Value and excellent content are not mutually exclusive when discussing Game Pass. I don’t really understand your point, though. Subscribe when there’s a game that meets your particular standards and unsubscribe when it doesn’t.
The point is $20 for one month access to a game I like is not peanuts. It’s substantial enough to make me question whether I should just buy the game outright & keep it forever.
Games aren’t movies. I feel this point needs repeating again, again & again so people finally understand the hours a person actually puts into gaming is the material point which makes a gaming subscription service either worthwhile, or not at all.
People will say ‘you do you’ but the fact is last year’s data showed I was in the top 10% of Xbox console users in terms of game time (just over 600 hours, which amounts to just under an average of 2 hours of gaming per day). So do the math: single games can take 20, 30 or 40 hours. That doesn’t exactly give me much time to go through the Gamepass catalogue does it? So when $20 a month could become $20 or thereabouts for life, I choose the latter - especially because most games drop in price very quickly.
Take the recent Lords of the Fallen for example: why should I subscribe to Gamepass to play a game I can buy physically from Amazon uk for £15?
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For me, much of the value of Game Pass comes from how it’s changed the games that I play. It allows me to try a number if games that I would never try if I had to buy them and some of those have been great experiences.
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I think you’re thinking too much about the money/hours value of games in GP and not about it as a service. You’re not paying for 1 or 2 games a month that get added and that interests you, which is still a good deal for most people, you’re paying for the access to this library of games.
When I pay for a streaming service like Netflix, even if I don’t watch anything one month, I paid for the possibilty of using the service, not for all the movies and series I could have potentially watched during that month.
It’s sunk cost fallacy. If you’re even playing one game on the service and/or one new full price game every few months, it’s worth it.
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Game Pass may not be for you then. Luckily, it’s just one of many options on Xbox.
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Which is why I said they should just add ads in it or make the standard an AD tier to make up for the extra 5 bucks. A few advertisements should be able to make it fine.
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This isn’t a debate about the intrinsic value of Gamepass. I’ve been subbed to the service for the better part of the last 4 years.
For me it’s a debate about the value of Gamepass at that new price. I mean everything people say about the good aspects of the subscription is true, i.e. I’ve also played stuff I would never have bought & enjoyed it. I always used to compare the service to a better version of the old demo discs we’d get on the ps1 & ps2, except with hundreds of full length titles instead.
But I’m sorry, i.e. 216 euros a year for a game rental service is too much. This now falls outside of my ‘comfortable’ zone in terms of recurring cost. From what I’ve read online, it seems like I’m not alone either.
Similar services that are objectively worse have the same or nearly the same pricepoint and haven’t seen any substantial fall off in subs.
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I’m sure the internet looks like that every time a price increase happens for a service. Most of them keep it and forget about it, letting it renew on their credit cards without paying much attention because the price increase is like the price of two donuts a month.
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For those concerned about the price rise the 3 month cards from CDKeys makes it significantly less than the current price let alone the new one - and it’ll still be cheaper even once we get the new price.
1 month cards are cheaper too if don’t want to spend so much.
I’ve had a mix of letting it roll over month by month and buying cards when I realise I should be better financially (such as getting it stacked ahead of Christmas so can spend the money on that instead) and it works for me - imagine for others it might be subbing some months when first party games release
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I would say this is your opinion as many have expressed varying different ones from you. You’re probably not alone but I bet the vast paying majority aren’t that much affected.
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We’re not having a debate. You continue to provide me a subjective use case, which I respect, and I continue to let you know that Phil Spencer doesn’t have a gun to your head and is forcing you to subscribe each month.
Don’t remember if it was 90 or 80 but we know it was in that range. However, the portion of people who don’t play online still exists, and if they are looking at expanding I think having more options is always a good thing. Still surprised we don’t have an ad tier yet to be honest.
Think difficulty is how on earth you do it - is it before each game loads, and when coming back via Quick Resume? Given that might only be one advert a day that likely won’t raise much money.
Anything else has major issues.
In-game ads (something we know Microsoft and others have looked at) require developer help so might only be first party in games designed for it (so it doesn’t look out of place or cause bugs) as even minor placements such as lobbies, main menus and loading screens require development and are likely already filled by publisher screens.
Stopping the game and showing an ad, again unless working with developers to show between levels or games could cause serious issues if you’re playing online or are mid-battle.
So it’s something that may come in future but unlike TV streaming where it’s easy to show them, it’s quite difficult to do for games so I suspect EA / Take Two showing them in sports games and GTA online billboards are going to be the only examples in the near future
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Currently redeeming a game pass core 6 month code to my already stacked GPU gives me 75 days of GPU. And it cost to me the same as 2 months of PC gamepass (which I actually require) plus some extra 5-10 days.
I am gonna stack up as much as I could and enjoy ultimate at the cost of PC gamepass.
Also, can someone confirm if the digital codes has any expiry dates or not?
Signed up to Game Pass Ultimate for 6 months since I was able to get each month for the original $15 per month price. Figured that since I have Flintlock, Hellblade 2, Stalker 2, Indiana Jones and Avowed at the very least within the next six months, mine as well sign up and have it setup.
Plus, I can tryout the 10 hour trial for College Football 25 since EA Play is obviously included and I may even look into Fallout 76 even though it’s 50/50 as im starting to have a bunch of new games to start playing.
Gamepass is still good value in my opinion.
People seem to be in uproar over everything these days. People can make a easy statement by making sure that they dont subscribe back. If the company is loosing money they will drop the price. In reality though most of the price increases doesnt seem to impact sub numbers.
I am subscribed for years since it launched but now I will only subscribe for the months I am going to play. No big deal