The Xbox One, a Giant Advertisment Console

Recently I was on my Xbox One playing games. Then I noticed multiple things that stuck out to me as odd. I noticed that a majority of the Home Screen is just a bunch of ads. I also noticed that a lot of my games have downloaded able content. Now, I have been aware of both for a long time, but this fits well to what we have been learning in class.

Let me go over the topic of the Home Screen. Most of you know what a home screen is. In this case, it is the first screen you see when you turn on the console and login. This is where you start, and can access the game you have put inside the console. That seems logical. The first screen you go to should be the screen where the game you loaded. The weird part is, you have a bunch of other things on there. You have ads for games, saying that they are on sale. You have ads for games that are being developed. There are ads for movies on this screen. Then, if you have Xbox Gold, you have ads for your free game of the month. The other games you have played on this console also appear, all with little descriptions of them trying to get you to play that game instead. It draws away from the game you want to play. This can get annoying, other times you just ignore it.

Next most of my games have downloadable content, DLC. For those who do not know what DLCs are, here is a basic explanation. It is extra material related to the game already on the disc. It is the if you want more buy this. If you want to have edge in this game buy this. It is if you want to continue the story further, buy this. It is extra stuff that companies want you to buy. However, before when I started out, games rarely had DLCs, or extra stuff you could buy. It was you have the game, and you have to work yourself up through the levels. It required work, not money to become good, and to finish the game. Now, almost all the games I have, have DLCs. They are just a sad attempt to get you to buy their stuff. Companies have gotten smart about this because they leave you with somewhat of a cliff hanger after you complete the game to get some people to buy their DLC.

Let me explain what my problem with these new attempts to market games and other material. The first one, with using the home screen, you have too much on that screen. There are too many ads and other things fighting for space on that one screen. It is a good idea getting you right when you turn on the console, but there is just too much there for anyone to focus on any one thing. No one gets anything because there are too many things. The second thing, with DLCs that is on the pretense that the game is actually good enough that you buy the DLC. The game actually has to be good to make people want to buy it. The creators focus so much on quantity, producing multiple games in a short time span, but they do not focus on the quality, making good game mechanics, a good plot, good controls. Things that gamers want. If the game on disc is no good, then no one even wants to buy the DLC because the game was so bad. The problem here as with all advertisements is that the marketers do not listen to what the people want, or they got it wrong and focus on flooding us with information and nothing else which defeats the purpose.

An image of an Xbox One home screen for reference.

Comments

  1. SonicpenguinMay 28, 2017 at 9:15 PM

    I totally agree that games would probably be better off without DLC. Games these days seem to be created in a hurry, and a lot of them seem to have elements that are left off so they can be added later, usually through post-release DLC. This is unfortunate, because after spending money on a game, the last thing I want to do is purchase a bunch of other stuff to get the full experience. Even when a piece of DLC content is cool, I can't help but get the feeling that it could have been just included in the base game if the game companies weren't so focused on profit.

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  2. UnknownJune 1, 2017 at 12:07 PM

    I agree that DLCs are used as an attempt to get people to hug stuff. The idea behind them that it will force someone to buy something is very typical of a company trying to make as much money as possible off of children who are buying the game. I think we need to regulate how many in apppurcahses a game has, and how they are bought. This can easily be bought through a mistake, and we must be able to realize that new shouldn't be spending all this money on a game when it isn't even needed

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