August 10th 2009 11:54 am PT

Wow please allow me to whip out my cloak and wizard cap… This deal sucks.

yep this deal is lame.

So much for another Arcade Game =(

I’ll be sure to pass along your comments to those who work on this program.

LOL!
More like “deal of the weak” to me…

i will get this, good deal in my opinion, won’t go down with americans very well as you play football with your hands

How about some more Arcade discounts?
And You could have a permanent markdown of say 50% on all the Arcade games and DLC older than a year!

Definetly think old content, a year or two old should have some kind of discount.
The arcade hits section hasn’t been updated in ages.

Major, although the “deal of the week”-program is a nice initiative, whoever chooses these deals should start thinking in new ways. I think that most people would be interested in sharp (>= 50%) discounts on arcade games, not DLC (and if you do choose DLC, then choose contents for a recently released and _popular_ game).

Oh, and unless you guys have already read it:

“Valve: Left 4 Dead Half-price Sale Saw 3000% Increase, Beat Launch Numbers”

Source: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57308

yep this deal is lame.How about some more Arcade discounts?

And You could have a permanent markdown of say 50% on all the Arcade games and DLC older than a year!

I think you be looking at permanent price reductions for some of the older content (2 years old) as well as a deal of week for newer 1 year old stuff.

Major – could we have some more Arcade hits please? Some more reductions on XBLA games to 400 would be very welcome! I get bored of seeing Mortal Kombat 3 and Worms on the list all the time!!!

I’m somewhat thankful for this DOTW. Sports games don’t interest me at all, for the most part, so I get to pocket my money this week.

this deal sucks, how many people have bought FIFA 09, if you are going to do stuff like this, how about adding an arcade game also

Major, “Ultimate” is misspelled…

Also, not a good deal. Well, not for everyone, anyway. I agree with Brookster. Thanks anyway, Major. On the plus side, at least the download is 2GB, unlike some of the 128KB “DLC” out there.

Not a good deal should. Would have considered if it was for 200 points. Arcade game would be worth for this price.

Not interested at all.
I agree too the “deal of the week” should focus on actual Arcade games, not minor add-ons that nobody care.
See you next week…
(btw, any news for the western release date of Bubble Bubble? I was eagerly waiting for it…)

Deal of the week would more be something new what is in it’s first week 50% off for the fast buyers, like this with fifa all people who want it has it allready and EA never worked good out, to less Contracts for players & staff, every time losing them becouse there where no contracts in the packeges

I have FIFA 09 but this Ultimate Team thing never interested me. Regardless, it’s 50% off an expansion to a constant Top 10 LIVE Activity game, how can that be a bad deal?

Worst deal yet.

“the FIFA 09 Ulitimate Team game add-on is the lastest Deal of the Week at 400 points”

Does that mean it’s both the last and latest at 400 points?

Incredibly lame

Weak deal…

Well Major, since you have responded for the first time our comments complaints on the Deal of the Week, I’ll elaborate further:

First of all, thanks for passing our comments along. That’s really nice.

The reason why we are frustrated is that, well, Deal of the Week is, as a gold exclusive, something premium. We really feel exclusive when we get Ikaruga, a very nice game, for half of the price. $10 is a fair price for Ikaruga, and $5 is just too much of a bargain to resist.

Or when we get Braid, one of the finest games released last year, for $10. You can’t get that anywhere else. At the time of the Deal, Braid was $15 for everyone in the planet, except for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. That’s a deal.

Now, whenever I access your site on Mondays and see that we, exclusive paying costumers, are getting a weak / overpriced (sometimes both) DLC for a game everyone has stopped caring a long time ago, that’s very frustrating. It feels we’re being used as tools for extra profit. It feels that if you give us a DLC that no one bought for half of the price, maybe we suckers will at least give you some money for it. We feel like those “deals” would be better suited as a price reduction for every member, and forever.

No one is expecting you to give us CoD WaW Map Pack 3 for half of the price in the launching weekend. But you could give us both Map Pack 1 and 2 at a reduced price. And if you are giving a game specific DLC, maybe you should give us more than one deal.

But the best offers are discounted Arcade games, like you have done with Ikaruga. It would be awesome to have one guaranteed every week, because every week we would have a cheap, quality game to play, gold only. Castle Crashers, for example. I know it’s constantly in your Top 10 sold games, but hey, isn’t the “Deal of the Week” something Gold exclusive? Then make it exclusive! Give us an awesome game for less. It aggregates value to our subscription.

Right now, as it stands, Deal of the Week looks a bit like a joke on us, with rare exceptions.

