![Microsoft Rep Issues Statement In Response To MS Rewards Concerns](https://images.purexbox.com/0076680efd724/microsoft-rep-issues-statement-in-response-to-ms-rewards-concerns.900x.jpg)
There's been a lot of talk about Microsoft Rewards in the Xbox community and beyond over the past few weeks and months, and sadly it's not always been for the best reasons. Those who use the program regularly have noticed that many ways of earning points have been reduced, and that's been happening as recently as this week.
The disgruntlement has been very apparent, and yet Microsoft hasn't been actively responding to it. However, the website WIndows Latest has now received a statement from a Microsoft spokesperson, and it reads as follows:
"Over the last few years, the Microsoft Rewards program has regularly evolved to reflect our growth and expansion. We evaluate every change for consistency and fairness, tuning the methods and frequency through which our members can earn points."
"Whether searching with Bing, browsing with Edge, playing on Xbox, or making purchases in the Microsoft store, we know our members take delight in the added incentive the Microsoft Rewards program offers. We aim to grow in ways that continue to provide value to our members, and we eagerly monitor feedback to ensure satisfaction. We appreciate the enthusiasm and loyalty of our Microsoft Rewards members and remain excited for the program’s future."
While it's definitely a bit of a generic statement, it's good to know that Microsoft is apparently still "excited for the program's future" and it will "aim to grow in ways that continue to provide value to our members". That said, it would have been nice for more transparency about exactly why certain decisions have been made over the past few months.
Why did we need to lose the Monthly Bonus Round points? Why are the Microsoft Edge bonuses being taken away? If Microsoft just came out and said, "it's because you were earning too many points for it to be sustainable", we could actually sympathise with that. As it stands, there's still a lot of secrecy that leaves us too much in the dark.
Nevertheless, we obviously still love this program and continue to earn thousands of points with it per-month! It's been amazing for the most part, and we're just hoping this trend of declining points doesn't continue too much longer.
What are your thoughts on this statement? Let us know down in the comments section below.
[source windowslatest.com]
Comments 46
I remember when this first started it was 150 points for just playing a game pass game or unlocking an achievement and even farther back you would get points every month for just getting achievements and or having a high gamerscore think it was called just VIP back then ha
Over the last few years, the Microsoft Rewards program has regularly evolved to reflect our growth and expansion.
TL Note: We're raking in so much money we don't feel obligated to lure people in with rewards anymore so we're slowly cutting them away.
Remember when a $5 MSP gift card was 500 points? Then 800 points? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
"We aim to grow in ways that continue to provide value to our members." Well obviously not considering you only go about finding ways to reduce the value if not flat out remove it. Microsoft's word is trash anyways, "we have no plans to close the 360 store in the foreseeable future", and then the foreseeable future ended a month later.
@InterceptorAlpha It's the same reason they ended the Backwards Compatibility program - they felt Game Pass was more than enough 'n axed it. Who could imagine why such a short sighted company will be the eternal Third Place console maker.
Well, it's obvious some PR nonsense, but frankly, Microsoft doesn't have to do this rewards programme. I have benefitted so much from it with Tesco vouchers, Game Pass Ultimate, and whatever else I've used points for so I'm going to be happy with whatever I get out of it considering it's cost me absolutely nothing.
We are getting fewer points, but so what? I'm grateful this exists at all.
he said a whole lot of nothing burger.
Yeah it's slowly just going to get worse untill it's none existent
@Lightning720 take what you can get and screw them when you get the chance every company out there just wants the money in your pocket at the end of the day
It's going to disappear or be obsolote before it comes to all regions.
I am probably the type of person that made them reevaluate the program lol. I remember quite a few times earning enough to pay for a month of gamepass AND being able to get a month of PS plus from the menial daily tasks. Sucks they seem to be slowly whittling away at the program and I agree with what you said. If they were just honest about it instead of the typicla PR word salad it would be an easier pill to swallow.
Maybe with reward’s dropping. Microsoft could replace it with a way to buy 12months gamepass at a yearly price. So yes we lose points to buy GPU with, but if we buy 12months we get it for say £120 instead of £150.
That’s a lot of words to say nothing. I’d prefer they just say nothing if they’re going to pretend we are all stupid and gives us drivel like that.
I will be sure to milk them for everything I can before thus inevitably turns into something as bad as PS Stars.
It’s a reward … so I’m grateful. However change sucks!
