3 different subscription services. Just pack it into 1 for god's sake!
Yes, it only has regressed because that's by design. MS can easily improve it, but they want to get you to upgrade to Ultimate.
MS has no reason to put good games on this service. They’ve already shown with the price increase attempt that they want to get rid of this service completely and try to get everyone onboard with GPU. Why put a great game on a service you want to get rid of instead of putting it on a service you’re trying to push. That doesn’t make business sense.
I have Game Pass Ultimate, so it's not something that bothers me either way. I just claim the games as they come whether I play them or not. I mean, the output could be a little better, but it does seem like all of the stronger titles lean in Game Pass territory over Games with Gold.
I don't understand the complaints. Even if Hard Corps was the only GWG it would be great Hard Corps is fantastic and everyone should play it if you enjoyed the likes of Contra.
Best outcome is Gold dropped completely and online multiplayer for all games being free, not just free to play ones.
Though if instead dropping Gold would mean Game Pass being required to play online, I'd much rather put up with the bad Games With Gold months.
They should simplify the offering. Live Gold for those who don’t want games(online only) and then a single gamepass sub. I always pick up the free game with gold but rarely play, they could just as easily add these games to GPU.
For the sake of simplicity, I think that Gold should be integrated into Game Pass or just disappear. Games with Gold don't change over time but third-party games on Game Pass do so the only question is if our Xbox One Games with Gold collection will be converted somehow.
No GWG has been horrible for awhile now, Time to take it behind the barn..
Judging by its games over the last several months then I'd say no, just scrap GWG to help keep the cost of gamepass down.
To me it just seems that MS keeps GwG to keep non Ultimate subscribers from crying. Ever since Gamepass started the quality with GwG has just gone down. In all honesty they should just do away with GwG and just have one Xbox Gold which is the ultimate version. I get it though doing so will make it so non Ultimate subs would have to pay more money per month and then you will get some of them crying I want games I can keep, Gamepass rotates games too often. In all honesty though you don't keep the GwG either.
But yeah in my opinion they should just drop GwG
How about just integrate everything into one? Give out the bonus games, while still having Gamepass. Win-win.
@Bmartin001 Amen to that!!
Just keep it around, but up the quality. I have no reason to want Game Pass, and no interest in it either, so why would I subscribe to something that I'd hardly ever use? Being able to play online with friends and the odd freebie is all I need, so I'm good with GwG.
And besides: I definitely HATE being pushed/forced into something, so that's never going to happen anyway. If they would simply stop GwG, then I'll probably just revert to a "silver" subscription, only playing solo and offline.
But having said that, if they fully integrate it into GamePass and we keep the free games, then I could probably be tempted to come to the dark side...
I'll never say no to free games from a service I would use anyway, no matter how the bad games are. No skin off my nose to build a library of games if they don't have to all take up hard drive space. That said, I probably wouldn't miss it too much with Game Pass taking up the most appealing titles for the subscription I'm paying.
I like GWG but it would be more palatable if the monthly BC games were 4
@SegataSanshiro Gold has been a paradise for people that skipped Xbox and Xbox 360 because you own those games when they are included in Gold. Even purchasing backwards compatible games feels like a good deal because they are usually cheap. My first Xbox was Xbox One and I found amazing how much value I was getting last generation, only surpassed by Game Pass this generation. The only aspect that Microsoft needed to improve was that there weren't many new games last generation but now there are over twenty Xbox Game Studios making games for Series X/S.
They need to give 'something' back with their Gold subscription so cancelling the games entirely is wrong - that makes it even worse than it is now - it needs to be as Competitive as PS+.
Get rid of games with gold and let online play be free.
Free Xbox Network services;
F2P MP (Which will be most PVP MP games soon enough)
Cloud Saves
Party Chat
XBL Gold Services;
Paid MP (essentially legacy and co-op titles)
GwG
Considering GwG has been terrible for a while, this essentially makes Gold a PvE/co-op tax. At best, it's a poor value service. At worst, it's a middle finger to certain sections of the xbox community.
They need more real games and less of these shovelware games that nobody wants.
I have a sneaking suspicion that when they add Ubisoft to gamepass they will eliminate GwG and Xbox live but won't change the price of Ultimate. The price of Ultimate includes GwG and live so if it's free/dead you should be seeing a decrease in price, but Ubisoft will eat that up.
In a way, it feels like Sony realizes they can't compete with Game Pass, so they're putting everything they've got into PS+ instead. These last few months have had some great exclusives on PS+, while Xbox are trucking along as usual with GWG. And to think they wanted to raise te price. Good thing they backtracked on that immediately...
Gold offers so little value to me I’m currently planning to revert to game pass standard from ultimate, when my sub is up.
Will need xcloud to be very good and useful on iOS and Surface soon to have any sway.
I’d love to see Gold up it’s game, PS+ has been bloody brilliant for the last year since it went to PS4 games only (and now PS5 too) but I just don’t see this happening as it interferes with game pass
I think, that the whole Gold pass should be canceled. MS should concentrate on Game Pass and deliver the most value for it. Does that mean I don't want monthly free games I can keep as long as I subscribe? No. That can continue under Game Pass. Mediocre or not doesn't matter at all, because a) tastes differ and b) it's free stuff on top. Makes for a nice surprise once in a while - nothing more, nothing less.
PS:
I realize that some people like the price of the Gold program, but I honestly don't care. I want MS to put their resources into Game Pass. I don't think the price for GP is unreasonable, considering what you get, so I'm okay with cutting off old pigtails and some few disgruntled gamers. Sorry, guys, but there is a saying where I live: Those who don't go with the times, will go in time.
> I have a sneaking suspicion that when they add Ubisoft to gamepass they will eliminate GwG and Xbox live but won't change the price of Ultimate.
@Krzzystuff : Personally I think I would actually prefer that.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...