Microsoft Removing Gun-like Avatar Items From Sale

nofi 28 Comments

I’ve never really seen the appeal of spending real money on your Xbox 360 Avatar, especially given that they’re rarely used inside games (apart from some Indie games, of course).  I’m aware that people do, mind, my Friends section of the new dash is populated by little guys wearing and holding all kinds of things.

According to ‘Raczilla‘ over on the Epic forums, though, those guys won’t be holding weapons – or at least won’t be able to buy new ones, come the new year.

“Starting on Jan. 1, 2012, the Lancer and Hammerburst avatar items will no longer be available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace,” says the post. “If you’ve purchased the items prior to Jan. 1, you will be able to keep them. A new policy goes into effect for all gun-like avatar items on the Marketplace, so get them while they’re hot.”

I’m assuming that this is because whilst games with guns are safely behind age rating, the option to view Avatars holding them is not: they’re right there on the dashboard. Whilst it makes sense on one level, what happened to Microsoft’s ‘hardcore’ gamer stance?

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28 Comments

  1. “what happened to Microsoft’s ‘hardcore’ gamer stance?”

    It went out the door when the Kinect came out.

  2. Stop catering to kids and families!!

    • They’re the ones who buy games, not hardcore gamers.

  3. Seriously? I can see where there coming from pn this but at the day of th day I just think…you what?

  4. Guns don’t kill people, Avatars do.

    • I saw it on documentary on BBC2.
      I like how they aren’t taking the opportunity to cash in and didn’t say ‘get them while they’re hot’.

    • Sound of the police
      Woo woo woo

    • Thanks, now I got this in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ83KXUloP8&ob=av3e

    • Ask any politician and they tell you it’s true ;) Not really a big deal is it, people without them shouldn’t make a deal of it as you haven’t bought them, and those that do have them keep them.

    • Avatars are bloody dangerous. I nearly got killed by the blue scum. :p(i don’t know the name of the race in Avatar).

  5. Don’t really see the point of this since everybody who wants a gun for their avatar is going to already have one. And since you can still have them, everybody who has one will have it on display. So theres still going to be a ton of avatars with guns out there for the kiddies to see. Not to mention all the guns they see when they’re playing CoD. But I’m with Nofi on this buying imaginary things for imaginary people with real money doesn’t make sense in the first place.

  6. no guns, on a console built on the fps.

    shows where ms see the xbox brand heading doesn’t it.
    of all the things i bleive ms are quilty of, i didn’t think stupidity was one of them.
    no fangirl bashing intended here, but the core audience for the xbox is really the fps player

    you know, i can see ms going full on wii level casual with the next xbox, whatever it’s called.

    they want some of that wii money.
    sadly, for them, they went after the wii money just as it starts to dry up.

    but don’t worry all you hardcore xbox fans, if the casual market does start to dry up for them, they’ll abandon it in a shot.

    • You are so right. I actually feel a bit bad for 360 owners. It’s a shame.

      • I just like the idea that Microsoft are quilty, very cozy and festive :)

  7. I wish consoles would stop catering to the kiddies and families. They have the Wii. The Xbox and PS3 are meant to be for hardcore audiences!

    • Surely if both MS and Sony keep putting out great games like Halo, Uncharted, COD etc then having family friendly games alongside isn’t really an issue.

  8. Could it be a marketing ploy?

    I’ve never had any desire to buy useless stuff for essentially a useless picture. But now the option is to be taken away, I kinda want one just to mess with microsofts “family” vision.

    Any official word from MS on this?

  9. This has me worried. I have a Siamese cat with my Avatar, and our real-life Siamese has done me more damage to me than guns ever have. How long before Microsoft take away my virtual cat?

    • @Paranoimia We’ve got three Siamese cats so I had to lol at that :)

      Why not just have filtering so an alternative avatar is automatically displayed if the recipient is flagged as “family friendly”. Oh yeah, cost.

  10. I think a lot of us all had toy guns when we were little. I really dont see the harm in it all unless of course you give a 4 year old a real gun im sure you’ll see the harm.

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