When games get difficult or frustrating, the last thing you'd want is the Xbox Store selling you a guide on how to play it. It makes sense why people would want to grab a guide on how to play a game. Sometimes a puzzle is simply too confusing, or the game doesn't provide enough assistance guiding the player where to go. Sometimes a player just wants to get ahead of the game, so they pick up a guide on how to play Fortnite, especially after it receives visual upgrades.
The Xbox Store is a system used for people to navigate through the wide selection of games, applications, or shows Xbox has to offer. It gives people easy access to purchase what they want and install it onto their Xbox through a few clicks. While there is a wide selection of products provided by legitimate developers and producers, users have come across a weird part of the store that seems to target a younger audience.
Patrick Maka tweeted out a complaint about the Xbox Store selling guides on video games, providing an example of a "Ghost Runner Guide" which was selling for $5.95 AUD (Around $4.32 USD). This would be okay if it was an official guide provided by the developers, maybe including extra accessories and lore within the package. However, these guides were made by an entirely different name called Guide Portal. What makes it worse is the guides were not even originally made by them, but rather ripped off by other content creators and guides that are available for free on the internet.
This becomes apparent in the Microsoft Store by simply searching up "guide." There are tons of guides for different games like Minecraft, Fortnite, and Valorant – which recently released a new Act. Beyond that, there are guides for apps like Snapchat, which isn't even a video game. While a majority of these guides are free, it's the guides that people can purchase with money, ranging on average from $2 to $4. It is uncertain whether or not all of these guides on the Windows Store are also ripped off from other content creators, but paying any amount of money for something people can easily get on the internet for free is problematic.
It is likely these guides are targeted towards children who don't know any better. Microsoft needs to remove these guides from its stores, especially if it is just stolen content. It is hurtful to not only the credit cards of parents but to the content creators responsible for making these guides in the first place. It is Microsoft's responsibility to ensure the integrity and legitimacy of the items people can purchase from their store.
Sources: @PMaka1991, Microsoft Store