My g/f has been on the gamepass for the entire year that I have known her, and in that time has purchased one game, when it was removed from game pass. I tried out game pass for 1 month so I could access diablo 4 so we could play together on the pass, (I play on PC,) which had many other I wanted to play, like clair obscur expedition 33 and Frost Punk 2. The blizzard laucher has had some D4 free trials that I was able to do without a game pass sub, but sadly no cross platform play. During my time with gamepass I realized that for the cost of 2-3 months of game pass, I could own one of the games I wanted.
My g/f and I have had this discussion over and over. Eventually games get removed from the pass, meaning you lose access to a title unless you purchase it. Game pass is in essence a subscription model to demo games. Game demos used to be free. I remember getting disc demos for ps1 and ps2 games. Hell even some games on steam still offer free demos. Paying a subscription to demo and/or beta test a game is bonkers. I told my g/f I have no control over how she spends her disposable income, but I’m not paying for the pass. (I’m 10 years older than her, so I remember a time when you owned the games you bought, rather than paying rent to have access, which likely contributes to our difference in opinion.) I would straight up stop gaming all together if steam started charging a subscription to access the games I bought.
If MS was smart, they would pull a game from the pass after 1-3 months. People that feel they really enjoyed it are more likely to buy it, and others that thought the game was meh were never going to buy it anyway. But some of these games they have kept on the pass for 6 months or more. Based on the fact that they put one of their own franchises on the pass, these fuckers are not smart. They are robbing the studio that made the game to inflate game pass sub numbers.
Game pass is in essence a subscription model to demo games.
I’m not pro Game Pass either, but this is misrepresentative. Game Pass isn’t for demoing, it’s for the large number of people who just don’t return to games after playing them. They don’t care about owning their games, and they may not even care that much about choosing their games, so Game Pass gives them things to do and plenty of hot new things to jump into while everyone is talking about them, all without ever having to pony up for anything specific unless it’s the rare case of something they want to play more/again after it leaves Game Pass.
It’s like the old console market where one would buy a game, then trade it in for credit on the next game. You feed money in to have things to play, and then some more if you actually want to keep something and have to make up for its trade in on the next game. Especially since things are probably getting discounted by the time they leave Game Pass, so the sub+price-to-keep may still end up being comparable/better than the original buy price.
It’s just a different way of experiencing gaming, and Microsoft is obviously still trying to figure out exactly how much they can milk that market for that convenience. Quite a few smaller games can probably make more from Game Pass than they would from sales alone, because fewer people would buy the game than consider it added value on their Game Pass sub, and multiplayer games can jump-start their communities without going free.
My g/f has been on the gamepass for the entire year that I have known her, and in that time has purchased one game, when it was removed from game pass. I tried out game pass for 1 month so I could access diablo 4 so we could play together on the pass, (I play on PC,) which had many other I wanted to play, like clair obscur expedition 33 and Frost Punk 2. The blizzard laucher has had some D4 free trials that I was able to do without a game pass sub, but sadly no cross platform play. During my time with gamepass I realized that for the cost of 2-3 months of game pass, I could own one of the games I wanted.
My g/f and I have had this discussion over and over. Eventually games get removed from the pass, meaning you lose access to a title unless you purchase it. Game pass is in essence a subscription model to demo games. Game demos used to be free. I remember getting disc demos for ps1 and ps2 games. Hell even some games on steam still offer free demos. Paying a subscription to demo and/or beta test a game is bonkers. I told my g/f I have no control over how she spends her disposable income, but I’m not paying for the pass. (I’m 10 years older than her, so I remember a time when you owned the games you bought, rather than paying rent to have access, which likely contributes to our difference in opinion.) I would straight up stop gaming all together if steam started charging a subscription to access the games I bought.
If MS was smart, they would pull a game from the pass after 1-3 months. People that feel they really enjoyed it are more likely to buy it, and others that thought the game was meh were never going to buy it anyway. But some of these games they have kept on the pass for 6 months or more. Based on the fact that they put one of their own franchises on the pass, these fuckers are not smart. They are robbing the studio that made the game to inflate game pass sub numbers.
I’m not pro Game Pass either, but this is misrepresentative. Game Pass isn’t for demoing, it’s for the large number of people who just don’t return to games after playing them. They don’t care about owning their games, and they may not even care that much about choosing their games, so Game Pass gives them things to do and plenty of hot new things to jump into while everyone is talking about them, all without ever having to pony up for anything specific unless it’s the rare case of something they want to play more/again after it leaves Game Pass.
It’s like the old console market where one would buy a game, then trade it in for credit on the next game. You feed money in to have things to play, and then some more if you actually want to keep something and have to make up for its trade in on the next game. Especially since things are probably getting discounted by the time they leave Game Pass, so the sub+price-to-keep may still end up being comparable/better than the original buy price.
It’s just a different way of experiencing gaming, and Microsoft is obviously still trying to figure out exactly how much they can milk that market for that convenience. Quite a few smaller games can probably make more from Game Pass than they would from sales alone, because fewer people would buy the game than consider it added value on their Game Pass sub, and multiplayer games can jump-start their communities without going free.