Xbox Users Are 'Gutted' About The Latest Microsoft Rewards Nerf

Lots of things got nerfed this morning, and I am pretty bummed about it. Not including the rewards app streak points, I probably earned about 200 less points today. Multiplied through a full month and divided by my normal earnings, I'd say it's about a 40% overall reduction for me. It's probably closer to 50% including the rewards app loss that is coming.

I'll still keep earning the points I'm getting though. I play games because I want to, not to simply earn rewards. Sure, there is less points to go around now, but it is what it is. People will complain, people will overreact... it's just human nature when it comes to change.

I can't be the only person who has heavier things weighing me down in life, so the loss of microsoft points barely registers. 😋

I am down something similar. Maybe 70% as it stands. Can no longer earn enough to pay for game pass for the month. I am hoping that something new hits soon to boost my points. At this rate I will have to start paying for game pass.

It's a shame, but, Microsoft is still a business and not a charity.

I am sure everything looked great at first, but it shouldn't come to anyone's surprise that if Microsoft isn't making any money because a lot of people are simply using points to fund Xbox purchases, something was going to change.

Being able to earn points by playing games that can be used to get more games is still pretty darn generous if you ask me - even if you can't get said games as often as you could before.

I don't have a pc so

Play a pc game and play with friends on a pc

Was something I never got but I'm guessing alot of people will be upset complain whilst there are more important things in the world going on just like the above comment says Microsoft is a business not a charity

I live in the states and they gutted the Xbox app over here pretty bad as well. I know they dropped down the PC rewards but I don’t own a PC so can’t tell you the exact amount. They dropped playing the jewel game from 30 to 5 and you no longer get points for have 7 plus friends and having game pass. So it went from 60 a day to now 5. In bing they dropped the daily as well down 20 points.

I wanted to add and it’s pretty crazy but there is no incentive with points to have game pass. In the app they got rid of the quest play a game pass game and get an achievement and it’s now just play a game for 2 more points. Like I mentioned above they got rid of the points for having game pass. It’s weird that they would take it that way. You would think hey if you have game pass get more points.

Microsoft Rewards were already not worth trying to collect before this.

They reduced playing jewel from 30 points to 5 and got rid of the points and maintaining 7 friends so that's 40 points daily gone.

Between this, killing off their physical division, looking to make Xbox digital only going forward and adding more micro-transactions to Final Fantasy XIV than the other platforms, Microsoft are deadset on being anti-consumer.

I used all the rewards for over two years to pay for gamepass. Sad to see it go but I’ll cut off all other subscription services before game pass.

Personally I never cared about pursuing these rewards, but I am likely not the target market. I rather spend my limited time playing what I want to play, not chasing fractions of a cent in rewards.

I do know some with limited means do rely on the program to pay their gamepass subscription and feel a bit bad for them.

I been playing on Steam a bit more lately, and seeing exploring things like trading cards and badges that make me wish Xbox out some time on similar features.

Allowing players to trade trading cards, and even sell them, could result in very similar community engagement goals and the community itself could be the ones paying for other players GP subscriptions.

I didn't know this was even a thing. I just play video games.

This is annoying as I've only recently been able to get the play with friends on PC points in the last few months since getting a new laptop.

It's hardly surprising, surely?

As far as I'm aware this was a beta effort that was only available to a very few people in very few regions.

MS rewards looks like they are trying to equalize points for people in every region, which I think is more than fair.

I might be biased as I wasn't one of the people in the UK who were picked to participate in the beta program but this just popped up on my rewards today so it looks like they have reduced points for the few so that the many can benefit.

@NostromoXP Well that is very nice then. I don't feel so bad losing points if it means you can have some. Welcome to the Microsoft Rewards party. Sorry you got a late invite. Also we drank most of the beers already.

@ShadowofTwilight to be fair the FFXIV Coins is just another form of payment. There is nothing stopping you paying Square Enix directly like I do as an existing customer.
But the advantage is if I want friends to play I can gift coins to them. Or if I get a xbox gift card as a reward from work or birthday/Christmas I could buy stuff I wouldn't buy with cash.

