I haven't been able to play my XBLA games in two months!

H

Hildewulf

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Joined
Oct 24, 2007
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My 360 RRoD'd in November, just after Thanksgiving. I sent it in for repairs and got it back in early January. When I logged back on to Live, I found I couldn't play some of the games I'd downloaded -- my xbox was convinced that I'd never downloaded them and would only let me access the demos. I could play some of my other games, but only as long as I was logged into Live. As soon as I logged out, the 360 would go back to thinking I only had the demo versions.

When I called Xbox tech support, they told me that the problem was DRM related. They'd have to do something to my LIVE account on their end to make the games function on my repaired xbox. They said that this process could take up to three weeks.

As of the 8th, it will have been a month.

Has this happened to anyone else? Is there anything else I can do to access my games? Deleting and re-downloading doesn't work.

I was initally fairly impressed with how smoothly the repair process went. But this XBLA thing is really testing my patience.

UPDATE:

Called Xbox tech support. Found out that they didn't "escalate the call to a level 3 supervisor" when I originally called on the 8th. Apparently that's what needs to happen before they'll start trying to fix the issue. They only escalated the call after I called back on the 17th... and *that* escalation didn't actually get processed until the 23rd. So now they're telling me that they have until February 23rd to fix the issue because that's one month from when it was finally sent to the right department.

They say they'll have someone call me back tomorrow to discuss compensation, but they can't guarantee anything. We'll see how that goes.

So... if you have this problem, make sure they escalate your call right away.

UPDATE 2:

No one called me back. Shocking.

UPDATE 3:

Got a hold of Taylor at US tech support. He said he'd look into it and call me back on Friday. I asked about compensation for my downtime. He said that I haven't really experienced any downtime because I should be able to play games while I'm signed in to Live. I explained to him that, though I *should* be able to play games while signed in, I *can't.* Signed in or not, my xbox thinks I only have the demo versions. He sounded dubious and said he'd never heard of that problem before. I offered to bring my xbox to him so he could see for himself. He said that wouldn't be necessary and he'd get back to me on Friday, but that he couldn't offer me any compensation because the DRM switching process takes "approximately 30 days from the escalation date". It doesn't seem to matter that I called on Jan. 8th and tech support sat on my call until the 23rd. Apparently it's my fault it took them that long to escalate things.

Overall, I'm not optimistic. I've been promised call backs at every step in this process and have yet to receive even one. I'm more than a little disturbed that we've gone from "30 days from the escalation date" to "approximately 30 days from the escalation date." I fully expect MS to use that "approximately" to drag this into March. And frankly, I'm amazed at the lack of regard I've been shown so far. All of my requests for compensation have been flat-out refused and the only apologies I've gotten for my inconvenience have come after I've asked for them.

Am I being unreasonable by asking for a month of Live as compensation? Here's my logic: The only games my friends play on Live are Puzzle Quest, Settlers, and Carcassonne. After getting my xbox back from the repair center, I activated the one month of Live they'd sent me as compensation for having to go through the repair process. Then, I discover that I can't play any of the games my friends play because of this DRM thing. So the whole month I originally got as compensation was useless to me, and I'd like them to replace it. No one at MS seems to understand the logic in this argument.

At this point, I regret ever having purchased an Xbox 360. It's a great machine when it works. Even after I got the RRoD, I was satisfied with the repair process. But this stupid XBLA DRM extravaganza has soured any affection I once had for the console. I have never been treated this badly by a company in my life. And the sick thing is, it'd only cost them one sincere apology and $6.00 in Live to make me happy.

US tech support number: 1-866-506-3826. You'll need a case number in order to get anywhere, so you still have to start at 1-800-4-MY-XBOX.
 
I never had any issue with the XBLA portion of things, but I'd call back and bitch DAILY. 3 weeks is BULLSHIT.
 
I hear you, I've been waiting since early November for them to "fix" my Live Arcade games. I'm on my 4th 360 and the 2nd time I've had to have them transfer (3rd 360 didn't last long enough to even call about the Live Arcade issue) the games to the new 360. The 1st time around it took them a few months to call me with a 6000+ point code.
 
Yah It did that to me too. The XBLA games are registered to the original xbox and will now only be playable when you are logged in. Think of it this way. Say you had a friend with an xbox and you setup your account on there. You then could download your XBLA games and play them on your friends xbox. But they become unplayable unless you are the account which the game was purchased. Since your on a replacement console, well... you can guess what went on. I called Microsoft on this and they said I'm SOL. Pffft. Whatever. Thats why my xbox is collecting dust on my desk. :rolleyes:
 
Yeah... the weird thing is that a couple of my games work when I'm logged in, but most of them don't work at all no matter if I'm logged in or not.
 
have you tried redownloading them? I know there are few games I had (very few) that I had when my first xbox died that I just had to be logged back on. I'm always logged on so it's not an issue for me. rarely do I play anything off-line.
 
How do you guys put up with that? I know the games are good but damn, they can't be that good. My PS3 doesn't have issues and I use it a lot. I don't know, I just don't figure I could put up with that if Sony had pulled this stuff.
 
Deleting and re-downloading should fix this problem for a lot of your games, but I've heard it wont work for all of them.
 
I've redownloaded everything. Certain games still don't work no matter how many times I redownload them. This is something MS has to fix on their end.

No return phone call from them yet. They promised 24 hours. Can't say I'm surprised.
 
Hildewulf said:
I've redownloaded everything. Certain games still don't work no matter how many times I redownload them. This is something MS has to fix on their end.
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This is going to sound obvious... but you did delete the game first right? Not just select download again from the menu.
 
if you call in and explain (i had to explain the whole drm to them) to them what the issue is i hat full MS refunded points to me in 24 hours.
 
