Microsoft's Transition From MP Has Screwed Up Prices

First off, I only got a 360 this past Black Friday. That means I haven't even interacted with Microsoft Points (although I did rent one thing on Zune when that was still a thing). People complained that Points were stupid because they were somewhat misleading and unnecessary. However, I can't help but think I'd rather have them than what is happening now.

XBLA has started charging taxes for transactions. That in itself isn't all that terrible, but what it has done is ruin that 1:1 relationship between Points and price points. For example, Shadow Complex was 1200 Points which translates to $15. Makes sense, no? However, not only does Microsoft list it as 14.99 (already screwing you into keeping pennies in your account) but there's a superscript [1] that says, "Including Tax". All said, it charged me ~16.40 for the game.

A little background. I bought a couple of cards that were on a tiny sale (free money is free money after all). I get home, enter one $15 card in, and attempt to purchase Shadow Complex. I see the "tax" caveat and I cross my fingers that maybe, just maybe, this is the only instance in the universe in which they've actually included the tax in the purchase price. But no - my $15 will not get me a $15 game. Now then: I am a grown-ass man with a credit card, so the irregular price isn't a problem. The thing that struck me immediately when the transaction didn't go through is, I pictured a situation in which a parent or aunt buys a points card for their child/nephew. The kid goes to buy a game and literally cannot because of this bullcrap.

In retrospect, the package I bought (3 $15 cards with a "free" $5 card included) deliberately included the $5 card to cover the tax you need to pay. That's fine if you're cashing all of them in, but in no way can you split them up if you wish to buy a game for the amount of money you actually have.

For all y'all that have been downloading DLC and games since day one, how did this affect you? Do you have a story that is identical to the one I imagined?

tl;dr bring back Points because this is bullshit

In America. In the UK, tax is already included in everything and the points cost us more because the price was the same in points around the world. It works out far better for a lot of the world, more so than the US probably.

Well being weird about tax is stupid. But having to buy 1200 point cards for 1000 point games was the worst. Also the tax thing is not MS fault and according to google Canadians pay less after the conversion. For the EU it mostly stayed the same as the point cards where already taxed. So blame Obama?

@ch3burashka: Lie that your address is in Alaska (if you can). When I used to buy games digitally from the US Amazon store (I live in Ireland), I'd use a fake address in Alaska because Alaska doesn't charge tax on digital downloads, where as say New York does. In Ireland tax is accounted into the value of something.

I much rather they use actual money though, because I can link my paypal or credit card to it and just pay the €12.99 or whatever instead of buying a card valued at €20 and then having odd change left over that I'll have to play a game with to ultimately get everything out of. Points are no better for this as you end up with 50 odd points and nothing to spend it on and every valuation of points you could buy almost always had more points than you needed.

Didn't it recently become law that digital purchases be taxed? I assumed that MS's transition to real money prices coincided with this change.

When I was still using my 360 I missed points towards the end, only because if you looked around you could find some good deals and get money off those cards.

Honestly, with the rise of microtransactions in games and using real money to buy some fake currency I think Microsoft were way ahead of the curve in doing that with ms points and it seems weird that they would ditch them when mobile and now console games are using them more frequently.

Sounds to me to be the same as happens in physical shops in the US - ticket prices never (in my very limited experience) include sales tax.

And your "kid" scenario happened to us in a physical store two years ago on holiday in Florida - sent kinds into shop with $10 to buy a $10 item - kids return empty handed and disappointed because they didn't have enough money :-(

Your complaint is about taxes, not Microsoft. This makes about as much sense as walking into a retailer with exactly $59.99 and expecting to walk out with that new video game.

@jesus_phish said:

Yeah, if the taxes bother you that much, you can just do what jesus_phish did. Note that lying about your address to circumvent local sales tax is probably some kind of tax fraud, and probably technically illegal, but I'm guessing you're about as likely to get arrested for it as you are to get arrested for torrenting movies and music occasionally. Fair warning, though.

The real issue is that Microsoft should have never ever gone with Microsoft Points to begin with. Imagine how "successful" Amazon would have been if you had to buy Amazon Points then buy the item? It would drive people crazy trying to manage a wallet of funny money.

@extomar: I think e-commerce was a little different back in 2005 right? When MS was planning this stuff anywhere between 2001-2005 paying money using credit cards online wasn't commonplace. Isn't that why PayPal became such a big thing? In addition I assume that since MS saw the video game audience as teenagers and young people they assumed many wouldn't have credit cards and that an abstraction layer was needed for adding money to an account.

Fuck taxes...... as far as I know California always added a tax value to all sales. In Mexico the prices already include IVA which is a stupid acronym , but is simply a tax

I must live in a state that doesn't require online taxes yet, as I don't pay taxes on PSN or XBL.

I don't think a law was passed but Amazon was required to start charging sales tax in states they sell their products that have sales tax.

I assume Microsoft is simply keeping ahead of the curve otherwise they could be facing some not-so-fun time with the IRS.

Same. Weirdly the Nintendo e-Shops make me pay taxes though. (And online retailers like Amazon)

Thats odd. I just bought Bravely Default on the e-shop and wasn't charged any tax. I also don't pay tax on Amazon.

I live in Idaho, and looking up online sales tax by states only these appear to charge for it:

@sterling: I'm in Wisconsin, so I guess I should be being charged but only a few services have been enforcing it. Weird, but also kind of nice.

@ch3burashka: Blame your state not MS.

...or you could offer both, which exactly what Amazon DOES do with their app store. I'd much rather see Microsoft go back to using points, as it was easier to get a discount on points than it is to get a discount on a "real money" card.

If points always made it so people had a little bit of leftover money in their account, so what? That five bucks you save on a points card more than makes up for the paltry 50 points or whatever it is you have left over in your account..

I was very pleased with the transition to real money because Canadians got fucked for years on Microsoft points. There was a (long) period where the CAD was equal to USD but 1400 points were $20 (Americans got 1600 for the same price). Microsoft also had the audacity to region lock the points cards to prevent buying American points for a Canadian account.

I'm happy with the real money system because an arbitrary point system is bull.