Buying a game when a subscription is available?

[Topher]

So I was planning on buying Watch Dogs: Legion which is coming out in a few days. I went to the Ubisoft store and was about to go through the editions available and see whether I there was any reason worth buying over the standard. Then I notice:

More than likely I'm going to spend a ton of hours in this game, but once I'm done, I'm done. Just like the first two and just about every Ubisoft game I've ever played. So I'm considering simply subscribing to UPlay+ for a month playing the game and then cancel. $15 vs $60? Why not?

Moving forward, this very well may be the way I go with any game that is available day on with a sub. Game Pass, UPlay+, EA Play, etc. If I really want to buy they game to play again, I can wait a bit and get it on sale, but playing day one at a much cheaper cost makes a lot of sense.

Anyone else planning to go this route? Have subscriptions changed your view on gamer ownership?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Totally! Although UBisoft games for the most part aren't that interesting to me, I dipped back into Assassins Creed earlier this year and considered it. If it wasn't for the fact that Odyssey was on sale from Epic for €10 with a voucher I might well have done it.

I guess they are counting on our own laziness, in that many people will start the subscription and either forget its there, or get some kind of FOMO when it comes to cancelling, to balance out any money they lose out on from full game sales.

I have Gamepass myself, I'm currently playing through Spiritfayrer. I've also played Carrion and Dead Cells recently. All of which I probably would have bought when they went on sale in a year or so to try out, but now I won't. I do wonder how much this might affect the smaller developers, but I hope the money they are getting upfront from Microsoft cancels out any loss of future sales smaller studios might suffer.

It seems its just the basic version of games on these services, so I guess they also hope that people will like the games and get tempted into buying DLC's etc and make more that way too. But not all games are going to benefit from that due to their nature I suppose.

 

[Frindis]

I subscribe to Twitch Prime and Xbox Game Pass. Prime because I am enjoying a lot of the sci-fi series + the free games and GTA V prime discount is a nice extra bonus. Game Pass I might discontinue due to me being very bad at just playing one game. I swap too many games, so I do not find it to be that good of a deal for me personally. I still believe GoG is one of the better places to get a game, as you will own the game and do not have to be aware of any licensing.

 

[Zloth]

Should work out fine *IF* you unsubscribe when you finish. Sign up, play the games on the subscription service that you want to play and, when you want to play a game not on the service, you quit the service and sign up for a different one and play the games there for a while. Never let yourself be subscribed to more than one service in a month.

Things that can kill it:

• Really big games that last over 4 months (or less if the game's price is under $60)
• That little "no commitments" bit goes away and you're forced to stay for a lot longer than you want.
• New games start being available only to "long time subscribers" as another way to make sure you stick around.
• As many folks who paid for MMO subscriptions long after they stopped playing can tell you: laziness and/or denial about when you're done with a game can keep you subscribed for a longer time than needed. If you get subscribed to multiple services at once, your advantage shrinks really fast.

 

[Rolfil]

I've typically stayed away from subscription based services. If more of them start merging then I might be tempted. As you've said I would never subscribe to more than one at a time. I want to feel that I'm getting a lot more for my money than buying things separately.

Also these are games I'll be playing between Path of Exile leagues.

 

[Topher]

Should work out fine *IF* you unsubscribe when you finish. Sign up, play the games on the subscription service that you want to play and, when you want to play a game not on the service, you quit the service and sign up for a different one and play the games there for a while. Never let yourself be subscribed to more than one service in a month.

Things that can kill it:

• Really big games that last over 4 months (or less if the game's price is under $60)
• That little "no commitments" bit goes away and you're forced to stay for a lot longer than you want.
• New games start being available only to "long time subscribers" as another way to make sure you stick around.
• As many folks who paid for MMO subscriptions long after they stopped playing can tell you: laziness and/or denial about when you're done with a game can keep you subscribed for a longer time than needed. If you get subscribed to multiple services at once, your advantage shrinks really fast.

The key is to set your subscription to automatically expire. For the time being, you can actually get Game Pass for $1 a month since Microsoft isn't making their $1 offer a one-time deal. Just let your sub expire, wait a day, go back in and subscribe again for a buck. Do that every month and you get Game Pass for $12 until Microsoft puts a stop to that little trick.

I agree with your list though. The big concern I have is that one day there will no longer be a monthly option, but only yearly. Then I'm out of the game. $120 to $180 a year will buy a 3 or 4 AAA games outright. So long term subs don't make a bit of sense to me for games like these.

I'm not sure I understand how these subscriptions are economically sustainable for companies like Microsoft and Ubisoft, however. Aaron Greenberg already admitted Game Pass was not highly profitable. So I imagine we will see small incremental price adjustments as these service get more popular. Either that or they are going for sheer volume to broaden their base with services like cloud streaming.

For now, I'll take advantage of the good deals as much as I can. I just hope the option for real ownership never goes away.

