E-Currency: Is it a good thing?

When it comes to DLC and online game services like XBOX LIve or Playstation Network you really can’t do much without purchasing the actual content to begin with. However in this day and age some game companies have thrown the usual idea of actual currency values and replaced them with a point system. Two companies that live by this method are Nintendo and Microsoft. In lieu of using actual money values for their goods and services they use a point system ranging from 500 points to 3000 points.  Now on the other side of the coin, Sony uses actual currency for their items. And unlike Nintendo and Microsoft, you actually get a real feeling on how much said game is really worth.

Now, here is where we ask the question: Is this system really worth it? E-Currency has been proven to work by NIntendo and Microsoft via the consumer believing real money converted will retain its value over time. Then these companies have the confidence that overtime they will still be around to fufill their parts of the transactions and such.

Though do these systems really save us any money at all? You put down money to buy points, lets say for the XBOX you put down money to get 3000 points, you spend half of those points and are left with 1500 dollars. Ok so you have change, thats a good thing, so you buy somehting else thats worth 1400 points, and you are now left with 100 points. Now lets be honest…100 points won’t get you much in XBOX Live Aracade. So then you come up with the idea to add points equal or close enough to one purchase you want so you don’t have change left over. However, there lies the problem…there is no actual way to DO this. The companies have created set values, so you really can’t fine tune it to meet these needs. SO most of the time you may end up spending more money than you intended and you end up in a viscous cycle. Or if you break from this cycle you have 200 points  sitting there gathering dust and probably will never ever gain any value.

The game companies need to take a look at this and decide to actually make a point system conversion where you can add points and not end up with change that won’t gain any value at all. Though you know, they probably won’t do it because they will end up loosing money. Oh no, they will loose money off of online content, I guess its back to gaining money off of the sales they get from in store releases, oh and don’t forget about Microsoft getting money off their gold membership subscriptions, however now I am ranting.

So lets think about this, are we really saving any money from this? Or do we really end up spending more money on online content and DLC than we do on buying the actual game? I leave this to you Chocolate Lemon Nation, cast in your opinions on this and let your voice be heard!