it WAS a good deal early on. Also when they introduced their partnership with RIOT and it would allow you to unlock all the characters in LoL that was a very good deal if you were a League player.
but the price increases and what have you…meh. it was good to get access to some games and not have to pay full retail for them. I’m thankful I didn’t pay full price for Starfield and just played it on gamepass but there would be months on end where there was nothing on there worth playing.
I get the inherent value people attach to it, but after having it several times (I’d have it for a month or two and then drop it for like, a year), I would never go back to it even if it still seemed like a good deal.
For an app developed by Microsoft and working on a PC, it has some awful pathing, and I lost saves and had issues launching games on multiple occasions. Tried many fixes and it never worked out. Some games would work for me, others wouldn’t. So for me, since it felt like a toss up to get a game to work, it was pointless.
Yeah, I’ve got so many more games than I have time to play them that there’s never a need to play full price for anything. I wishlist em and pick them up when they’re on sale less than £10
Yeah. I might break my rule for phantom liberty, it’s reduced to £17 at the mo. I’m enjoying cyberpunk so much I might make an exception here! But I’ve still got plenty in my backlog.
While I wouldn’t say it is crucial by any means, it is a fun piece of DLC. I put over 400 hours into Cyberpunk before I got the DLC though, so that may have been why I was okay with purchasing it! Either way, it does make me happy to see someone enjoying the game! :-]
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.
Turned off my recurring billing. I’ll have about 3 months then it’s bye bye. I have been a customer since 360, but now will probably sign up for Playstation Network for the first time.
Oh I’m sorry, did Playstation start charging 30 bucks for their service? Oh, it’s actually CHEAPER than Xbox even was? Oh and it’s a massive back catalog of PS games I haven’t played due to being on Xbox? Fuck me right?
I don’t have a backlog of PS games due to mainly playing Xbox for the last 20 something years. That’s why subscription services can make sense, you play through games you’ve missed out on. Kind of like sub hopping for tv streaming, you build up a back log, sub for a few months then move to the next.
That’s a good callout - treating these game rental services more like we do with streaming video services by subbing to one for just a few months, then dropping it for another.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Microsoft, like Google, is now a user-data driven company and they have already made loss/profit ratio analysis on this long before they released the price increase. They’re absolutely banking on people cancelling but making up the difference and then some from the people who stay.
For a thought experiment let’s consider how many subscribers they were reported to have in Feburary: 34 million. Let’s assume that everyone is paying for the highest tier to make the math easier. So current income would be 34 million user x $20 a month and thats $680 million a month. New income of 34 million users x $30 a month is $1.02 billion. The difference is $340 million a month. Let’s divide that by $30 a month. That gets us about 11,333,333 users. So they can hemorrhage over 11 million users and still break even. To make sure, let’s subtract 11 million users. That gives us 23 million users. 23 million users x $30 a month is $690 million a month, a cool $10 million a month above current profits.
For final context, 11 million users is roughly 32% of their entire subscriber count. They can afford to lose a third of the people subscribing and still make money.
The math doesn’t bode well for us who vote with our wallets.
The same math is there too. They can afford to loose one third of new subscribers to get the same amount of money.
But their new customer acquisition cost wont get higher at the same pace and they get more valuable customers whose payback period will be shorter.
Also i dont think its relevant here, but less customers means less operating costs, so they will most likelly save some money on customer service and behind the scenes things like server upkeeps etc., but i dont think these make real difference here.
Also if for some reason things start to go bad they still have option to create “a budget version” for the people who see the normal subscrition as too expencive.
I’m not a licensed math surgeon, but I think your math is wildly optimistic in favor of Microsoft due to how the subscription totals are actually distributed per price tier.
I don’t doubt that they did a lot of math to figure out an acceptable level of churn for this change, I just don’t think it’s nearly as generous and wide as you’re calculating.
There probably is a very real churn limit that they’re trying to avoid, and my hunch is that there exists a breaking point that could be hit with an aggressive and sustained boycott / cancellation spree, but again, I’m not a math surgeon so I could be wrong. That’s just my gut feeling.
One could imagine that conveniently, Microsoft’s online support pages and the amount of support staff were designed to only handle hundreds of thousands of cancelations at a time.
Now factor in the cost savings from a lower server load and less staff to run the back end, and possibly the smaller licensing\use costs for the games available to play since less people would be accessing those games.