 

[Zloth]

Yeah, probably the standard old Internet dump-on-the-market bit: put your product out there for something too cheap to make a profit off of, wait for the competition to die off, then charge and/or advertise enough to make a profit. At least until another company with a ton of money comes along to give away the store and steal everyone from you.

 

[Rensje]

I might actually do this once Assassin's Creed: Valhalla comes out. I would love to play it at launch, particularly because it's looking likely that I'll still be quarantined at home when it releases. However, I have absolutely no desire to pay full price for it. I don't usually return to large single-player games once I've had my fill, so paying €15,- to be able to play it for a month would be preferable to spending €50-60 for a retail copy. There's a good chance I'll have gotten what I wanted out of it during that month, particularly if I have enough free time.

Also, I couldn't care less about the day-one DLC.

Now if the game turns out to be a masterpiece I might pick up the GOTY edition or whatever they call it a year or two down the line when it's on sale. Say I spend about €15-25 on it then, if I so fancy. I'll still be €15-25 up.

I've actually done this a couple of times before back when Xbox Game Pass for PC was still only a fiver a month. It had some games on it I was interested in but not too sure about (CK3, for instance). It ended up working out for me, because I can now say with certainty those games weren't for me. The €5,- was no big loss. Xbox Game Pass is a good deal no matter how you slice it, I think, even at full price. I could see myself getting some use out of the xCloud functionality in the future, as well.

All of that said, I still like the idea of 'owning' games, no matter how much of a joke that has become in the digital age. I've returned to games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne so many times I could have bought them three times and I still would have gotten my money's worth. They'll always be there when I want them, which is reassuring. Assuming Steam doesn't cease to exist, of course. Or the PlayStation Store. Doesn't seem likely.

 

[DXCHASE]

I generally dont finish every game and the ones i do are usually the ones i buy, but i DO like playing a bunch of different games to test out and its so much cheaper doing that through a monthly fee than buying an expensive game and then trying to get money back if i don't like it and that's if i can remember to get a refund within the window, its just a dumb hassle.

Usually subs have discounted prices too, i've paid maybe 20 bucks over the last year for xbox game pass which is a steal compared to the games i played and actually finished.

Thats with gaming though, things like twitch prime and discord nitro id never pay for since its nothing to do with real gaming (you dont get free AAA or even AA games to play) and twitch prime is basically free with my amazon prime so i just have it cause of yet another subscription lol.

 

[drunkpunk]

I have been doing this since Gamepass and Origin Access or whatever it's called these days became a thing. But it totally depends on the game. If I'm going to maybe play through it once and then forget about it, then the subscription is obviously the superior avenue. A lot of games I just love pumping countless hours into, though, so those I always buy. It's usually pretty apparent to me before I get it in my hands as to which type of game it'll be. Some games I'm not too sure about, so I'll go the sub route if I can (wasteland 3 was a good example, and I'm glad I got it through gamepass) but if it looks like something I'll be playing for longer than a month I will buy it once I make that decision. These passes are such a great value and I'm so glad they are a thing, I've played quite a few more games I never would have bothered with because of the gamepass.

 

[Brian Boru]

Litterly .3/4's of the games i own are not on any sub anywhere!

Yeah, that's my situation also. I have a few hundred GOG oldies, all purchased at ridiculous prices during sales, same with indies on Steam, same with casual games on BigFish. BigFish is the only games sub I have, as $7/mth membership of the club knocks 33% off prices AND I get a game credit each month so it's essentially free.

If all you want is to play the latest games for a few months, then move on to the next then it could be for you

Right, that's the ideal sub user—the games 'consumer' if you like. Similar to live TV subscribers or cinema goers—where the product serves a purpose beyond its purchase, eg break room or water cooler conversation.

I'm one of the group who don't buy new, with a TBP pile which already could see out my lifetime

 

[pocketshaver]

Heres the thing, if i buy a game, i want it saved on my hard drive. I do not do online gaming of any kind. I just REFUSE.

So if a game is cheap on disk I may just buy it if it actually comes on the disk. Tried getting one a few years ago, some sniper game, but the disk ONLY had the STEAM download portal on it. And at that time, the game was no longer ON steam... so i spent money on literally an empty box

 

[Zloth]

Do you remember what game that was? It's pretty rare for Steam to actually remove games completely.

If you buy a game on GOG you can download it and save it away. They've even recommended doing that at least once when they thought some corporate takeover for one of the games would force them to remove the game completely. (Turned out to be a false alarm.)

 

[pocketshaver]

Do you remember what game that was? It's pretty rare for Steam to actually remove games completely.

If you buy a game on GOG you can download it and save it away. They've even recommended doing that at least once when they thought some corporate takeover for one of the games would force them to remove the game completely. (Turned out to be a false alarm.)

I cant remember the name anymore. It was a nice sniper game, cover of the disc had a generic high rise scene of a sniper with a bolt action rifle, one of the modernized ar handle ones.