Influx of gaming subscriptions

Poppy · September 23, 2019

I just saw that Google is releasing their own subscription service called Goolge Play Plus. That goes on top of Apple Arcade, Nintendo Switch Online, and all the others. What explains this recent influx of gaming subs? Would you prefer to stream your games for a super cheap monthly fee rather than buying them outright?

Ogmore · September 24, 2019

I haven't heard much fuss about them. Maybe these subscriptions are just creeping in and I haven't noticed. I do wonder how game developers are meant to make a living if each sub bans micropayments and ads.

DandyMandy · September 26, 2019

The business model in gaming has been around for a long time, but yeah, it seems that more companies are trying it. I kind of wonder if they're hoping to work like a cable company that charges every month. I think they're trying to train us now so we'll accept the inevitable change in the future.

Zack T · September 26, 2019

It's my opinion that this change was inevitable, it just required a large enough portion of the population having reliable and affordable access to internet that's fast enough to allow the service to exist.

Physical media is becoming less and less prominent as our streaming and digital capabilities increase and make it easier for everyone to buy music, shows, movies, and games online rather than on a CD or DVD from the store. Games have held on but we've been seeing this ramp up for years, even if we're only looking at consoles. They heavily rely on people who buy consoles to have internet, so they can send system updates to your X-Box or Playstation, you can download DLC's, you can download free or retro games from X-Box or Playstation Online stores as well as buy brand new games that way and just download them.

So the idea that we're moving on to a streaming service where you don't even need to buy a console, just a controller and a USB stick to plug in to this particular streaming service isn't surprising. I think that's a lot cheaper for a company than manufacturing an X-Box and selling that for a few hundred dollars. Instead they just ship out tons of USB sticks (if you even need one) and a controller and pay for servers to handle the data load, and boom. Still gotta have enough computing power to play the games smoothly, but I feel like it may be easier long term. I dunno for sure though.

Regardless, get used to it. 5G internet is right around the corner, and we're finally seeing Gaming Subscription services begin to take hold and fight for supremacy. Within a year, I'd imagine 1 or 2 of them will be touted as the premiere/best service to choose while the others may still be around, but struggling.

DandyMandy · September 30, 2019

Physical media is becoming less and less prominent as our streaming and digital capabilities increase and make it easier for everyone to buy music, shows, movies, and games online rather than on a CD or DVD from the store.

I don't care about owning a physical product, but I do want to own my games, not just rent them every month. Digital downloads are a good compromise since it's something you can own and use on many different devices and the gaming company won't have to pay for physical copies. Subscribing to a monthly service just isn't something I want to do. Cable and Netflix are bad enough.

Zack T · September 30, 2019

I don't know how they work, but my guess is that they'd obligate you to buy the game on top of the subscription service. That's what would make sense to me, anyway.

Reason being that the game developers want to be paid, and as Dandy said I bet a lot of people would prefer to outright own a game instead of renting one or paying a monthly fee to access it.

But you'll also pay for the subscription too, because the whole point of the service is to do all the heavy computer-powered graphics work on their servers so you can enjoy a brand new shiny game on your crappy little laptop without it lagging or having problems. That's probably the biggest reason to go for a service like this.

October 3, 2019

But you'll also pay for the subscription too, because the whole point of the service is to do all the heavy computer-powered graphics work on their servers so you can enjoy a brand new shiny game on your crappy little laptop without it lagging or having problems. That's probably the biggest reason to go for a service like this.

I think we're moving towards online gaming and cloud gaming. I can save my money from buying consoles, but I will still have to invest in a strong network to make sure that everything loads fast and fine, right? That can be quite costly on its own. Compared to the sense of owning physical consoles and physical form of the games, I think I prefer the latter, though maybe that's just me being old.

Zack T · October 3, 2019

Well, if you go the other way, then you buy consoles, controllers, games, AND THEN also a strong network in order to play your games online, update them, or download new games.

So generally speaking, the majority of people with X-Box Ones and PS4's probably already have fast internet in order to do online gaming cause that's so popular.

So that argument is almost akin to saying "Well I'd have to get my electricity turned on if I want to read at night" - I mean yea it's true but you almost certainly already have it, so it's not like you're incurring an extra cost.

It might require you to bump your internet speed up a little more, but that's getting cheaper and cheaper these days. And you don't need crazy gigablast type speeds for this to work, either. How fast your internet needs to be is uncertain because it depends on how many people share your internet connection and if you're using it in multiple ways at the same time or not. But if it's just you and the only internet action is your computer or your console, you probably could do just fine with 25 megabyte speed (which is pretty low and cheap). I'd generally suggest adding 25 megabytes per person in your household.

I personally have 150 megabyte speed at 53 dollars a month, and if I wanted to bother with switching companies, I could get 300 megabytes a month at that price from AT&T instead of Cox (who I have right now). But I've had Cox since I moved to Oklahoma in 2013 and haven't had any issues with service or billing from them, so I don't want to bother right now. But AT&T and Cox both offer 1 gigabyte internet speed (Fiber speed) for pretty cheap too, around 80 a month I think?

So it's a lot less of an issue than one might think, as far as internet connectivity is concerned.

ShadowEdge · October 5, 2019

I can see it being a good idea for those who play on many different devices. You could access your favorite games and still maintain your spot in the game across all devices. It would also be cheaper since you wouldn't need to buy the game for Switch and then buy it again for PS or Xbox. I'm not speaking from experience, but that's how I envision it working.

October 8, 2019

@Zack T Valid points. Thinking again, it's not actually that costly, but maybe it feels so because I think about the consoles I already have. I also feel like you have to invest in complicated desktop gadgets to get the best experience from computer games. I guess I'm overthinking it.

Zack T · October 8, 2019

The idea behind these new gaming subscription services is to try and take that burden off of you. For folks like us who already have consoles or powerful gaming computers, it's not that useful right here and now. But for people who don't have those, can't afford to buy a 400 dollar PS4 or mid-range gaming computer, then simply getting a subscription to one of these and being able to play on what you already have is pretty rad.

It's not for everyone, but I think it'll really appeal to people who don't want to buy new consoles/pc's, or can't.