Xbox increased the price of Gold, then didn't.. but Free-to-play games are the winners

If there is one thing that game companies excel at, it is making a decision, that no-one asks for, then they spend months justifying it, like that time your friend bought a pink hat for the races and thought it looked good, it didn’t.

Xbox have done this a few times now, their most unpopular was, the Xbox One always needing to be online, in order to prove that you had the rights to play the game you bought. People reacted harshly and Xbox then spent months, trying to convince folks why it was a good idea, before they gave up and backtracked on it.

Over the weekend, Xbox announced that the price of Xbox Live Gold was going to increase, which is not uncommon, but the increase was insane.

The price of a monthly membership was set to increase from $9.99 a month, to $10.99 a month, USD, so a $1 increase, which again is not so bad. However things quickly started to expand in a stupid way, a 3 month membership was set to go from $24.99 to $29.99 and the 6 month from $39.99 to $59.99.

To put it in perspective, you could be a 12-month membership at retail stores for $59.99, but Xbox were going to charge you that digitally for half the time. Of course, the internet went ballistic over this and Xbox soon cancelled the plans, saying:

“We messed up today and you were right to let us know. Connecting and playing with friends is a vital part of gaming and we failed to meet the expectations of players who count on it every day. As a result, we have decided not to change Xbox Live Gold pricing.“

In fact the only good news, to come out of this mess, was the news that games that are free-to-play, like Fortnite, will now no longer require Xbox Live Gold to play them, they will be free. That means if you only play games like Fortnite or Warframe, you won’t need to pay to access Xbox Live now, but if you want to enjoy Halo or Call of Duty, you will, except Call of Duty: Warzone, that is free-to-play.

That change is not yet live and according to Xbox it will take sometime before it is enabled, but when it does, it will be better for all.

I think though, as consumers, we are at a point when we should not have to argue back against, pathetically stupid decisions, like this and hopefully, Xbox learn their lessons again and don’t try this crap for a third time.