Again, thanks for passing along the message.

No sir, I don’t like it.

sucks seriously we have had like 2 or 3 actual Deal of the weeks worth it

@Agreed deal of the week should be Arcade game-centric/not for useless game add ons. Also whatever happened to Arcade Hits, Major? Its been at least a year since we got any added to it. Theres plenty of older titles that need a discount.

Bubble Bobble should be hitting the West after Summer of Arcade ends.

Major, I hate you for having Shadow Complex on your recently played list!

As well as making the deals permanent rather than just for a week, the marketing team might also want to reconsider their stance on the deals being Gold only. For those of us with no interest whatsoever in multiplayer, Gold perks are insubstantial. Rarely, when there’s something of interest in Deal of the Week, the Gold limitation acts as an effective show-stopper; a paid membership for discounts is more akin to a stick than a carrot.

Any chance we’ll see some of the new “Games On Demand”, full Xbox 360 titles on the “Deal of the Week” in the future? At $20-30 I think these older games are going to be priced too high initially, but I would be glad to pick up a few older games digitally at the $10-15 mark.

“Deal of the weak”\

I second that. Why couldn’t have been Big Surf Island instead.

I’m not knocking sports games, I just call all deals that deal with DLC weak due to the fact that all members don’t have the games being offered. The arcade deals are always great since everyone has a chance to participate.

Way to go on trying to rinse the last bit of life from a 10 month old game 2 months before FIFA ’10 is released.
This smells of EA that’s for sure.

2 months? I thought it was more like 5 weeks till EA dumped the new one out.
Either way its a disgrace that very soon to be obsolete DLC is offered as a “deal”.

What is up with crap deals latley? R-type, Ultimate Team? Come on get something worth buying.

@ ZaZeeMan

Just noticed that,
So unfair.

I want mah Shadow Complex (but not as much as i want Arkham Asylum)

Just another lame EA add-on that should’ve been free in the first place. Nothing to see here, move along.

I don’t bother with those “deals” anyway. Either I bought the stuff at release or it simply doesn’t interest me.

Considering fifa10 comes out in a month and the new football season is underway Fifa 09 is outdated anyway.

not a fifa fan but 50% off anything seems ok lol.

The worst deal of the week so far and that is a feat because there have been some bad ones. sad.

FIFA 10 is just around the corner, Major. You honestly think people who are football enthusiasts will care?

wtf tihs should never be on deal of the week more like deal of the weak we need better “deals” not this bs

What’s up next week? 5% off of Boogie Bunnies DLC? (Is there DLC for that game? I have no idea.)

Seeing as FIFA 10 is out in a couple of months it seems pointless having this as the deal of the week. I hate to complain about another deal but so few of them are actually good or give us substantial savings. If you go back and look at Ikaruga and N+ pretty much everyone thought they were great deals at 50% off, even the people who already owned them.
I also agree with the comments made by several people already regarding permanent price cuts on older DLC and XBLA games, so few games were added to the “Arcade Hits” that it’s barely worth mentioning. If you look at how the quality of XBLA games has improved over the last few yeas can you really price Cloning Clyde at the same price as new games like Splosion man?

@EldonTLH: I disagree, I think the fact Gold members regularly get discounts is a good idea to try and lure silver members over, when they started doing this, it was things like Alien Hommind being massively reduced in price that finally got me to get a subscription. Unfortunately, very few of the deals have been even half as good as that one.

They really need to learn that they can use these price reductions to get more people Gold memberships and to sell more copies of the game/content. But if they just keep doing these crappy deals, nobody is going to care.

This deal really shows the problem with digital downloads right now- prices never depreciate. This may seem like a plus for MS but who really is going to buy this content at full price after Fifa 10 is out? And look at some other games like Gears Of War 1 with it’s full price DLC.

I can see MS is slowly heading towards an all downloadable future similar to Steam but if the Games On Demand section is like the rest of the Marketplace then in a year when Mass Effect is still £20 on XBL and only £5 in shops it’ll look even worse than these over priced DLC add on’s.

Yes, I agree, this is a very lame deal.
More arcade games please.

That deal sucks…..

Lame. Oh well keeps me from having to purchase more MS points I guess. If offering some DLC would be nice to offer a few as the deal of the week like a handful of older titles instead of just one. I know a lot of people wouldn’t want it but I would eventually like to get samurai warriors xtreme legends but no way I am spending 2400 points for it when I got the game for ten bucks at walmart.

No interest, doesn’t seem like much of a deal.

It would be interesting to see sales data, on these deals. A graph comparing number sold during the week?

