I subscribed to Game Pass for a year or so. It was a good value but it got to the point where there were just too many games and not enough time to play them. I kept subscribing for the $1 per month trick, but once that ended I canceled.
When Manor Lords came out in early access I found a good deal for a month of Game Pass, that just expired.
I have the Nintendo one, originally for animal crossing and now it’s more because my 2 year old likes Super Mario 64 and I do not want to set her up on a PC to emulate it quite yet. Switch is a lot easier on her tiny baby hands, plus handhelds are more intuitive.
My stepdad has Xboxs thing, which works for him anyway. Given he’s retired and has time but not a lot of money, it’s a better bang for his buck (plus he’s not exactly planning on living forever).
I bought 3 years of Gamepass when they had that $1 upgrade thing and right before they increased the local pricing. Will probably be the only and final subscription I have when it’s over in a couple of years
I had GamePass for a few years and just canceled last month. I barely used it anymore except for Minecraft and Halo Infinite and don’t play those anymore. I might even own Minecraft and have forgotten.
But then I signed back up for Nintendo Online because my girlfriend and her son just got Switches and we play Animal Crossing together. But it’s not as much as GamePass so not that big of a deal.
But I’m sick of subscriptions for shit I don’t even use. Everything nowadays has to be a subscription for no reason. Nintendo doesn’t even provide anything of valuable for theirs since I can’t even talk over it. I’m just paying for what used to be free on their past consoles.
It grinds my gears that sony software locked the ability to backup saves locally on the PS5 making a PS plus subscription the only way to have a backup of save games. I don’t play multiplayer and don’t play the monthly free games either so I have to pay a premium for the rest of my life to get a basic functionality that was present in ps4 but got nerfed for some dubious reasons in ps5. The recent ps plus price hike was the last straw so I ditched my PS and got into PC gaming and loving it so far.
Churn is inevitable with any subscription service.
The trick is creating just enough value and exclusive content/services that you feel like you’re gonna miss out if you leave. But not too much.
I haven’t seen any incentive to stay with any specific game subscription service via exclusive content or services. But I do see plenty of attempts to lock people into services with shitty tactics. Like forcing save data to the cloud. Good luck moving that saved file to your own personal copy of the game. Or multiple tiered service options with features/games locked behind more expensive options.
I think enough people have been exposed to enough subscription services that customers have started taking inventory of what they’re paying per month that they didn’t used to do, which means often signing up for a month and then quitting. I’m simultaneously surprised and not surprised that the access to online multiplayer only accounts for about 30% of the reason people subscribe to these things, but then those same customers doing that same accounting of their personal finances have probably done the math to realize that, long term, it’s cheaper to just play games online on PC, which is leading to consoles performing the way they’re performing lately.
long term, it’s cheaper to just play games online on PC
The companies are clearly coming to terms with this, as well. I’ll be avoiding Sony games on PC for the foreseeable future. After the Helldivers debacle, it’s clear that Sony is looking for ways to monetize PC players.
I was an on and off reader of theirs and really liked it in the beginning… but had the distinct impression they changed ownership a little while back when they added some pay walls and game guides.
I want multiple streaming services that can stream almost everything so there’s competition, but still a valid reason not to just drop and switch constantly.
Multiple streaming services that all stream from the same database so the competition isn’t what licenses they hold, but how good their UI and back-end are. This only happened in the better timeline with Harambe though…
gamesindustry.biz
Aktywne