No. There is nothing good about a point system.

For gifts you can buy a Visa gift card with $50 bucks on it. Or something like that. At least that can be spent anywhere that takes Visa.

However I really can’t get with the idea of exchanging money for something that’s less flexible than money. Especially with the side effects of obfuscation and inflexibility above. I swear that some mathematician has earned his PHD working out exactly how to organise microsoft points and game prices so you must continue to buy cards or forever feel like you are losing out because you have *Not quite enough* to buy that next game.

Also, it’s possible to look at one of your statements about security differently. While the purchase of steam points would be through paypal, this doesn’t completely relieve Valve of it’s security concerns.

Holding steam points – which are effectively money – makes Valve a holder of credit which they still need to protect as though it was in your bank. Microsoft and Apple seem to manage it ok of course, so no reason why Valve couldn’t. But I do think that purchasing points through Paypal falls short of tying up the security question. The points that you purchase still have to be held in safekeeping by Valve.

Also I’m curious about the initial cost of games being lower point. Could you spell that out a bit more clearly?

That aside, the whole “points” thing on XBox and Wii irritates the shit out of me. They inevitably pull this crap where they only offer certain price-points, and the games themselves are almost always priced slightly out of sync with that so you’re forced to buy excess points which encourages you spend more since you don’t want the points going to waste.

If I could do a straight X points for X dollars purchase, it wouldn’t *quite* so irritating, but there’s no extra profit in that, of course.

All ‘points’ systems ever attempt to do is hide or manipulate the true cost of something. It effectively allows manipulation of the money system by setting the exchange rate. In the case of MS Points for Xbox purchases, the exchange rate was set unfairly many years ago so for example, the Australian dollar is worth ~60c, not ~90c. Because purchases of points has to occur with real money, the cost of micro payments is no different than recharging a smart card or paying a tab (accumulated bill).

The only time I see a benefit to (some) customers is when the world market is split into regions and some regions, based on cost of living etc are given cheaper price points. This however flies in the face of free trade and is illegal to enforce in countries like Australia. Australian consumers have the right under the Trade Practices Act to outsource their goods and services from foreign sources just as businesses do. Region pricing already occurs for both retail and online sales (for Steam products!), so even this argument is invalid.

The value and advantages all lie in the publishers court. When people carry cash in their wallet/purse, they tend to spend it. When spare points are lying around they are more likely to be spent. Turning cash into a retail product allows more people to participate, which will persist as long as ‘online trade’ is a novel or new concept. Selling large blocks of points to be spent in tiny quantities over time can disassociate a customer from the true cost of their habitual spending, in the same way tokens and tickets can assist gambling machines. Finally, as bankers know, manipulating the cost of money enables a massive advantage to whoever can pull off that charade.

Non currency based purchase systems like msft points are used to hide the real cost of items and control fluctuations in currency which allow consumers to purchase games at cheaper rates.

Money is already pretty good at being money.