For that matter, it would be interesting to see it for all of the add-on DLC.

Stuff I’d like to see discounted, that I didn’t buy at full price: Saints Row 2 add-ons, Ace Combat 6 planes (in a non-confusing format… right now, I wouldn’t be sure if I was buying the same plane twice), Dead Space items, LOTR Conquest Heroes and Map pack (would have to be like 100 points, as I don’t seen anyone logged in and playing this game), Need for Speed Carbon content (just the best stuff, again, non-confusing format please), Tales of Vesperia (all of it discounted), Duke Nuken 3D, Hexic 2, MLB Stickball, Phantasy Star 2, Rocketbowl, Roogoo, Sonic 3…

So what is the real deal, with this promotion. Is this paid for by the publisher, like advertising? Or is it actually being selected each week, by someone at MS? Or are we just drawing content names out of a hat?

I’m honestly wondering the same thing about Community Game Night. I haven’t seen anything but recent games on there, for a long time.

I like how Steam and Sony have discounts on like five games every week while we have to wait a month for an actual deal thats worth getting. This piece of poo DLC should of been included in the game in the first place. F**k off.

I really wish Microsoft would offer two deals, an arcade game and DLC. They also need to be for games that have been released in the last 6 months or so. If you are gonna give us a deal then give us a deal. Most of the “Deals of the week” are for stuff I wouldnt want if it were free.

Has anyone else noticed that Kotaku.com are awfully confused over this weeks deal. For some reason they’re quoting GTA IV Lost & Damned for 1200mspts instead of 1600….

You’d all speak very differently of this ‘deal’ if your nation wasnt seriously terrible at football (or soccer as you call it) :p

xSteve Jx: Like was already mentioned, for those that might actually be interested in a deal like this.. Fifa 2010 is just around the corner, so why bother?

Whoa! Kotaku is reporting that The Lost And Damned DLC for GTA4 is the Deal Of The Week?!
Can anyone confirm this?

This is the article: http://kotaku.com/5334176/the-lost-and-damned-loses-5-from-price

It will be for the next weeks, I heard for the August 24th.

http://gamerscoreblog.com/press/archive/2009/08/10/jhk5768.aspx
official blog said 24th

FIFA Ultimate Team is a very good add-on, i bought it six months ago and i spent a lot of time on it. But this deal is lame, Ultimate Team add-on was already 50% off two weeks ago, during one week (EA deal). Moreover, FIFA 10 will be there in two months, so this add-on will be useless.

I noticed that the gamerscoreblog.com article also mentions that Penny Arcade: Episode 2 is going to be one of the other deals this month (maybe next week’s?). I’ll have my points ready for that (since I also got the first Episode when it was on sale too) rather than bother with this crap deal.

Major: Please stop with the EA lovefest. Enabling them to offer cynical, exploitive deals one after another makes me very angry, and it makes me think you’re little more than a ‘corporate man’ with a slick smile and no soul, ready to milk us dry if we prove to be dumb enough to go for what you’re offering… such as this DLC pack for a game that will be “obsolete” very soon. I know those are harsh words, but they are sincere; you put forth a very bad image of Microsoft/Xbox Live to me, constantly buddying up to EA while barely giving any mention at all to more ‘indie’ titles. It makes the Playstation Network look much more attractive. Quit insulting us with EA’s ‘deals’ like this, I am willing to pack up and leave in favor of a PS3 if it keeps up.

Microsoft needs to hire more relevant people for the Marketing side of Xbox Live not just Deal of the week, discounted pricing on really old content and especially DLC for older games. And the pricing on the new “avatar clothing” yeah i buy alot of content but i don’t think i’ll spend anything over $1.00 for a piece of clothing and I won’t buy very much of that, if any.

Why can I buy Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GOTY Ed. new for $30, but Shivering Isles is STILL $30…Downloadable Content pricing should fall at the same rate as the original physical content, i.e. Shivering Isles should be at MOST $15…just seems logical to me.

@Rick Dias
Major Nelson doesn’t pick the deals. You’re shooting at the messenger here.

