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Searched MSFT and the internet and am genuinely surprised this question hasn't come up anywhere...

I just bought my son an Xbox One S. It comes with a 1 month "free" Xbox Gold subscription trial. There appear to be two types of games:

  • Deals with Gold games - you get a discount on these, but you still have to pay a substantial cost.

  • Games with Gold games - these are free. There is an FAQ here for Games with Gold that is reasonably descriptive.

I understand "games with gold" games would become unplayable in the event the subscription lapses - but what happens to "Deals with Gold" games? Do they become unplayable even though you've paid most of the price?

I don't have a problem with losing something "free". But I don't want to stump up for a game and then lose it anyway from subscription lock in.

n.b.: I am referring to the paid "Deals with Gold" games, NOT "Games with Gold" games.

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I would say that legally, Microsoft cannot revoke your privilege of playing a game you bought through a Deals with Gold discount (if they tried this, I'm sure there would be articles all over the internet discussing the matter and an abundant amount of lawsuits). After all, you paid for something (regardless the amount) for an item. At that point, you own it.

I suppose the best way to describe how Deals with Gold works is with an analogy. Think of your Gold subscription as a discount card at a grocery store. With this "card" you get to buy items that are listed as discounted when you present the card at checkout. But lets say you decide to cancel your discount card with them after shopping there for a month. They aren't going to ask for the items you previously bought at the discounted prices back (that would be an interesting legal battle should that occur).

All the disclaimers I have found at the bottom of their (Microsoft's) websites discussing this only mention Games With Gold (the free games). You can see this at the bottom of this page for example. They don't state the same information for Deals with Gold denoting that those will not be unplayable in the events you subscription runs out.

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You can keep the games that you purchase at a discount and the Xbox 360 games you get for free. You lose access to the Xbox One games you got for free when your gold lapses.

References: https://support.xbox.com/en-US/my-account/xbox-live-membership/games-with-gold-faq

And experience.

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I know this is an old thread, but I was looking for an official answer, so I contacted Microsoft Support.

tl;dr Yes, you keep Deals with Gold games forever.

Here's my chat:

image

Transcript:

Customer: I am wondering if a purchase a Deals with Gold game at a discount, will I still be able to play that game when my Live Gold subscription expires?
Support: That is indeed a very good question.
Support: Yes, you should still be able to access those games after your membership runs out but not multiplayer since for multiplayer, we need Gold.
Customer: Right, that makes sense. So just to be clear, if I get a free game with Games with Gold, I will lose access to that game when my subscription runs out. But if I get a discounted game with Deals with Gold, I will not lose access to that when my subscription runs out. Does that sound right?
Support: That is correct.
Support: This is applicable for Xbox One, for Xbox 360 even if we don't have membership free games will still work on the console.
Customer: Great, thanks! That answers my question.

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