Jfc I just downgraded back to Premium. We were paying for Ultimate but never used it. What a great way to force users to look at their subbed to. It’s pretty fucking awful to pull this shit with no real announcement.
Yep, me with my years of working for MSFT, playing their games, configuring their software and using it at large businesses… and then realizing its all fucking overpriced broken garbage from first hand experience, and then replacing it all with open sourcr shit both at home and at work…
Unfortunately the only music software I’m somewhat productive in runs only on Windows or Mac, and I really can’t afford Apple’s hardware prices. So it’s either using WIndows, or being very limited at a very dear creative outlet.
Hrm. I would offer a linux alternative, but I also know how people learn a DAW like an instrument and changing to a new would actually be quite an undertaking, and yeah, lots of various effects and such that… really only work that one specific way on your specific setup.
Between the cost of housing and the cost of food, and the fact wages aren’t that much better than they were 15 years ago - you’d think they would realize they are asking for the scraps people have left.
I’ve always just bought games when they’re on a good sale, I’ve never had a game pass type thing. But maybe they just want to squeeze a bit more out of their most loyal customers and they’re accepting that it is a dying model.
Once upon a time, the idea with subscriptions like this was to have customers set it and forget it. Charge them a small/reasonable amount and they’ll keep giving you money forever. Giving people a reason to think about - or worse, evaluate the merits of - the monthly deposit they’re giving you used to be a sin for companies.
But here we are, seeing the difference between “companies” and “corpos”.
…is the difference being publicly traded on the stock exchange? The only company I can think of that doesn’t fall under “corpo” is Valve, and it seems to mostly be because they don’t have to answer to shareholders.
I mean “corpos” in the Cyberpunk sense - mega-huge companies that put profits far and above all else, discarding any notion of ethics, morality, or care about others in the process.
They’re the companies that buy up emerging tech solely so they can kill it (their competition). They don’t give a shit about long-term sustainability - if it raises the bottom line today, they do it. They disregard laws and consumer protections because the only consequences are paltry (for them) fines, which they see as the cost of doing business.
The missus and I sat down about a year ago and tabulated up how much all of the various streaming subscriptions were costing us per year (it was close to $1,000 when including YouTube Premium).
We cancelled every single one, and put that money towards building a home NAS and filling that up with downloaded media. No more ads, stupidly low bitrates, or TV shows & movies disappearing because a license expired.
The server has more than paid for itself at this point, and every additional spare dollar is being put aside for our kids’ tuition.
ETA: Consider doing the same, your kid’ll likely thank you in the long run!
PS: Never too late to introduce them to all of your favourite classic games, either - though that one may be a bit harder to get them onboard 🤣
Ours is just an old QNAP I dug out of storage with 4x8TB drives in RAID5 - but am eager to try out HexOS on a proper system once I have some spare time.
Out of curiosity, what’s the electricity cost per month with your server running 24/7 now? Or do you schedule down time when its not in use. With all the datacenters poping up, electricity rates have gone through the roof, so looking at that, do you end up saving more still through this route?
I haven’t used a killawatt on it to check, but according to the specs it uses ~30W while in operation (plus whatever additional draw for the four drives). It’s pretty negligible, overall as far as I can tell.
Never too late to introduce them to all of your favourite classic games, either
Easier if you start with Bomberman Party on the PS1 or the arcade Neo Bomberman. I think those play much better than anything Bomberman released after 2004
If the kid enjoys strategy, starting out with Age of Empires should be easy. Or just leave them messing around with Settlers 2
I canceled. I don’t want the features they added. I don’t even use all the features they charge me for now. I just want to be able to try out so new games every so often. I’ll take the $30 I save and buy those same games, probably with some money leftover
I understand, but I do want to support devs, especially indie devs, when u can. That’s why I have no qualms about canceling an expensive service and putting that money directly in their hands when it’s possible
You know, fundamentally, I don’t hate Gamepass as a concept. “Netflix, but for videogames” is an idea I can get behind, as it widens the audience for something I love by lowering the bar of entry. There are plenty of people out there that benefit from being able to play a few games here and there without needing to commit hundreds of hours to $100 purchases.