It was always a weird one. Fortunately this means I can fully quit microsoft reward points now. That was pretty much what was carrying them for me.

It's definitely upsetting to see Microsoft being anti-consumer rather than act (as per expectations),
generous and charitable, but I think I'll live with the changes 😄.....

oh well it was good while it lasted

I haven't done bad out of Rewards got a Series X, a series S, 42 games and 3/4 of the way there for a ps5 so cant moan

It seems Solitaire might no longer be my most played game this year…

Hate to say it but the rewards program was too generous... paying for my monthly Game Pass Ultimate subscription and I'm probably 1/3 of the way to covering my next gen Xbox console. Free GPU & consoles is not a good business model. I miss a good freebie like everyone else, but can't say I'm surprised with the nerfing.

@RBRTMNZ "Microsoft Rewards were already not worth trying to collect before this."

Mmm! I beg to differ... The rewards have allowed me to buy quite a bit of DLC for my games 👍

@RetroMan71 Sure, I’ve received rewards as well. I didn’t say you couldn’t. As a passive reward they’re great. The type of maxing out rewards that is being nerfed has never been a good deal.

288 daily points for Jewel and the 2 PC ones now reduced to 35 for play PC, console and jewel. 253 less points per day. Over 7500 less per month. Still more generous than the PS offering bit it's not so clear cut as to which console to play games on.

The headline here is really dramatic. I am not sure this is a widespread thought that people are "gutted". Are people disappointed? Probably. Anytime something is scaled back or taken away that was free is always a disappointment when scaled back.

Are people "gutted"? I don't feel gutted. To me rewards are a bonus and I save them up all year then convert them to XB gift cards. Doing so allows me to buy games/subscriptions into the new year. I just like they are giving me something back for what I pay and as I play.

@NeoRatt This one felt the biggest loss due to it having the extra bits added to it, but on the other hand the monthly is easier for me now as it's not tied to playing certain games.

It's paid for Game Pass, PS+ and Amazon vouchers and at the moment I'm still redeeming vouchers for around the same time on the three rolling dates, so I'm still happy.

@Astig I'm glad that we agree that it is better that I get 20 or 30 points more per day and you lose 100s

You don't jack up the prices then lower the amount you can earn, you do one or the other.

I get nowhere near as much as I used to each month. I’m not going to complain because it’s still free money though, I just accept it for what it is and use it as money off of games now.

@MinervaX fraction of a cent in points lol my whole family does Microsoft rewards as part of our morning routine. It takes less than 5 minutes in the morning with your coffee and we haven't paid for an Xbox game in years. Any cross platform game we're interested in, we ALWAYS get on Xbox because it can be purchased with points.

These changes do suck, but it's like three weeks out before they revamp the entire system. I have faith that things will continue to be worth the very minimal effort.

This is a good thing. Having rewards is one thing. Making it so they are so readily available that people just use those for things like Game Pass is going too far and ultimately not healthy for Xbox overall. I absolutely LOVE Game Pass and want it to be a successful model for MS. And I want MS to be highly profitable with Game Pass so they can bring better and better games to it.

People still can get reward points, just more realistic amounts of them.

A lot of ppl defending this and saying it's free and can't give away gp for free etc , it's never free , do you think Microsoft aren't making money off this ? They sell the search data from us our spending habits etc etc ,they get ppl into the ecosystem ( the more they get the less chance of them moving ) and the search data and user numbers look good to investors that will Invest more money , and now they give away less of what they make off us it's perfectly healthy for Microsoft

Edit : forgot to add advertisers as well , do you think rewards wants to know if we prefer pizza or bread for polls for fun ??? Some pizza company will invest in advertising off that data ka Ching more money

Revenue must be dipping so they need to make sure the consumer is spending so the CEO can give himself another raise.

