As a gamer, I think this is wonderful. Being able to subscribe for a month or two once a year means I can check out their latest titles released this year for less than the price of a single game. Many of their games don't have much replayability anyway and there's no point in "buying" it.
When Steam first came out, people made a big bruhaha about how digital licensing (no right of first sale, etc.) isn't the same as owning the game. True, but so what? Steam completely changed the PC games industry on that model and created an indie explosion. People like to complain about the lack of ownership rights, but the convenience is what really matters, especially coupled with a generous refund policy that we never had in the physical media days. A subscription service is a logical continuation of this model.
Now, a couple decades later, games have become super commoditized, and frankly it's hard to tell apart one title from another, much less remember them years later. For every Baldur's Gate 3, there's a hundred no-name RPGs that are entirely adequate but ultimately forgettable. They're not very different from an average show on Netflix or a song on Spotify. Subscription services are a lot cheaper for most people than renting or buying individual titles, and is the only sane way to explore a marketplace that has more content than you could reasonably consume in a lifetime.
If Steam offered a subscription service I'd give up my whole library (hundreds of games, mostly bought on sale) overnight. It's not just Ubi, EA, Microsoft, Playstation all do it, along with Google and Apple on mobile, and it's wonderful. Now for $30 a month split between GeForce Now and PC Games Pass, you can play hundred of games on a 4080 on a Chromebook. Games have never been as affordable or accessible. This is a good thing for gamers, enabling fixed-cost gaming that's easy to budget for and much cheaper a month than games used to be. Even if you have two or three subscriptions from different companies (which can vary month to month).
There are more games coming out every day than a person can consume. It's not the 90s anymore, no reason to clutch on to treasured old titles when a similar game will be out in a few months anyway.
Steam has a track record of continuing to provide games even if the publisher and developer both cease to exist.
On the other hand, I own Age of Empires 3 and Fallout 3 on Games For Windows Live. How do I play them now? (real answer: I've re-bought Fallout 3 on a Steam sale. But I shouldn't have to.).
There are many types of gamers tho, some move on to something new and exciting every week or month, some fall in love with a game and are slow to change.
This isn't about the type of gamer we are, this is about corporations trying to make more $$$, still stop. It's not about the games themselves, making the games and services better for us, the consumers. It's about money. I'll clutch on to old titles because all new games coming out are shit shows, and because if I paid for a game 10 years ago and I want to play it again then I'm going to do so, as I please and without a fucking cloud subscription or online services.
They can allow people to own games, but then they'd make less money.
> Subscription services are a lot cheaper for most people than renting or buying individual titles
> It's not just Ubi, EA, Microsoft, Playstation all do it, along with Google and Apple on mobile
These two sentences are not compatible. Companies do not choose to push business models that make them less money from the average customer.
> There are more games coming out every day than a person can consume. It's not the 90s anymore, no reason to clutch on to treasured old titles when a similar game will be out in a few months anyway.
Whith all due respect, go fuck yourself. Games like kinds of art are not fungible.
I agree but on the other hand what happens when you want to play the game in 6 years and they removed it? Or they removed it for political reasons? I have used Ubisoft+ in the past especially for assassins creed so it’s good but it has drawbacks. I would hate to stop owning most of my games. I mean it doesn’t help that Ubisoft games after 2010 are just throwaways anyway. Remember when Ubisoft was the king?
Well here's the thing, the people who think they might want to go back to play a six year old game are probably buying it, the people who play most games once and never go back are just going to get a better deal with this kind of subscription.
So long as there's always a choice to "buy" the game then I really don't see it as a problem. That's certainly Microsoft's approach with gamepass, I assume they and ubisoft both will happily let people give them $70 for a game if that's what the customer prefers.
Yeah exactly. It's an option for those who prefer the old ways, but since they offered the subscriptions, I haven't bought any more Ubi or Gamepass games. Starfield was a bullet dodged due to Gamepass, lol. Talk about throwaway games...
These days only the indie studios are making the actually good titles. The AAA ones are just high production interactive movies with little actual gameplay. They fit the play once subscription model quite well.
When Steam first came out, people made a big bruhaha about how digital licensing (no right of first sale, etc.) isn't the same as owning the game. True, but so what? Steam completely changed the PC games industry on that model and created an indie explosion. People like to complain about the lack of ownership rights, but the convenience is what really matters, especially coupled with a generous refund policy that we never had in the physical media days. A subscription service is a logical continuation of this model.
Now, a couple decades later, games have become super commoditized, and frankly it's hard to tell apart one title from another, much less remember them years later. For every Baldur's Gate 3, there's a hundred no-name RPGs that are entirely adequate but ultimately forgettable. They're not very different from an average show on Netflix or a song on Spotify. Subscription services are a lot cheaper for most people than renting or buying individual titles, and is the only sane way to explore a marketplace that has more content than you could reasonably consume in a lifetime.
If Steam offered a subscription service I'd give up my whole library (hundreds of games, mostly bought on sale) overnight. It's not just Ubi, EA, Microsoft, Playstation all do it, along with Google and Apple on mobile, and it's wonderful. Now for $30 a month split between GeForce Now and PC Games Pass, you can play hundred of games on a 4080 on a Chromebook. Games have never been as affordable or accessible. This is a good thing for gamers, enabling fixed-cost gaming that's easy to budget for and much cheaper a month than games used to be. Even if you have two or three subscriptions from different companies (which can vary month to month).
There are more games coming out every day than a person can consume. It's not the 90s anymore, no reason to clutch on to treasured old titles when a similar game will be out in a few months anyway.