@PsBoxSwitchOwner I've been asking this for years now! I enjoyed and did buy Xbox live at yearly intervals to get a discount. Why Microsoft not going this with indie pas.... I mean game pass...is very telling.
That was the most PR response I’ve ever read. Blindly ignoring what people are upset about and giving the most vague response back lol
@Altaria_97 yeh. It may as well said ,get over it
"If you want to keep getting rewards you're gonna have to subscribe to gamepass. And then we'll take those away too."
Is there a way to speed-run/farm these reward points quicker and efficiently?
I agree utterly with your end conclusions Pure Xbox, as in I would have definitely appreciated Microsoft just being honest in saying people were earning too many points for it to remain sustainable or something along those lines.
Instead we get continued secrecy about their intended real plans and one very generic statement about feedback, user satisfaction and excitement for programs future. Well I’m sorry, how on Earth can Microsoft be excited for the programs future when they have spent the last year slashing it to the bone? Also as InterceptorAlpha points out, the cost of rewards has gone up and up over time too.
Yes it may have been too generous once, but it also put Microsoft head and shoulders over any rivals reward schemes. Now however it’s not swinging to the middle ground but to the complete opposite side - tightfisted, stingy. They are seemingly killing the rewards program bit by bit yet they want us to believe they are excited for its future? yeah, great joke Microsoft, I really needed the laugh.
The daily activities on PC have dropped from 10 points yesterday to 1 point today; it's not looking too good for the rewards now on top of the cooldown on doing quick searches
@Gollum No, seems like it's been getting worse each day this week. I used to type in yyyyyyyy and delete one letter at a time to get my searches done but they've caught on to that. Today I noticed some of the news articles went down from 10 points to 2 points. Not worth the time.
@Beetlebum91 That's a shame, I guess I am late to the party then.
It just seems like a generic statement which was probably just sent out rather than anyone actually acknowledging anything. It has almost seemed like it winding down in the past couple of months. I'll go on the console app and there is no longer anything there except the weekly streak. Maybe they are getting ready for a relaunch in the new year but I am not holding my breath. Not overly concerned about it but the lack of any communication is actually poor.
My OCD keeps me going every day no longer what points I can get. If they stopped it I might be able to take a s**t in the morning without searching or doing a quiz. Still love it.
@Beermonkey I know, I was thinking about all the things I could do if they just shut it down.
@Beetlebum91 I know. This morning I spent 20 mins searching breeds of dogs because Microsoft have introduced AI in searches so my random crap search doesn't work... I need my mornings back. Got 3 years of ultimate still so happy.
That's the only reason, it was way too generous, people were getting free games, free Game Pass Ultimate, free consoles, free controllers... Some people have more than one account for Rewards. On Switch you get JPEGs for the UI and a little bit of credit if you buy games digitally (you know how expensive the eShop is); on PS5, low-value stars, so Microsoft Rewards still is the best. However, I've read comments somewhere saying that they're selling their Xbox because of this? 😳
Even if it disappears, we have received a lot of free credit so far. You can check how many points you have earned on the Rewards website, if you're curious. I haven't hunted points and still received a lot of points in the last years.
It's not that I'm happy to get less free credit, of course I'm not, but the deals that Microsoft was offering were madness, not just this but the 1:1 ratio conversion from Gold using one-year discounts to Game Pass Ultimate. I'm sure that they removed the one pound/euro/dollar offer because some people made one account per month just for playing Game Pass Ultimate (that also includes EA Play) for almost nothing.
MS can't stop my infinite Game Pass membership.
Errrr something is definitely going on
https://photos.app.goo.gl/CoQdRxjCoETsNV6o9
I don't think Xbox will be around for the next generation. I bet they will go the same route as Sega and stop making consoles and just sell games as that will make them more money.
They just won't say it because everyone will stop buying games for their Series X/S consoles and switch to PS.
Sorry it's my fault... for 7 years in a row I managed to hit myself yearly half a million spend limit before July and based on how many points I currently have banked ill hit that limit before February lol.
They actually banned me once for nearly a month because they didn't think it was possible for me to earn what I was earning but I searched on bing, I did every quest there too and on Xbox. I spent money in the store and used bing rebates on top of it and I had a 72 week streak at one point (until the ban which reset it) so I was making lots of free money. Hell my game pass ultimate is paid up through end of 2025 and I haven't paid for Xbl gold or gp since 2016.
