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    Diamond or Cubic Zirconia?

    posted @ 10/25/2006 02:45:00 PM by Ninjasistah
    I will let you be the judge... after I hand down my ruling that is.

    I recently received my Xbox Live Diamond Card in the mail, and first impression was it looked snazzy!

    Indeedy, this isn't some cheazy, sleazy laminated paper card like the ones you get from Blockbuster these days... no this sucker is standard credit card stock and build. The imprinting of my gamertag in the all caps is a nice touch. It pleases me, so it immediately went into my wallet with prominent placement. [which if you need to know means right next to my AMEX Gold card... I had to retire my black card because I was ballin' out of control... hence my broketude.]

    But now I had a dilemma: I needed to know where I could to use my new pretty little gamer status icon. Included with my "gamer extraordinaire" card, was some info on the site I could go to and see what places valued my gaming awesomeness enough to float a sistah a deal. I was all excited, because my broke ass is in serious need of some discounts let me tell you. The first two I noticed off that bat that looked cool were the 10% off of purchases made online at Target website and the 2-for-1 sammiches at Quiznos... which I have to say I hit up on a weekly basis. Toasty! Moving on. At this point I'm thinking to myself, "Self? Yes? Looks like getting that XBLive Gold package and signing up for this dealie was a good idea I had. Indeed self, congratulations on the stroke of genius which is you, me, er, us! Boffo!" But then I started looking through the rest of the vendors and "deals" and started rethinking that whole ego molestation thing that I did to myself. [I am a registered ego molester.]

    Many of the vendors are companies that I've never heard of like Golfsmith.com, AKA Gourmet.com, Chukar Cherry Company, and Furniture Medic to name a few. Now, while many of these vendors seem like great little services on their own... I'm not sure how many gamers need furniture restoration. Wait, I take that back. From all the accounts of people winging controllers about their domicile in anger, someone has to have dinged their wood interiors. [he he, I said dinged their wood...] But the more I went through the list of vendors I noticed that while the list was obviously still in it's "new" stage. Even more obvious is that MS is trying to line up as many vendors as they can to give card holders a good reason to keep the card on them at all times. You never know when you need to order someone some flowers or a gift online, so when you start adding in those 10% off and 30% with a coupon type deals, it can be very attractive.

    It helps to remember that the Diamond Card is free if you have a 1 yr Xbox live Gold subscription. Then the free foods from Papa John's, Popeye's, and Quiznos starts looking real good. The wine and micro brew company vendors out of Washington state really only resonate with residents of the respective Washington state cities those companies are in, but still... American's love discounts, so I think it's a good idea. I'm just a little disappointed that with all their clout, MS wasn't able to line up some more gaming related discounts. I mean, the only things listed under the "Video Games & Hobbies" banner are Hollywood Video and Gamestop. The Gamestop one is a tad disappointing: "Receive $10 off any online purchase of $75 or more, online only," while the Hollywood Video one is a rent one get one rental free with this coupon you have to print out right here. Really Microsoft? Is that the best you can do? Where's the reward for being an Xbox loyalist? Where's the $10 bucks off any MS 1st party game you buy from Amazon or even Gamestop? How about the buy a controller, get a controller half off? I get that it can be difficult to bring on new vendors [even though your online system has been pretty dang large and in charge for nearly a year now] but how does that stop you from offering some in house discounts to gamers that have been nickel and dimed to death for microtransactions through your online service? Throw us a frikken bone here!

    Now, as I said, I'll let you be the judge. Maybe with the holiday season about to start some new vendors can pop up on the Diamond list and make this well meaning idea something to resonate well with gamers and consumers that love gamers. [Mom, I'm looking at you... you know Christmas is coming right?] But as far as I'm concerned right this moment, this card and bonus service is CZ at best.

    What do you think? Any diamond card holders out there that have some stories of how they used their card to get something?

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