Originally when announcing the Games with Gold service over the next few months until december, Major Nelson lead us to believe that Halo 3 and Assassims Creed 2 would be the next games to be made free, in July. This is not true, as he has now posted that we instead get Defense Grid: Awakening. Xbox Live's Major Nelson » Games with Gold for July 1: Defense Grid: The Awakening : No word on if we will get Halo 3 and Assassins Creed 2 during a different month or not. Overall, Microsofts organization of PR and conveying informaton to us has been lackluster, hopefully they can pick up the slack and get their **** together.
Lackluster being an extreme understatement. Hell, Sony execs are all Japanese and we have a better idea of information they say than anyone at Microsoft. I was really looking forward to free halo 3
I just hate the bait and switch tactic Microsoft clearly pulled. Really strains the trust you know. Name drop some popular games so it builds excitement then when users look under their Christmas Tree, as it were, they find a 4 year old tower defense game that should have been at least close to free years ago. And of course it makes us look like ungrateful bastards if we complain because it was free.
I haven't been following xbox news but I'm pretty sure whatever they did, Did infact lead on some people and I wouldn't put it past them to have done it on purpose "Implying" or "Hinting" or making it sound like it was without ever actually saying it or some clever marketing tactics. People don't think Halo 3 is gonna be free by accident.
And just to add further confusion to the mix, because why not, amirite Microsoft, the spot where you could previously select the "Games for Gold" Fable 3 is now occupied by an ad for Master Catan which takes you to the 800 MS point Catan game, not the free defense grid. And fact the free game does not appear in the featured section at all for me nor the "Sales and specials" tab. So even if I wanted to play the tower defense game they aren't making it f*cking easy to find.
It really seems like you want to be angry at them at this point. It's July 1, you really can't wait a little bit longer? I understand why some of you might be frustrated at the game selection but it is (or will be, rather) free. Cool your jets, yo.
They said the game would be out July 1st (which usually implies 12:00 AM or close to it in PST). The point is Microsoft is throwing up all sorts of frustrations for what should be a simple concept. You announce some games, make a big deal about your program, then offer a game no one expected and not even at the time people expected and of course you're going to get frustrated people. There isn't a whole lot of "trying" to be angry. In a period where Microsoft really needs some positive press going for it after the "deal with it" comment, it's unpopular Xbox One policies, Sony giving them a gutcheck during E3, and the price of the console, this bait-and-switch just doesn't help them. I realize the game is free, thank Buddah, Jesus, Spongebob and the rest that the 4+ year old games are free, but it's just hard to enjoy that when Microsoft put's up all sorts of barriers to doing that.
Microsoft is becoming somewhat of a buzzkill. I just want cool explosions n' stuff, shouldn't hassle people if you're basically an entertainment company