But Netflix has overstepped with price hikes and ads, and I’ve cancelled my service with them. That Microsoft thinks it can charge some ~$40CAD a month is pure hubris. I hope they learn quickly that, at that price point, the enthusiast market will happily cancel and just buy their games outright, and the casual market will decide it’s an expense they don’t need.
Yeah, I’ve got so many more games than I have time to play them that there’s never a need to play full price for anything. I wishlist em and pick them up when they’re on sale less than £10
Yeah. I might break my rule for phantom liberty, it’s reduced to £17 at the mo. I’m enjoying cyberpunk so much I might make an exception here! But I’ve still got plenty in my backlog.
While I wouldn’t say it is crucial by any means, it is a fun piece of DLC. I put over 400 hours into Cyberpunk before I got the DLC though, so that may have been why I was okay with purchasing it! Either way, it does make me happy to see someone enjoying the game! :-]
Lately, I’ve only been buying indie games. I can’t justify dropping $70-$80 on one game and even when those games go on sale they’re usually $40-$50.
If you read reviews and do a little research you’ll find that there are actually a lot of really cool indie games and you can get multiple games for just a fraction of the cost of double or triple A games.
That’s just a computer. If you’ve heard about the steam deck, you can set up a pc to be basically the same but more powerful and permanently hooked up to a tv.
Yeah, I know that this is just a computer. From a skill point of view I have no problem to assemble it and set it up. The thing is I work in IT and spend the whole day on the computer. I do not want to administrate any system in my free time. That’s something I love about consoles. I’m aware they limit the possibilties, but they also low maintenance. I never actively installed system updates on my Xbox Series X, it is just done in the background. I turn it on and play. In worst case I need to install a game update. I have a store interface where I can buy and install games with pressing a few buttons. Inside the game, I do not need to play around with the graphic settings to find what runs best. If at all, I need to decide between graphics and performance mode. That’s what I love about consoles and do not want to have a gaming PC.
Consoles have obvious limitations, but they make it much easier if all you want to do is play.
I do not want to administrate any system in my free time.
Do you have a computer you use at home? How much time exactly do you think it takes to manage a personal computer?
I have a store interface where I can buy and install games with pressing a few buttons.
Seriously, look into a steam deck. The interface is very console-like and you can have it on a normal desktop if you want. Or don’t, you already seem pretty convinced that you only want a console.
I second this. The Steam Deck is the best console and a really cheap gaming PC at the same time. You can emulate and use it for other programs without needing to mod it like you would a console and even though it’s linux, it’s so easy to use. You don’t really need to use the desktop mode for much if you don’t want to, but it’s not bad at all. I’ve switched to Bazzite as my only OS for my main computer because of how much SteamOS has impressed me.
I get the inherent value people attach to it, but after having it several times (I’d have it for a month or two and then drop it for like, a year), I would never go back to it even if it still seemed like a good deal.
For an app developed by Microsoft and working on a PC, it has some awful pathing, and I lost saves and had issues launching games on multiple occasions. Tried many fixes and it never worked out. Some games would work for me, others wouldn’t. So for me, since it felt like a toss up to get a game to work, it was pointless.
it WAS a good deal early on. Also when they introduced their partnership with RIOT and it would allow you to unlock all the characters in LoL that was a very good deal if you were a League player.
but the price increases and what have you…meh. it was good to get access to some games and not have to pay full retail for them. I’m thankful I didn’t pay full price for Starfield and just played it on gamepass but there would be months on end where there was nothing on there worth playing.
Just cancelled mine. I have barely been doing ~2 games per year, and the cost was low enough for me to not really care about the months I didn’t play at all.
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