How does games for gold work?

Simple enough question. I don't have a gold subscription yet, won't be getting one until Destiny comes out. Do you get to keep the free games offered via gold, or do they eventually expire?

I think I remember reading you get to keep them so long as you still have a gold subscription.

Yes you keep the free games.

Wrong if we are talking Next gen. The TC didn't tell us if he meant Xbone or 360.

On Xbone you lose the games when the XBL expires (unless one chooses to renew).

On 360 you keep them, but on Xbone you do not. They changed the policy to emulate PS+ to attract newer and better games as publishers were apprehensive to give away newer games forever.

I answered above. On Xbone the GwG expire unless down the road you want to renew.

As far as more information on next month's GwG game, here's a link to a thread here.

@SolidTy: wait, if I renew the subscription, I still don't get to keep the game?

You are talking about something else completely. No, if you renew you should be fine.

To be clear, your question is different and was not a question that was asked until you just posted.

This is the OP's question,

"Do you get to keep the free games offered via gold, or do they eventually expire?"

"I think I remember reading you get to keep them so long as you still have a gold subscription."

That OP question was answered above. You don't keep the free Xbone GwG games via gold as they eventually expire (if you don't keep gold). You lose access to those games when you don't have XBLGold. However, if you choose to pay and renew gold, you should be fine. That's a separate question, renewal. Which I answered for you as well. I hope this clears things up for you.

Of course, GwG is so new on Xbone (a few months old) and I haven't let my Gold lapse to check these brand new Xbone policies out, so if there are problems that arise with renewals we have yet to hear about them.

To date, they have only offered 5 games on Xbone's GwG with next month, September, they are adding a single new game putting the total to 6 games. If you are curious what GwG free games are available next month for 360 (2 new games) or Xbone (1 new game), here's a thread here.

I currently have every free game offered with GwG on 360 and Xbone as I've been with Live since the very first, original Xbox 1.

cool, thanks for clarifying. I'm new to the whole xbox live thingy

No problem. Glad I could help a fellow gamer. Xbox Live Games with Gold was created and copied to compete with Sony's PS+, so if you had PS+ last generation or this generation, you should know how GwG all works, especially on Xbone as they modified the differences of GwG to be the same with regards to policy, paywalls, etc.

If not, what I said up there is a good start.

Wow, I did not know that! I mean I'm still gonna get the XB1, but this is just news to me!

@Ross_the_Boss6:

As others have stated, I'll confirm that X360 games are permanent and XOne games are playable so long as you are a subscriber.

What happens once you uninstall them can you put them back on with out paying?.

Talking about Xbone, right? The answer is no. You can't uninstall free GwG XBL games and put them back on without paying. You need to pay for Xbox Live Gold if you want to play those Xbone GwG free games again.

There you go man. Spread the word. It's clear a lot of people don't know that because I had to correct the second poster when I entered the thread.

This month marks the 6th new game released for GwG on Xbone.

At any rate, I'm glad to help out a fellow. :)

Do you mean if you delete the game and then want to install it another time whilst still subscribed? In that case I assume you could access it via a download history list? (I know that is how you do it on Xbox 360 but I must confess, I do not know if that is on the Xbox One).

You missed a few of the underlined parts in skippers and my conversation. He is asking about not paying and I answered what happens when you don't pay (aka don't subscribe to XBLG).

He asked about "not paying" (aka not subscribing) and I answered about "not paying". "You need to pay for Xbox Live Gold", which means you need to be still subscribed. Same thing. I was never talking about subscribers nor was the poster above.

Remember, he said, "put them back on with out paying?." He was asking if he could could play "while not being a subscriber anymore" because he said, "without paying". That's a crucial distinction, the "not paying" part. He is interested in dropping his XBLG subscription but retaining the free XBLG GwG games which isn't possible on Xbone.

If you are still subscribed aka paid up for Xbox Live Gold, you can delete and install your GwG free games all day, every day. If you are NOT subscribed (paying for XBLG), as I was talking about, then you can't access the Xbone GwG free games. The download history list is all there and good on Xbone, but you can't DL the XBLG free games if you stop subscribing aka not paying for XBLG anymore.