Yes, but still something they will look at. It means when it becomes unviable with the squeeze already on, those that chose to pay the higher fees lose access to everything as they shut it down. I’m sure they will thank their loyal subscribers, so there is that.
My guess is they realise that xbox users in general is likely on a downward trajectory and now is the time to milk them.
And it gets even better. Instead of up to 33% leaving, say 50% of that group convert to Premium instead of Ultimate. That isn’t any lost revenue since the price is going up to what Ultimate used to be. So that cushions their numbers even more.
Unfortunately the only music software I’m somewhat productive in runs only on Windows or Mac, and I really can’t afford Apple’s hardware prices. So it’s either using WIndows, or being very limited at a very dear creative outlet.
Hrm. I would offer a linux alternative, but I also know how people learn a DAW like an instrument and changing to a new would actually be quite an undertaking, and yeah, lots of various effects and such that… really only work that one specific way on your specific setup.
Yep, me with my years of working for MSFT, playing their games, configuring their software and using it at large businesses… and then realizing its all fucking overpriced broken garbage from first hand experience, and then replacing it all with open sourcr shit both at home and at work…
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
I have never had gamepass, it just seemed like a waste honestly
it WAS a good deal early on. Also when they introduced their partnership with RIOT and it would allow you to unlock all the characters in LoL that was a very good deal if you were a League player.
but the price increases and what have you…meh. it was good to get access to some games and not have to pay full retail for them. I’m thankful I didn’t pay full price for Starfield and just played it on gamepass but there would be months on end where there was nothing on there worth playing.
I get the inherent value people attach to it, but after having it several times (I’d have it for a month or two and then drop it for like, a year), I would never go back to it even if it still seemed like a good deal.
For an app developed by Microsoft and working on a PC, it has some awful pathing, and I lost saves and had issues launching games on multiple occasions. Tried many fixes and it never worked out. Some games would work for me, others wouldn’t. So for me, since it felt like a toss up to get a game to work, it was pointless.
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.
Yeah, I’ve got so many more games than I have time to play them that there’s never a need to play full price for anything. I wishlist em and pick them up when they’re on sale less than £10
Exactly. My limit is also under 10 eur for most games on my wishlist, or 20 eur for games Im interested the most.
Yeah. I might break my rule for phantom liberty, it’s reduced to £17 at the mo. I’m enjoying cyberpunk so much I might make an exception here! But I’ve still got plenty in my backlog.
While I wouldn’t say it is crucial by any means, it is a fun piece of DLC. I put over 400 hours into Cyberpunk before I got the DLC though, so that may have been why I was okay with purchasing it! Either way, it does make me happy to see someone enjoying the game! :-]
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.
deleted by creator
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.
Turned off my recurring billing. I’ll have about 3 months then it’s bye bye. I have been a customer since 360, but now will probably sign up for Playstation Network for the first time.
Fucking hell… some people legitimately never learn.
They are destined to be suckers for life.
Oh I’m sorry, did Playstation start charging 30 bucks for their service? Oh, it’s actually CHEAPER than Xbox even was? Oh and it’s a massive back catalog of PS games I haven’t played due to being on Xbox? Fuck me right?
If you have a backlog of games that you have bought, why do you need an online subscription for them? Or am I misunderstanding something?
I don’t have a backlog of PS games due to mainly playing Xbox for the last 20 something years. That’s why subscription services can make sense, you play through games you’ve missed out on. Kind of like sub hopping for tv streaming, you build up a back log, sub for a few months then move to the next.
Ehh… PSN isn’t really any better. Their Game Pass competitor is a hot mess. Better to just buy games outright, especially during sales.
I know it’s not better, but it has a bunch of the catalog from Game Pass as well as a bunch of PS titles I’ve missed while being on Xbox.
That’s a good callout - treating these game rental services more like we do with streaming video services by subbing to one for just a few months, then dropping it for another.
Yeah I was shocked at the overlap of titles between the 2. If I had noticed that the last price hike, I might have switched sooner.
removed by mod
I already canceled because of the atrocities Microsoft does / is / supports.
Not that the harm hasn’t already been done, but I did just see this: https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/microsoft-pulls-azure-services-from-israeli-military/
Thanks for sharing! Small wins!!
Know also that they did not really pull out completely. They are still there, but made sure to let everyone know they did something.
