It’s still crazy to me that this somehow became normal. I’m not paying rent for a fucking video game. Hell I’m not even paying in general, least of all for Ubisoft or some other Activision-Blizzard-EA shlock.
Things are getting back to normal in a way. People rented games for 8/16-bit consoles from video rental stores commonly. These days it’s common for people playing on consoles to buy, play through and sell games because there are no such stores anymore.
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.
The data suggests some gamers are partially treating the service to trial or even rent a game they might be interested in, before unsubscribing.
This is me. I often subscribe when there’s a discount, go through some games I’m not interested in buying but want to play anyways. Xbox game pass specifically has a lot of great indies that can be finished relatively quickly.
I subscribed earlier this year for a month, might resubscribe for a month again later this year.
Same here. Game pass is a pretty good deal even at full price for playing AAA single player games that you won’t touch after a single play through. Plus, there’s a lot of games that I wouldn’t have given a shot if I didn’t happen to have Game Pass at the time.
Same here. I use GamePass and PS Plus to play games I’m interested in but not enough to buy right out the gate. I enjoy finding games that I’ve never heard of and enjoy. If I like it enough, I’ll buy it.
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.
At least it’s not Kotaku but all this consolidation is far from good news. Heaven forbid reporters should get to stay independent, let alone being puppeted by a company that’s little more than a meme.
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…
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