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At E3 on Monday, as part of Microsoft's panel with regards to the new Xbox One, the announcement was made that Microsoft Points would be ending soon. The exact end date is not known, but it is most likely in November, coinciding with the release of the One. Further details were released later, detailing how the shutdown was going to proceed - when the change-over from Microsoft Points occurs to the new system, which is a straight cash system (all items will be priced in real money currency, account balances will be in real currency figures), all outstanding Points balances will be converted into an account balance on the new system, and all money transitioned in this way will expire one year later.
As the internet, as a whole, has a tendency to read things in the worst possible tone and overreact, the reaction was predictable and immediate - accusations of theft, fraud, and worse on unmoderated and lightly-moderated sites everywhere. This is, of course, hyperbole and overreaction.
Microsoft is doing what it's legally required to do in order to close out their Points program and balance the books on it once and for all. Because a significant portion of the Points program (and an even larger proportion of the unspent balances) were gained from bonuses, freebies, and other promotions, Microsoft is not required to cash out the outstanding balances directly.
Thanks to laws that go back decades, dealing with Blue Chip Stamps and other redemption programs, Microsoft can issue gift certificates (read: a balance in the new system) with expiration dates for the outstanding balance. Without expiring the balances, there could (and would) be accounts with points left on them - all those people with small balances that they can't really use on anything worthwhile, people who died, people who burned out on gaming and went "cold turkey" - there's no way that all of the outstanding points would ever be used. So they are allowed to write those off after giving customers a reasonable amount of time to spend their unused balances.
But the madding horde on the Internet can't stop raving long enough to listen to that... =>_<=
As the internet, as a whole, has a tendency to read things in the worst possible tone and overreact, the reaction was predictable and immediate - accusations of theft, fraud, and worse on unmoderated and lightly-moderated sites everywhere. This is, of course, hyperbole and overreaction.
Microsoft is doing what it's legally required to do in order to close out their Points program and balance the books on it once and for all. Because a significant portion of the Points program (and an even larger proportion of the unspent balances) were gained from bonuses, freebies, and other promotions, Microsoft is not required to cash out the outstanding balances directly.
Thanks to laws that go back decades, dealing with Blue Chip Stamps and other redemption programs, Microsoft can issue gift certificates (read: a balance in the new system) with expiration dates for the outstanding balance. Without expiring the balances, there could (and would) be accounts with points left on them - all those people with small balances that they can't really use on anything worthwhile, people who died, people who burned out on gaming and went "cold turkey" - there's no way that all of the outstanding points would ever be used. So they are allowed to write those off after giving customers a reasonable amount of time to spend their unused balances.
But the madding horde on the Internet can't stop raving long enough to listen to that... =>_<=
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