Seriously, why does it cost money at all to change your Xbox Gamertag?

BenjaminSmith930 · Aug 3, 2020

I play "Halo: MCC" on Steam as well as other Steam games. Steam is a service which allows you to change your
'visible' name at no cost, while you still have your account name unchanged, and it works wonderfully. I occasionally like to change how my Steam name looks just for fun and nobody gets confused as to who I am, especially since there's also
a nickname feature.

I've done a couple hours of internet searching and found no logical reason for any payment to be required.

I've seen the following reasonings:

1-Spamming name change to get away with doing offensive/rude things

2-There are many files using your gamertag and they would all have to change, taking up server bandwidth

3-Sony/Playstation doesn't let you change it at all

4-Your friends would be confused

5-Microsoft wants money

And I have counter arguments for each of those reasonings. In my first paragraph I've already answered to numbers
1 and 4. Changing your 'visible' name many times wouldn't let you get away with doing offensive things because your actual
'account' name would be linked to whatever 'visible' name it's currently associated with. And users can set a nickname for their friends to never have to worry about getting confused.

Answering to number 2, the files and such wouldn't have to change, they'd still link to the account. Selecting/viewing a message would send an electronic request to the account to see what the current 'visible' name
is and it would display that instead, simple as that. Discord does this and so does YouTube along with several other services that allow free name changes.

Number 3. I don't care about that, it's definitely not worse. They need this changed too.

And lastly, for number 5. Microsoft wants money... Yeah and I would like to not be ripped off. I'm keeping my money. This is why people switch to PC, as have I. I'm just experiencing this issue now cause of "Halo:
MCC" which uses Xbox Gamertags.

I just want to change what people see my name as when I play Halo, gosh darn it.

This is not a request for making the gamertag change free. I actually want to request a nickname feature and/or a visible name change
feature that doesn't cost anything. Can we please have this thing that gamers have asked for for years?

I also ask anyone who can answer this: Is there any valid reason for Microsoft to not make this change? Because if they do change this it'll absolutely gain their audiences' favor, and therefore more profit.

That'll be $9.99 for reading this.

You see how it feels?

:)

SilentJay76

The visible name feature would solve the first problem and the nickname feature would solve your second.

And at least on the Nintendo Switch you can change your console name which is what people see online. I play Smash Bros and people change this all the time.

I don't understand. How would a "visible name" feature prevent people from abusing it? How would a "nickname" feature tell me who's who, if they keep changing it? And why on Earth would you want THREE different usernames on one platform? (Gamertag, visible
name, nickname.)

BenjaminSmith930

As for the entire back-end usage thing you're talking about, I've already addressed and gave a solution to: "Selecting/viewing a message would send an electronic request to the account to see what the current 'visible'
name is and it would display that instead." <-This is an example.

Wherever you'd see the name of a user, it would show the visible name instead by having code to automatically check for it.

I don't think Microsoft needs the money, I thought that was clear.

BenjaminSmith930

The visible name feature would solve the first problem and the nickname feature would solve your second.

And at least on the Nintendo Switch you can change your console name which is what people see online. I play Smash Bros and people change this all the time.

wi7bit

Hi BenjaminSmith930

There are a number of reasons why Microsoft charge for this and (as a lot of us ambassadors know) the issues it would cause. But I think the main reason is the changing gamer-tags does cause a lot of back-end usage to an on-line system. Even recently, Microsoft
disable updating of gamer-pics for this exact reason.

The free 'one-time' change should be more than enough for users to pick name and stick with it. I also don't think Microsoft needs the money, do you?

SilentJay76

I can only guess. Possibly Xbox (or consoles in general) have far more young users who would find it "funny" to abuse the system? Xbox especially is trying to be a family friendly platform. Protecting people from morons (of all ages) would be part of
that, I suppose.

Just pick a gamertag and stick with it. Personally, I'd hate it if my (online) friends constantly changed their names and I had no idea who's who anymore.

PS: Pretty sure PlayStation introduced name changes for a fee about a year or two ago. Nintendo doesn't even have gamertags at all, last time I checked. (Although that's a while ago.)

Seriously, why does it cost money at all to change your Xbox Gamertag?