Minecraft: Story Mode is now $100 per episode on the Xbox 360

[midian182]

WTF?! The effects of Telltale Games’ closure are still being felt. With Minecraft: Story Mode one of the titles soon to be delisted as a result of the studio’s shuttering, the game’s individual episodes for the Xbox 360 are now listed for $99.99 each—but there's a good reason why.

Minecraft: Story Mode has been removed from most platforms, and last month saw the official website announce that Season 1 and 2 would stop being supported as of June 25, meaning previous buyers won't be able to download or redownload them after this date.

It was discovered that removing Minecraft: Story Mode from the Xbox 360 platform resulted in owners becoming unable to download the episodes before the end of support date. The only solution was to relist the games for sale, but at a price so high it would stop anyone from buying them: $99.99.

“This is simply the only mechanism available to facilitate players being able to download their remaining episodes prior to servers shutting down,” explained the game’s official Facebook page.

It’s emphasized that the prices are real, and that nobody should buy the games as they will be charged the full hundred dollars. Once the servers are shut down on June 25, the listing will be removed and Minecraft: Story Mode will no longer be available to buy or download on the Xbox 360.

As noted by Polygon, other Telltale titles on the Xbox 360 aren’t experiencing the same issues, with Batman – The Telltale Series available for the usual $4.99 per episode price, while Tales from the Borderlands has been removed completely.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/80536-minecraft-story-mode-now-100-episode-xbox-360.html

 

[Toju Mikie]

This is one of the downsides of buying a digital copy of the game, when the game gets removed or the server goes down. They can pull the plug and poof, no game for you.

 

[kira setsu]

Lol, have they not seen what gamers will blow cash on, 100 bones is seemingly nothing to some of them, they'll still buy it and use that as bragging rights

 

[ckm88]

They do this on purpose folks. It's a marketing tactic. The people that are die hard fans or simply cannot wait will purchase this without a problem. Give it about 6-8 months and the price drastically drops.

 

[texasrattler]

The price isn't dropping, the game is being removed, wait all you want, the game is still being removed.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

THIS is why I'm against the removal of physical media from consoles. Not only can you not buy the game anymore, but you cant DOWNLOAD IT again.

On Steam, if a game is removed from the store, you can still download it if you bought it, and play it online. No such luck on consoles.

This is why I refuse to buy a digital console download for more then $5-10. I'm not paying $60 for a rental.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Lots of people here stuck in the 80’s & 90’s and expect software to last forever. Modern gaming moves further and further away from hardware every year. Eventually we’ll have a screen and an input device and that’s it and we’ll be subscribing for our games rather than “owning” them. Personally yes this won’t be matching my rosy tinted memories of blowing on cartridges and saving up my pocket money for the latest piece of plastic that is used to hold some game code. However, the future is far brighter than the past seems, accessibility will be much better and games will be able to evolve. Imagine if a game like Minecraft had a final release, it would suck hard.

 

[Lew Zealand]

This was available from GOG with a real, standalone, non-DRM installer. For those who were interested in an old-school type of ownership, it was available all along.

 

[ForgottenLegion]

THIS is why I'm against the removal of physical media from consoles. Not only can you not buy the game anymore, but you cant DOWNLOAD IT again.

On Steam, if a game is removed from the store, you can still download it if you bought it, and play it online. No such luck on consoles.

Actually on xbox you can redownload delisted games via your purchase history.
Not sure why/if this situation is different.

 

[Nobina]

Lots of people here stuck in the 80’s & 90’s and expect software to last forever. Modern gaming moves further and further away from hardware every year. Eventually we’ll have a screen and an input device and that’s it and we’ll be subscribing for our games rather than “owning” them. Personally yes this won’t be matching my rosy tinted memories of blowing on cartridges and saving up my pocket money for the latest piece of plastic that is used to hold some game code. However, the future is far brighter than the past seems, accessibility will be much better and games will be able to evolve. Imagine if a game like Minecraft had a final release, it would suck hard.

That future sucks hard. I don't see anything bright about it. Games can still "evolve", just look at any game that has big updates and expansions which is almost every popular multiplayer game. If I pay for something I own it.

 

[Shadowboxer]

That future sucks hard. I don't see anything bright about it. Games can still "evolve", just look at any game that has big updates and expansions which is almost every popular multiplayer game. If I pay for something I own it.

Well, there are certainly downsides. Personally however I quite like the idea of being able to play whatever I want wherever I want (provided I have an internet connection). And that’s an upside that cloud gaming will create.

Personally I struggle to see many developers choosing to “evolve” or add updates to a game after its release. I know that this is the case with some games but those games tend to sell in massive numbers and often do also have in game purchases, they also frequently sell for large amounts of money, £60 for a new release. There are far more examples of games that have had updates promised and never received them because there is no financial incentive to do so. Or games who have had their servers switched off locking people out.

If you pay for something you don’t necessarily own it. Presumably you use film or music streaming services. You don’t own the content there. Actually for sometime now most music stores that sell music are actually just renting you music for the duration of your life to prevent you from selling it or passing on your digital music collection when you die.

At the end of the day, we are talking about software and in our connected world 99% of the time software requires constant updates, even if it’s just a basic office application. 20 years back when most of us weren’t always connected software could be finalised once, distributed and never worried about again but that’s not even close to being possible today. Even games you do own on steam still need steam to support you, they pay for the servers you download the game from, securely hold your account with details of where you get the game from, which personally I appreciate after having broken games discs in the past.

For me the benefits of cloud gaming far outweigh the negatives, it’s cheaper - the subscription models currently out there are far cheaper than buying games at the moment. It’s deliverable to almost any device, saving you money on hardware and energy carting it around (gaming laptops are not light). It’s backed up, so you don’t need to worry about damaging or losing a disc. And it gives a company an incentive to keep adding to the service to keep players paying the subscription.