The Bargain Bin

Forum for discussing where to pick up cheap deals

Windows Phone Game Discounts [UPDATE]

  • sm182sm182842,957
    Posted on 27 October 13 at 14:25
    Only 2 games work with WP7 so no big loss for me.
  • Dancsi27Dancsi27190,094
    Posted on 27 October 13 at 15:03
    People who got banned because of this it's because they shared their GT with friends and other people so they can grab the free games and download them onto their console too so they can use them with their GT. That's illegal and that will result in a ban from MS. You are not supposed to share your GT to somebody else so they can download games they didn't bought/downloaded. Last year, a similar thing happened with SR3 Season pass, one guy shared it with a friend and he got banned.

    Ok, what happen to somebody who lives in Morocco or Oman where some of the games were free that time? Will he/she get banned because of:

    1) MS error for putting the price to free and people grabbed them quickly before their realize their error

    or

    2) Because the person doesn't live in that region (which is not the case because as I said before, the person in question is really living in Morocco or Oman)

    If a game is free on the Canadian marketplace and everybody in Canada download it (with a Canadian account only), will all people get banned because of MS stupidity for the error price? Because the people who grab the game are living in Canada, MS can clearly verify that info with the IP address of the console.

    Also, on WP8, you can switch region without affecting the hotmail/outlook account and switch back when you are done downloading a game or app (after restarting the phone). Same goes with the Xbox 360 3 months account migration utility that you can find on xbox.com, with that you can migrate your account to another region and change it back to the original region (after 3 months of course). I can take my Canada/US account and migrate it to UK/France if i wanted too), then I would have access to the marketplace in that region.

    If people are getting banned because they download free games from other regions where they don't live, then MS should remove this migration utility so people cannot use it in the future and get banned because of it. Why people should pay for MS stupidity all the time? The price error is not our fault, it's MS fault.


    HolyHa1fDead said:
    So Diaboliical said:
    HolyHa1fDead said:
    If you downloaded any of these free games, then you risk getting a permanent Xbox Live gamertag account ban and loss of access to all your purchases, account balance, live membership and gamerscore. This is what happened to many people a few weeks ago when the prices of some Xbox 360 games showed up as free in certain regions.

    As many members of the TA community will point out, if the price is free and you download it then you know what you are doing is wrong and you are stealing.
    Please get your facts straight...
    If you have some facts, then please share them.

    The fact was that hundreds of thounds of dollars worth of content went out the door and many people got Xboxes and accounts banned to send a clear message. Everyone said that since the free pricing was a slip up there would be no repercussions, and then there was. After that, many sites removed all information about "free content" slip ups to protect their readers and their reputation. The people who didn't get the free content told the people that did and got banned that it serves them right. No facts have ever been made public, there are pages and pages of speculation here - Console Bans

    Many people believe it is for creating an account in a region that you do not live in. Well what about the people who created an account and then moved to a different country (like myself)? At the time I had to either create a new gamertag or continue getting content from the marketplace of the country I no longer lived in. This included being able to download free games and content that weren't free or available in my new country! About a year ago Microsoft created a way to transfer your account to another country, but they didn't say if you download content from a country you don't live in you will get banned.

    I ask you this, is it worth the risk of getting your gamertag permanently banned for grabbing a few cheap games for free because of a pricing mistake? I used to say it was worth the risk because people have been doing it for years and nobody had been banned. Now that many people have been banned I would say it is not worth the risk but I say good luck to those who continue to take the chance.
  • Posted on 27 October 13 at 15:21
    Can't go wrong with 99 cents, Dream Track and Tiny Plane for me as they are the only 2 I don't own.
    Licking an electrical outlet will not turn you into a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger.
  • NomstuffNomstuff1,202,619
    Posted on 27 October 13 at 17:52
    Throni360 said:
    Xtowers said:
    I wouldn't switch regions to get them free, not after so many people got console banned for doing a similar thing on the 360.
    The ban wave had nothing to do with the Oman thing. People got banned for other reasons and they know it.
    This is not proven to be the case either.
  • MugenKairoMugenKairo353,427
    Posted on 28 October 13 at 06:55
    If only I had a WP, imagine all the achievements I could get... Nah, already single, I'm afraid what even more achievement hunting might do.
    'We all make choices, but in the end those choices make us'
  • LeejaarLeejaar295,145
    Posted on 28 October 13 at 15:45
    Don't know if anyone has noticed but Uno & Friends is not on the Marketplace now, it also has an update, but don't know if I should install it or not.
  • HolyHalfDeadHolyHalfDead829,213
    Posted on 28 October 13 at 20:33, Edited on 28 October 13 at 22:47 by HolyHalfDead
    BARTEK 0077 said:
    i can confirm that they re Just trolling - my friend have played the "oman discount" Games and his account and console hasnt been banned.i wouldnt hesitate checkomg out stuff like that because its legal.its Microsoft guilt that set It for free,not our
    I never said they banned ALL Oman accounts or associated Xboxes and gamertags. Your friend was one of the lucky ones. For every person that wasn't banned, there is another that was. If some of the more liberal sites like xbox360achievements took the matter so seriously as to remove all postings about free pricing errors, I personally wouldn't go around reassuring people that it will never happen.