@Martsmall somebody who gets it. People thinking MS (or Sony or whoever) do this out of the goodness of their own heart is crazy.

Plus they don’t factor in their time to get these ‘free’ rewards - for those able to work an extra hour a month it is far more efficient to do that.

That’s not to say it was a bad feature or anything but that there is far more to it.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner exactly , anyone who thinks the rewards system is FREE I've got a bridge I can sell them

They make far more than they give away FREE , they have grown into a 3 trillion dollar company by not giving stuff away FREE

They are paying for our data to get paid by others and it's not just the odd 1pence here and there It's millions

We used our hardware which is wear and tear ,electricity , our time (somedays play a pc game can take say 1 hour )
We buy Into the brand and stay with them because of the stuff we have in there already
When we play gp games our friends might go get gp so they can play with us and they might stay subbing to it so in the future the same thing
Then we stay on the platform but what if we think a game that's not on gp me and friends will enjoy ? We will buy it,more money for em
Plus the data they sell and more investors cause hey them search numbers are going up thanx to the odd pence they give us
Advertising data for the ads that they already know we like cause we just answered a poll on it

All for approx £8 a month? Yeh really FREE poor Microsoft ( or any other company that makes money from data like FB )

MS just becoming more and more irrelevant to me. Good works HQ!

“Dammit, Microsoft: we want more something for nothing!”

I wish I never wasted the points I have had over the years on sweepstakes, I think I might of accumulated just over half a million.

I once had a crap phone and no PC/laptop years ago so the web browser on the Xbox one was great at the time, it was the best thing I had and it was a really good way to stack them up but here we are today.

the play on pc has never worked for me, so im not missing anything out,

Personally I feel it is what it is. Yes rewards was great, I earned enough over time for 3 controllers, numerous games and my last splurge was an amazon voucher but good things come to an end. I'll keep earning but not as devoted to it as I once was.

It was always a matter of time before they stopped just handing out money like that. As it was last year I still earned over £250 worth of rewards points even while they were needing stuff. It's been a nice bonus that made playing game pass essentially pay for itself for year. At the same time if it drops to a fraction of what it was I won't see it as a loss since it was free to begin with. Only thing I am currently curious about is what else will be changing as the move the rewards over to the achievement section what will actually be gained.

Just given up with rewards now ....and I used to do them all everyday...just CBA with all the nerfs and cool down timers etc

I guess I should not expect it to be expanded to more countries now lol

Earning potential actually went up quite a bit in the last month or two compared to the previous months when they were screwing around with nerfs. It's not back to it's highest point from a couple years ago but it's still better than it was. In any case it's free money, I can't complain, I've gotten probably a dozen free full priced games out of it over the years. 4-5 100$ gift cards a year for about 5 min a day of my time. Used to be less time before the stupid 5 second search cooldown timer.

In the past few months they have got rid of the weekly game related challenges on Xbox, reduced the value of earning an achievement daily to 5 from 50, limited the search rewards so you have to use them slower and now killed the main earners on PC. The feeling that I was earning rewards has had me using my Xbox along with the PC and Mobile apps in a daily loop for over a year now. Personally it is no longer worth that commitment. Not going to complain as it was good while it lasted, but it is no longer worth doing any action you wouldn't already be doing.

I'm quite happy to be honest. I was becoming a slave of it all, chasing every point that I could. Now I can just ignore it all and relax, spend some more time actually playing games.

Personally I never saw many of the extra rewards that were available. The weekly quests were always available but the monthly quests were only introduced for about 6 months then they permanently disappeared. The sale push cards and the 3 movies over $5 were good more disappointing they left. But I am happy that they lowered the point cost for the $5 gift cards and you can get points just for playing on the Xbox. What would be nice is if they brought back points offers, were if you bought x amount in games you got x amount of points.

My son is having issues with his searches. He can only do a few at a time and they stop. He then needs to come back about an hour later and they start again. Don't know if this is future of it all.