It's 2020 and I Still Don't Like Subscription Services

Even after all this time, after the success of Microsoft’s Game Pass, after being a primarily PC gamer for the past decade – I still don’t like subscription services or digital-only markets. I miss physical media. I miss the old days.

You just don’t get that same thrill waiting for games to arrive anymore, do you? I don’t get excited as I’m watching my downloads counter ticking away the megabytes three days before release day. 10, 15 years ago, it was just different. You would go to a midnight launch with other like-minded gamers, get home and stay up all day playing Modern Warfare 2, or whatever it was. You would be at school, texting your mum to see if your game had come. “No”, she’d say. “Just my lipstick and some jeans for you. Make sure you try them on when you get home though. I need to send them back if they don’t!”

It just felt good owning something. Something real, something with actual value. I bought a record player a couple of years ago and have accumulated some vinyl since – I have been trying to purchase for rare, special editions whenever possible. To be honest, it all started out because Arcade Fire were re-releasing their original EP in translucent blue, for a limited run. I bought that, and decided to go all-in. I have Spotify, but it frustrates me when albums are removed, sometimes temporarily, or artists lose their licenses for a few weeks. It’s a reminder that you’re at the behest of the subscription service in terms of what you can access.

Even Fallout 3 has its own special edition vinyl release (the soundtrack, of course)

Microsoft deserves a lot of praise for its Game Pass service across PC and Xbox. As a platform holder, and a publisher of a wide variety of games, they are well positioned to offer a service with a plethora of options. I’m not someone who picks up one game and plays it through immediately to the end.In fact, very often I’ll start something, maybe not play it for a few weeks, then come back to it much later. Sometimes I won’t touch something for a year. When it’s on subscription, I feel like I have to rush, and I don’t like that. I had a stretch of using Boomerang Games, a UK games rental service, as I didn’t have much money and wanted a cheaper way of playing some games on Xbox One. I didn’t last long, as I was regularly keeping games for too long and not getting my money’s worth.

Game Pass suffers the same fate as the others, including PlayStation Now, in that games enter and then may leave again in what I consider to be a relatively short space of time. Is it really worth it if you are someone like me, paying this subscription, only to buy games anyway because you enjoyed them and want more? Probably not.

Now, dear reader, you may refute all this and tell me “Fine, don’t subscribe to Game Pass. Cancel your EA Origin Basic subscription. Get your vinyl and go into that corner with the rest of your ‘80s and ‘90s junk.” But after writing my article earlier in the week about Sony’s early windows into the future with the PlayStation 5, I can just see where we’re headed. I mean, it’s all well and good for Microsoft and Sony, if they can convert you over to a digital only console and subscription services, pretty much all sales are going directly through their own storefronts, with an all-but-guaranteed monthly revenue stream.

Microsoft released the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition in 2019

And what will happen once most gamers are happy with this? What will happen in a digital only future? They will jack up the prices because you have no other option. Just like what Microsoft has done in workplaces with Office and Windows licenses. They know most businesses have no other option than to go with Office 365 or buy Windows Server licenses, so they can do what they want – switching Windows Server to a much more expensive per-core model from per-socket.

I haven’t even mentioned the point of…well, what happens if companies go bust? What if music licenses run out, and the developer went into administration years ago? Who updates the game after it has to be removed from sale? Somebody made the point on Reddit to me a little while ago asking if we can really expect companies to host games we have purchased digitally forever. Is there going to come a point where old games are removed? In the world of backwards compatibility on consoles, that library is going to get pretty big at some point. Lord only knows how much data Steam is currently holding. Is it sustainable forever?

What’s that? Get back to my box? OK, fine, I’ll go back to my Arcade Fire EP…but it sounds better, I’m telling you!