    ChadMarc said:
    ive downloaded lots of games they have put up for free (mistakes or not) but ive never changed my region to do so. you wont get banned for downloading free items (mistakes or not) from your own region.
    That's what I have been telling people (and myself) for the last 8 years, but now I will not state categorically that you won't get banned. In my case I moved from the UK to New Zealand a few years ago and at the time there was no way to change my account region. I carried on making my purchases from the UK marketplace (the alternative was create a new gamertag), and so I was able to download games that are free not by mistake (eg Harms Way). Now let's say GTA V was priced as free by mistake in the UK (like when Angry Birds Trilogy was free in Russia recently). You are saying that those who download GTA V for free in the UK won't get banned, but would I get banned if I downloaded it from New Zealand with my UK account? The only answer I would give is "I don't know, maybe."

    Dancsi27 said:
    People who got banned because of this it's because they shared their GT with friends and other people so they can grab the free games and download them onto their console too so they can use them with their GT.
    That is what almost all of the people would have done, only "their friend" is themself. I expect very few people actually changed their GT region to Oman, since that means going without Live for 3 months.

    It is true that if you share your GT with friends they "can grab the free games and download them onto their console" but they CANNOT use those games with their GT, only on the console the game was first download on can it be played by other gamertags. If anyone hacked a download to remove the DRM they should be banned. But that is not what most people were doing who got banned. What most people did was download content that was priced as free, by using a gamertag from a different region. Something people who live outside the US (where much of the free content is available) have been doing for years, but never have so many people and Xboxes been banned before. The only difference that time is that it wasn't just one isolated game and the content was not supposed to be free even in that region.

    Dancsi27 said:
    Also, on WP8, you can switch region without affecting the hotmail/outlook account and switch back when you are done downloading a game or app (after restarting the phone). Same goes with the Xbox 360 3 months account migration utility that you can find on xbox.com, with that you can migrate your account to another region and change it back to the original region (after 3 months of course). I can take my Canada/US account and migrate it to UK/France if i wanted too), then I would have access to the marketplace in that region.
    I know it can be done, it's just whether it should be done.

    Dancsi27 said:
    If people are getting banned because they download free games from other regions where they don't live, then MS should remove this migration utility so people cannot use it in the future and get banned because of it. Why people should pay for MS stupidity all the time? The price error is not our fault, it's MS fault.
    I totally agree with you, but because you willingly signed up for Xbox Live, Microsoft can do whatever they want to your account and Xbox without having to go into any details as to why. What they are doing may well break local laws, but you will need considerable time and money to be able to challenge their action, especially why you start the conversation with your legal concil that you saw something for free that should not normally be free and nothing prevented you from grabbing it.
  • GMNGMN524,182
    Posted on 28 October 13 at 21:14
    Marcos Aspira said:
    I got all Angry Birds except the Classic I had already bought... If I uninstall them, I'll need to purchase them still?
    Re-download from purchase history at www.windowsphone.com
  • Posted on 28 October 13 at 21:48
    Lj IOW said:
    Don't know if anyone has noticed but Uno & Friends is not on the Marketplace now, it also has an update, but don't know if I should install it or not.
    I saw this too... Looked at BR Marketplace and people who updated returned to Level 1! No f-king way I will update it and lost my almost 97 level! U_U
  • Posted on 28 October 13 at 21:50
    N0BLE 360 said:
    Marcos Aspira said:
    I got all Angry Birds except the Classic I had already bought... If I uninstall them, I'll need to purchase them still?
    Re-download from purchase history at www.windowsphone.com
    I reinstall them from my SD and still get errors at achievements list, sometimes it works though
  • Posted on 29 October 13 at 02:04
    I found it funny because as I was downloading an angry birds game free one at a time I only got to download three of the games laugh priced got put on before I could download the other few. A free games a free game nonetheless.
    The original DC's! Completing game's in an art.
  • MagicalChildMagicalChild1,350,571
    Posted on 29 October 13 at 22:56
    HolyHa1fDead said:
    Spilner said:
    They dont always advertise with WP, ive seen many a free flash kind of sale.

    Edit: Plus word of mouth is free and effortless to them so why bother making a big fuss saying look at our sale.

    Unnecessarily scaring people isn't needed though.
    You are right that word of mouth works extremely well. Word got around about Injustice being free very quickly, and many people downloaded it because "everyone else" was doing it and were upset when they got banned as many of them had never done anything like that before. Sites like this were assurring them that they weren't doing anything wrong and even if it was wrong to take advantage of Microsofts pricing mistake, that no one has ever been punished for it. My intention is not to scare, but to inform, so people can make up their own mind if the risk is worth it.
    Sorry, mate but you are unnecessarily scaring people.
    You can't get banned just for downloading a game that's marked as free. If that was the case, every user would have to have all the prices of every single game and DLC on the market place on his mind. Meaning if I browse through the market place and find a game that's free, I would need to know that this isn't normally free and it therefore must be a pricing error. And I'm sorry, I for one, have no idea about every games usual pricing. And I don't think MS can expect me to research whether the pricing is correct on the marketplace every time I want to buy something. That's just plain stupid.


    People get banned for specifically creating accounts just to download games with pricing errors as this actually requires effort on their side.
    By chance, you wouldn't just create, for example, a Russian account one day and stumble over a free (pricing error) game on the marketplace that very same day and never use the account again after that. Or at least, it's rather unlikely that this would happen by chance.
  • Posted on 30 October 13 at 12:40
    I am too happy during this free time period i downloaded Angry birds all parts ,cut the rope all parts and Amazing Alex for free :D
  • KOSTAS A M GRKOSTAS A M GR2,144,355
    Posted on 30 October 13 at 16:28
    AC, UNO and brain challenge is now 4.99
    Ms is losing it
    ROB LIEFELD
Want to join in the discussion? Please log in or Register For Free to comment.