One change they probably should make is they shouldn't let you earn points on store credit purchases. I understand they do because gift cards and they don't want those people to look out but on the other hand there's me paying for a game or movie using free money and on top of that (before a rule change) I was also earning bing cash back rebates and more free points off the deal.
I always wished Sony had a good program but even with their recent improvements and Microsofts downgrades the Xbox rewards program is still significantly better than Sonys or anyone else's for that matter.
The weekly streak isn't that big of a loss when you think about it. The bigger loss is the daily achievement for 50 points but you can make them up by loading the Xbox mobile app every day, playing a PC game pass game if possible every day and also playing jewel on the mobile app. That's nearly 200 points for 5 min of effort.
@Dirk_Diggler gotta disagree and for 1 big reason. The whole point of the Xbox was because Microsoft wanted not only the computer room but also a box under every TV
They got damn close with the Xbox 360 until Mattrick really messed it up then made it worse with the Xbox one.
Microsoft is slowly earning people back and Sony is coasting on brand recognition. I've barely used my PS5 and I've had it since launch. I use my Xbox and PC constantly. Microsoft just needs a steady cadence of great 1st party games and I think they are just about there.
The only other change they should probably make is to be a bit more hands on with the studios. I know they like to let each dev run their own show but sometimes that doesn't always work out well... 343. Yeah Infinite is now an amazing game but it took 2 extra years when the mismanagement could have been caught sooner. I don't think 343 is the only studio taking advantage of unlimited budgets either.
So maybe some studio can work like separate companies but not all of them at least not unless they prove they can handle it. Hell even Bungie couldn't do it. They had a MS employee in office at all times keeping them on track because they tended to fall behind or just start over.
Just look at what happened to them once they got away from activision... Destiny fell apart. Sony bought them because they thought they were live service geniuses but really all they did was make a good fps (again) and keep making content... they didn't do anything special at all lol.
The free ride had to end sometime, it was far far too generous.
Although... the ride is actually still ongoing, just less generous, so enjoy it whilst you can folks... and try not to be too entitled, it's still way better then their competitors offer and they are under absolutely zero obligation to give you stuff for just clicking on things. It really has been, and continues to be pretty great.
Things actually continue to get worse. The random dailies that used to be 10pts are now 2pts today.
I normally only receive a £5 or £10 voucher once a year just for logging in to my games. Noticed a few weeks ago the points for just signing in have been reduced to a third of what they were. Since then I've been going out my way to make up for it scoring more than I usually do. From what I've heard it's going to be scrapped altogether so the aim is to keep racking up the points to see what I can get before it's put to an end
@JetmanUK The clicking on things is what they want through, it helps them. They’re not doing it out of the kindness of their heart.
@FatalBubbles Of course, that's how things work online, everywhere, we all understand that.
That doesn't mean that they are obligated to give us anything in return for our clicks. It's a nice bonus for us.
Sounds promising
@d0x3601 You are 100% right. Xbox is part of Microsoft's strategy and is working, boosting subscribers numbers and gaming revenue. Sony coasting on brand recognition won't work indefinitely, that's why Sony is trying PSVR2, Portal and games as service.
Regarding Xbox studios, I would add the Initiative, a new studio that was not able to do anything until Crystal Dynamics, a studio that Square Enix sold and that Microsoft should have acquired, took the helm. Please Phil, no infinite budgets and have someone supervise some of the Xbox Game Studios because only some of them are working efficiently on their own, I'm afraid.
To me it seems like in 4 years we will be not only paying $30/mo for less than we are getting today on Game Pass, it will be downgraded just like Games for Gold.
I'm currently on 190 week streak on Xbox rewards and over 494 daily streak on the browser....I can't remember the last time I paid for a game or controller... I'll keep going until it's closed down.
@Beermonkey 1 point today
ACTIONS matter, not words. And their actions show the opposite.
@JetmanUK equally we could use Chrome not Edge, Google not Bing. No they are not obligated to give us anything for those clicks, but it’s the only reason many here use their platforms
@themightyant Again, of course you could, but MS don't have to have the rewards scheme at all. Sure it's an incentive to push their products, but they could choose another path to push their products. It's a nice bonus and I am greatful for it. Again, look at Nintendo and Sony's equivalent schemes and see what you think. I say this as a mutliplat gamer, so I am fully aware. We have had it good (too good!), so enjoy it whilst you can.
They've already neutered it to the point where it's no long worth doing. Typical Microsoft garbage, they ruin every half-decent thing they have.
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