On Xbone, you need to be an active Xbox Live Subscriber to play the games. While subscribed, you can install and uninstall. This topic always breed confusion it seems, lol. I don't know how to detail and explain it precisely without posting as much as I do. I tried to post four sentences, but that didn't work so here we are with six paragraphs, lol.

I answered in more detail above regarding XBLG and GwG free games in other responses in this thread if that helps.

@SolidTy:

My mistake, I thought the user was asking if they could install the game again if they deleted it past the month where the game was available for free (so say if I deleted Max Curse of Brotherhood off my Xbox One now, would I be able to download it again for free as I am still an Xbox Live Gold member or would I now have to pay because it is not in the Games for Gold offer this month).

Yeah, he wasn't talking about that as he wished to avoid paying for XBLG, but what you are talking about is completely possible if you are still an Xbox Live Gold member. :)

That would really suck if you needed space but didn't want to lose your GwG games. Lucky that's not an issue. Truth be told though, I haven't deleted any GwG free games off of my Xbone (there have only been 6 free ones so far) just yet just in case as the program is relatively new on Xbone and I don't want to risk anything while I don't have too.

@SolidTy:

Same here, I got an external drive as my hard drive got filled pretty fast (it really is not big enough). Have you got Crimson Dragon from this months (and last months) free game offering? I am tempted to add it on the off chance I want to play it in the future but heard very negative things regarding micro transactions in the game.

@Garfield360UK: Yes, I have all six of the free Xbone GwG games including Crimson Dragon. It's not the greatest game (56/100 metascore), but dragons in general are cool. :) I download all of the free XBLG games since they are free (with sub), but their quality and my taste dictate how long I play them. If I had to delete an Xbone game, that game would probably be the first, lol.

@SolidTy:

How big is the download if you do not mind me asking? I have relatively slow broadband compared to what the file sizes are of games now (i.e. a few gigs is fine, but when a game is 30+ gigs that's two days minimum downloading for me).

@Garfield360UK: When I get home, I'll fire up the Xbone and check, and then come back and post the results.

I'm off to dinner and movie tonight though. I never paid attention to the sizes since I have so few games and the machine is 500GB to start. I haven't gotten to the actual memory management level that I got to on 360, PC, etc.

@Garfield360UK: I just got back from dinner to drop off the food in bags. Leaving again, but I did check the Xbone. Firstly, that Xbone UI is still funky to find stuff in. It's still shocking to me that the Xbox 360 is UI is much better than the Xbone UI on answering questions like this. It's no wonder I don't know the file sizes of games I DL. I found first that I used up 29% of total HDD space on my unit, but after a few button presses and digging I found the answer.

6.83 GB of space for Crimson. Now, off to the movies. Cheers! :)

Yes i mean when your still subscribed to gold and uninstall the free gold games. :)

@SolidTy:

Ah cool, thank you for that. I may give it a look as that file size is not too bad.

It's really not that large considering some other things I've DLed this gen.

The game is fun in it's own way as a rail shooter, but it's just a bit glitchy from what little I played (a few hours).

Unfortunately you do not get to keep them on the Xbox One.

You keep them ... Unless you delete them

Nope on Xbone.

You also have to be an active paid Xbox Live Gold member.

I didnt know you had to be an active XBL gold member for the Xbone games to be valid, thanks for the information, guys!

I'm not sure if this has been asked or answered yet; What happens if while you're a subscriber, you download the games, then your subscription runs out? Do you lose access to those games forever? Or if you subscribe again at a later date, do you once again gain access to those said games?

What happened to me is; I was careless and my subscription ran out today and I currently can not play GwG games. Can I start playing them again as soon as I subscribe?

I'm not sure why this took so long to explain by the way.

Re-subscribing to XBLG should let you play the games again. That's how PS+ works when I had the same problem on the other service so it should be the same way for GwG since it emulated PS+.

I've never let my XBLG subscription run out though so I've never had to try and find out.

A lot of people don't seem to know Xbone GwG games require a Gold subscription to keep and play them.

They are in for a rude awakening when they upgrade to current generation gaming. You are welcome, I was the first one in this thread to correct users on that issue as they didn't know fully about GwG but were answering incorrectly anyways.

Do you get to keep a game you got free on the xbox 360 if you deleted it after the month it was free, like something you paid for already, or do you have to pay for it if you delete it? Please I need answers.

@yetiarmy: This thread is over 6 months old, please don't bump old threads.