@Major Nelson: I completely agree with many people about the “Deal of the Weak” (pun intended). It seems to me that Microsoft (and ultimately the XBLA game developers) could do a better job with these weekly deals. Best Buy and Target (among others) do it. What’s the problem with having a similar model here? I look at the Best Buy and Target ads each week that I get in my mailbox. If there’s something I see on sale that I’d like to get…great! If not, I have other options available that might **also** be on sale. With these “Deals of the Weak”, we’re not getting a choice. I’m not asking for there to be lots and lots of content out there on sale each week…just a few items here and there. (Maybe a few add-ons and a XBLA game or two per week. You could certainly mix it up each week.) To my knowledge, there are 200+ XBLA games for sale on the Marketplace. And, there 200+ additional games (non-XBLA) that have some kind of add-on that can also be purchased from the Marketplace. Surely, with that much content out, developers could even consider an additional sale or two each week…or maybe even (as some people have already suggested) dropping the prices of some older XBLA titles to $5 (400 MS points). Again, it’s all about the opportunity to choose. We’re really not given a choice. If you don’t see something in the batch of content for one week…wait it out until the next week. It’s all cenetered around the idea of “a little something for everyone”…not “a little something for only some people”.

Somebody should call the “deal police” and have those responsible arrested

Load of old rubbish. I won a free code for this once and still didn’t touch it. (No I don’t still have it.)

Another failed attempt.

When will you ever learn.

moocow21: I stand partially corrected, then. It was my understanding he had majority say in this as Director of Programming for Xbox Live. I still say he comes across as far too ‘slick’ and corporate when he talks to us, but if the content of the Deal of the Week is not primarily his call, then obviously I need to take back my criticism toward him specifically regarding the Deal. Thanks for setting me straight! …That said, I do maintain that SOMEONE at Microsoft is letting EA be blatantly exploitive toward us on what’s supposed to be a premium service member benefit, and I don’t appreciate that.

Major, can you please stop the deal of the week? If you can’t do that, can you at least stop posting about it? All it does is get these sniveling little whiners who think they are owed something all riled up. The audacity of these people (I know it’s a select few and not the majority)to complain about a item on sale is disgusting. Do these people go into Best Buy, Target, etc and complain about Sunday ad sales not being good enough. These people truly bring down the XBOX LIVE community.

wtf… this sucks.

If you guys think this is bad – wait til you see how much they are charging for 360 games on demand. Its a joke; poor form M$.

I think more people would actually use this deal of the week, if there wasn’t so many glitches out there on Fifa 09

Carnage Rules: I would like to point out that Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and other mass retailers do not charge a membership fee to be able to access their advertised specials. They run those in the hopes that you will come in feeling good about your purchase, and pick up some extra, non-discounted stuff on the side. When we pay a premium fee and one of the perks of that fee is access to very underwhelming ‘special deals’, we certainly should complain. I want the Deal of the Week to CONTINUE, but ideally with either a single item that applies to more people (and isn’t an offer for DLC that will be obsolete very soon) like an arcade game, or to offer more items per week.

it is a good deal lol, its actually free on the market place, it doesn’t cost any thing !!

It’s not actually free – it’s just a trial. “Ultimate Team comes with a free 5 game trial available to everyone with a copy of FIFA 09, during or upon completion of the trial there is the option to purchase the full game.”

OK CARNAGE RULES now You can wipe the brown smudge off your nose

How about Deal of the Week in different categories on a weekly basis? For instance, have one arcade, GoD, and add on on sale per week. It seems very viable as older content and games rarely see a price drop and I’m sure the sales are very low.

LOL you have to love the comments nearly every American saying this deal sucks with the few odd people from Europe saying this deal is good, if this deal was anything to do with American football everyone American would be loving it, it’s a deal for Europe =p. wolfzero01 it sells more copies then madden and is always higher in the xbox live chart then any American sport so yes a lot of people buy FIFA games

@Rick Dias PK

Well Rick I don’t know how long you’re been a paying member of this comminuty but, if I went by your gamerscore I would say not very long. This “deal of the week” thing hasn’t been going on for very long. It doesn’t come with your membership dues. I have two accounts that I pay for. One thats going on 5 years and is paid up to 2012 and one that is going on 3 years and is payed up to 2012. Thats 12 years of membership dues and I’ve never NEVER complained about a deal or a special that Microsoft offered. You guys just think that your dollar is worth more than the rest of us. Guess what…its not. Nobody and I mean nobody has spent more money on xbox than me. If someone deserves a deal it’s me and you don’t see me complaining about it.

Boom Skank, pretty sure you are wrong… If this deal was for Madden 09 people would say the same thing. Wonder why? Because Madden 10 is out. Sports games are tossed aside like used rags because they are released every year and most of the time are the same game with different skins. Fifa 10 will be out anytime now so this deal will be useless soon. To even have DLC for sports titles let alone charging for DLC is goofy at best. It’s a deal nowhere. Now quit acting like there’s a difference between our areas and come together as one people

Boom Shank GOW… I’m an idiot and apologize for typing your name wrong. It was purely accidental.