It's honestly cheaper to just buy games than pay this subscription per year.
Plus, you get to keep the games.
this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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Honestly, I've kinda gone back to buying physical media.
I bought DK Bananza on cart, and guess what? After I finished it, I gave it to my brother. Imagine that! Sharing a game you own? Madness.
I'm eager to pick up Ghost of Yotei from the store this afternoon, as well.
I've never gone away from buying physical media, but I could understand exactly why you would want to return to it.
For me, when the Switch 1 came out it was just nice to have everything on the device and you never had to do the most heinous thing of taking a moment to put a cart into the device.
But more and more I buy one to two games a time and focus on those, so that issue is largely not a thing any more.
For me, with the Switch 1, I was worried about wanting to play a game but oh no it's back at home. Happened a bunch of times with my 3DS.
But then I bought a case that had card slots in it, and that concern wasn't much of a concern anymore. Then the pandemic happened, and I never really left home anyway, which meant it mattered even less. So now I have a few digital games that are super annoying to share.
I work in the IT software licensing industry, it's a fucking cancer I can't wait to fail so bad that when we have the first extended internet outage failure so bad that it shows the world that subscriptions are a liability that shouldn't exist
Knowing Microsoft, I'd like to thing that it went down like this:
Pardon me, your department isn't achieving the expected 20% annual revenue increase.
But we're just selling subscriptions to games that cost us nearly nothing. It's free money.
And you need to make more money from it, increase your subscriber count or your costs, or we'll cut your staff.
Then they cut staff anyways, because why leave free money on the table?
I haven't subbed to gamepads for years because I knew this would eventually happen. Gamepass was designed to get people used to not purchasing games and instead letting them come to them. Subscribers now have to chose between paying even more each month or losing access to the library of games available to them.
Gamepass only ever made sense to people who had time to play or dabble in a sufficiently large amount of games per year and felt the need to play some new titles soon or immediately instead of waiting. Otherwise, eventually your total subscription costs would outpace the total cost to purchase what you played, especially if purchased on sale at a later date. And the value gets worse if you ever replayed a game (s).
I'll never really understand the excitement about this service. It was always a Trojan horse.
Gamepass only ever made sense to people who had time to play or dabble in a sufficiently large amount of games per year
Exactly. I only played two games before unsubscribing. You have to have so many free time to make the gamepass worth your while and money.
I learned after a few months of game pass that most of the games that looked interesting actually weren't. It's no big loss, and it's cheaper to just buy the few games I actually want anymore. Doubly true now.
Pro financial tip: Be a patient gamer. Get the games you are interested in during sales. Fuck FOMO, subscription models and pre-orders.
I always preferred waiting a year for AAA games. Patches, mods, guides and sales.
Even better when GOTY editions or bundles with all the DLC on sale.
Word. Just give me a completed game that is mostly bug free and has all features that are alleged to be part of the game on release.
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.
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Buying isn't owning, but it has to be better than this...
It can be if you buy from stores, such as GOG and Itch, that provide DRM-free downloads of games. Even Steam, depending on the game.
Never would I ever subscribe to a game service. That's just me.
I justified it as a games rental. I mean I easily paid $5 to rent a game for the weekend in the 90s. Paying 12 bucks to rent games all month long wasn't bad (for PC).
But the price they're charging now, I may as well buy the games I do play, rather than paying for the subscription. The problem for Microsoft is that money is gonna be going to steam instead of them.
you wouldn't? not if the cost and convenience was right? just out of principle, regardless of value?
I could see doing it if I had more time to game
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same boat. as soon as that service was announced it never made sense to me.
i play a lot of games, but its never at a consistent pace, just makes more sense to buy.
same goes for shit like netflix. im not constantly watching something, so why wouldn't i just buy the movie when i have a movie night.
I just bought 12 month of Ultimate on eBay. I always did this in the past, because it's cheaper than buying directly from Microsoft. So far, I made good experience with it.
The way it usually works is, that you get a few codes you need to redeem. I got three codes for 36 month of EA Play and then one code for Ultimate that is supposed to transform the EA Play subscription to 12 month Ultimate. But due to the the price hike, the subscription transformation changed as well and I did not get the 12 month.
I'm now in contact with the seller and he tries to find a solution. I want to have my 12 month Ultimate that he offered for the price. But it also sucks for the seller. Seems like we both didn't know. He basically sold it to cheap. I paid 150€ for 12 month Ultimate and he just now increased the price to 200€.
The new prices are insane! 150€ a year is already my upper limit. I'm not gonna pay 200€ or even more a year. I think, if my new subscription is over, I will not extend it. I like the idea of Game Pass, but that's to much money.
The thing is I really like Game Consoles. I want to play in front of my TV. I wish, Steam would make another Steam Machine with Steam OS. I do want an all in one solution. The last thing I want is a gaming PC. I hope, alternatives to Xbox Consoles and Playstation come up.
I know, I could also use the XBox without GamePass, but I do play online something and it would be nice to get away from subscriptions completly.
I wish, Steam would make another steam machine with steamOS
The last thing I want is a gaming PC
The steam machine program was where OEMs could partner with Valve to make a gaming PC that shipped with a steam controller and Steam OS. That's it.
You stated you wanted a steam machine, but also say you don't want a gaming PC, but... That's what a steam machine is
Thanks for clarifying! You are right, I thought they sold complete systems with just Steam OS, like the Steam Deck, but as a console. Seems like I was wrong around it.
Just to make sure: I'm aware one can also use the desktop mode on SteamOS, but it's not really necessary.
Yeah I think some folks get confused and think Steam machines were a Steam based console, but the closest to that is the Steam Deck which admittedly is pretty solid. Though I do think Valve has experimented with making a Steam Console in the past but I don't think it went anywhere, though it also couldve been absorbed into the Steam Deck team.
I wish Steam would make another Steam Machine with Steam OS.
It's rumored they're working on one codenamed Fremont.
It's also rumored they're working on Half-Life 3. Let's see what happens first. 😉
I'd say the console is the more plausible rumor, but maybe someday we'll see!
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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.
But a price increase is the straw.
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.
I'm usually fine with paying more for things I enjoy that are worth it. Like $70 games are just not a big deal to me.
I'm also too lazy to cancel most things. I've ignored Game Pass price hikes before and justified them by thinking of all the games I played without buying.
But this one is just ridiculous. There's no value here, no way for me to justify it. I was enjoying Silksong on Xbox because I didn't have to buy it, but now that I do have to buy it I guess I'll do that on my Switch instead. Replaying it is going to be rough, especially without my Elite controller.
I hope Microsoft gets their shit together, because Xbox has been my favorite game platform for years.
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