I've deleted and redownloaded everything. Certain games still do not work.

I asked them about refunding my points. They said they used to do that, but since they developed a system for re-registering the DRM, they don't any more. Their "system" takes a month from when they start working on it, though, so I guess my only recourse is to wait until Feb. 23rd.

Oh, and as for calling within 24 hours to discuss compensation for my downtime? Yeah, that didn't happen. Big surprise.

I've been calling 1-800-4 MY XBOX. That connects me to a call center in India. I suspect that to progress further, I'll need to contact someone in the US. I suspect that when the Indian reps say they've escalated my problem to a "level 3 supervisor", they mean they've sent it to someone in the US. Does anyone have a US tech support number? Does such a thing exist?

This whole thing makes me angry. If I treated my clients this way, I'd be out of business... deservedly. But MS gets away with it because... why? Because I can't figure out who to appeal to. Because they're so big that it doesn't matter to them if they lose a customer here or there. Because I've already sunk my money into their stupid points system and there's nothing I can do to get it back.
 
I'm having the same problem. I got my refurbished xBox back on 12/27 and realized that my arcade games no longer worked. My son is the one who plays them and has his own gamer tag and all that. I purchased them under my account.

When he couldn't play them I called MS. After an hour or so on the phone being transferred around, I got a supervisor that explained their new policy of transferring the license. She said it would take 30 days, so on 1/28 I called them back as my games still did not work. The person I spoke to said the order wasn't put in until 1/9 and to wait and call back if they still don't work on 2/9.

On 2/9 they didn't work so I called back. I've gotten the run around since, being promised call backs and the like. I've been on the phone with them everyday now. Seeing this post, I called in again to the US number posted above, and got someone that actually gave me a name and direct extension. She said she would look into it, but that it would take 2 business days since she had to get into contact with Steven in Redmond, who was in charge of doing the transfer the first time.

She said to expect a call back from her on Monday in the late afternoon. We'll see, but she did seem much more trustworthy than the folks I've spoken with so far.

I'll say one thing for sure. I will never buy another XBLA game again. I don't trust the 360 at all since the red ring, and this "wait 30 days for us to flip a switch" is ridiculous. If it had worked, 30 days was too long. Since it didn't, I don't know what to say about it.
 
The 30 day thing is bullshit. The Canadian support number people do it while you wait on the phone... might want to ask them why Canada gets a better service than you do. :D

[Edit - Far too much goodness on XBLA for me to consider not buying there... it's where the games I spend most time playing are!]
 
Yeah, after you get them onto your console, due to your new (refurbed) console not being the one to purchase the games, you must be logged in to play any XBLA title. Their DRM scheme does not allow you to play the games offline. I guess that could be good or bad, but don't look for a fix on this particular issue for a long time, if ever.
 
Yeah M$ support is horrible. When I first got an arcade system to replace my RROD console, it would not connect to live. I called them I get a lady called Reshana. I tell her my problem after being on hold for 50 min she comes back telling me my ISP is not supported so it wont work. I said thats not the problem because I was using my old console on live. Then she tells me that unsupported ISPS work sometimes but not always. This was bullshit, my friends have the same ISP and it works. So I rudely hung up, and did some research online. I found out I needed to update my Firmware for my router I did and it worked great. Arcade console sucked anyways bought an Elite :p. But anyways their support is complete BS!
 
Keep calling and complain. That is freakin' ridiculous. If by the time they say it would be fixed and it isn't you would then need to call everyday, every 4 hours, until they essentially get sick of hearing from you and just give you something. ;)
 
My Update: The lady that promised a call back on Monday, hasn't called yet. Yesterday I left her a message, and again today. At this point, my only option is to call her and MS back on a daily, to twice daily period until someone actually fixes the problem.

I can not believe the incompetents at MS regarding this. It's so damn frustrating and has now been right at two full months since my RRoD. That's two full months that we've been unable to play these arcade games as a family.
 
Email major nelson... I would suggest polite but frustrated for your tone. If you explain the situation to him (especially the family thing) I'm pretty certain he'll try to help you out.
 
MajorNelson is useless. I don't think he will do anything. I e-mailed him awhile back telling him to warn people about the xbox live gold scam on eBay where they sell 12 month codes that only work for new accounts only. Didn't even address it on his blog.
 
the_transporter said:
MajorNelson is useless. I don't think he will do anything. I e-mailed him awhile back telling him to warn people about the xbox live gold scam on eBay where they sell 12 month codes that only work for new accounts only. Didn't even address it on his blog.
Click to expand...
For something like that... perhaps. But he's specifically asked to be notified about this sort of stuff.
 
Resolved at last!

On Psychotexts suggestion I sent Major Nelson an e-mail. A few days later I got an e-mail from Mike at Xbox Escalations stating that he'd be in contact with me in a few days. A day or so later he called and we played phone tag for a few days before finally getting to speak in person.

He said that the transfer was supposed to have gone through on February 24th so I went down and checked. Still no dice. I could access them under my account when on-line, but if I pulled the network or switched to another profile, they were demos. Mike put me on hold for a minute and came back asking that I delete and re-download one game.

I did, and, success at long last! The game worked off line and under the other accounts. This only marks the third time I've had to re-download everything, but at least this time it works.

I originally called Xbox Customer Service on December 27th, 2007. Spent countless hours on the phone trying to get the issue resolved. Was promised no less than 10 call backs that never came, and will probably never buy another Arcade game again (until they fix this DRM problem), but I can finally play my games like I could before my Xbox RRoD'd.

It's a hollow victory, this.

12/27/2007-2/28/2008 = 63 days in total (not including time without the console for repair).
 
Xbox customer relations called me today and said that my games had been transfered to my 4th 360. I originally called 11/26/2007. I haven't had a chance to check them yet though.
 
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