Adding a bit more to the discussion on whether game subscription can be “the future”, it looks like despite the heavy push made in the past decade, subscriptions only make up 10% of total video game spending in the US.
Link: https://nitter.net/MatPiscatella/status/1747660051269988522
I’m not sure there ever was a honeymoon phase for game subscriptions. They generally still push you to buy dlc/season passes. They still segment stuff into pre-order bonuses that you don’t get in a subscription. You already have titles leaving the service.
Couldn’t you repeatedly get gamepass for a month for £1 or similar? Assuming they don’t offer that anymore, I think the honeymoon is over!
I did have a honeymoon phase with gamepass. Now it’s just a thing that keeps charging the monthly fee in the background but also reminds me of the list of games I’d like to try that it has each time I open it up to consider cancelling.
They’ve figured out how to make money from me having a backlog, I just realized. I might have to open it again and compare the amount I’d pay for x months vs the expected sales price to just buy all of those games where x is how many months it’ll take to clear my backlog. I don’t even have to open it to see that I should cancel, because x might be infinite. Hell, I could even just cancel it with the intent of starting back up if I manage to clear my Steam backlog if I want to lie to myself about eventually getting through my backlog.