Oh, so it’s kinda for show.
Oh, they got rid of the 12 month core plan completely and renamed core to essential (isn’t essential the basic playstation plan?).
I guess I won’t buy more than 1 month at a time for multiplayer. That’s going to save me a lot of money, since I don’t play xbox online very often.
I really appreciate this, you just saved me at least $20.
Microsoft’s user experience is awful at every step in a browser. I wanted to like XBox but it’s clear why they’re losing.
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
The thing about this shit is…
Microsoft, like Google, is now a user-data driven company and they have already made loss/profit ratio analysis on this long before they released the price increase. They’re absolutely banking on people cancelling but making up the difference and then some from the people who stay.
For a thought experiment let’s consider how many subscribers they were reported to have in Feburary: 34 million. Let’s assume that everyone is paying for the highest tier to make the math easier. So current income would be 34 million user x $20 a month and thats $680 million a month. New income of 34 million users x $30 a month is $1.02 billion. The difference is $340 million a month. Let’s divide that by $30 a month. That gets us about 11,333,333 users. So they can hemorrhage over 11 million users and still break even. To make sure, let’s subtract 11 million users. That gives us 23 million users. 23 million users x $30 a month is $690 million a month, a cool $10 million a month above current profits.
For final context, 11 million users is roughly 32% of their entire subscriber count. They can afford to lose a third of the people subscribing and still make money.
The math doesn’t bode well for us who vote with our wallets.
Okay, but wouldn’t a higher price also discourage new people from subscribing in the first place? Or are companies that shortsighted?
The same math is there too. They can afford to loose one third of new subscribers to get the same amount of money.
But their new customer acquisition cost wont get higher at the same pace and they get more valuable customers whose payback period will be shorter.
Also i dont think its relevant here, but less customers means less operating costs, so they will most likelly save some money on customer service and behind the scenes things like server upkeeps etc., but i dont think these make real difference here.
Also if for some reason things start to go bad they still have option to create “a budget version” for the people who see the normal subscrition as too expencive.
Most of them are. Just make profit NOW!!
I’m not a licensed math surgeon, but I think your math is wildly optimistic in favor of Microsoft due to how the subscription totals are actually distributed per price tier.
I don’t doubt that they did a lot of math to figure out an acceptable level of churn for this change, I just don’t think it’s nearly as generous and wide as you’re calculating.
There probably is a very real churn limit that they’re trying to avoid, and my hunch is that there exists a breaking point that could be hit with an aggressive and sustained boycott / cancellation spree, but again, I’m not a math surgeon so I could be wrong. That’s just my gut feeling.
One could imagine that conveniently, Microsoft’s online support pages and the amount of support staff were designed to only handle hundreds of thousands of cancelations at a time.
Now factor in the cost savings from a lower server load and less staff to run the back end, and possibly the smaller licensing\use costs for the games available to play since less people would be accessing those games.
But also less new users and still the usual churn of existing users. It could be a downward spiral.
That’s the next CEOs problem.
Yes, but still something they will look at. It means when it becomes unviable with the squeeze already on, those that chose to pay the higher fees lose access to everything as they shut it down. I’m sure they will thank their loyal subscribers, so there is that.
My guess is they realise that xbox users in general is likely on a downward trajectory and now is the time to milk them.
And it gets even better. Instead of up to 33% leaving, say 50% of that group convert to Premium instead of Ultimate. That isn’t any lost revenue since the price is going up to what Ultimate used to be. So that cushions their numbers even more.
… and here is yet another opportunity I have to post the same comment as I have been doing for the past 6+ months:
People still use Microsoft products?!
Unfortunately the only music software I’m somewhat productive in runs only on Windows or Mac, and I really can’t afford Apple’s hardware prices. So it’s either using WIndows, or being very limited at a very dear creative outlet.
You can run most Windows programs on linux.
WINE/Proton.
I know, but DAWs are notoriously difficult to run and there are problems with most plugins.
Thats a fair point, DAWs are nightmares.
Hrm. I would offer a linux alternative, but I also know how people learn a DAW like an instrument and changing to a new would actually be quite an undertaking, and yeah, lots of various effects and such that… really only work that one specific way on your specific setup.
Nope. Nobody uses them.
I literally cannot imagine why they would, and I used to work for them.
Hardly anyone does
Your comment really just shout “i’m living under a rock!”
Yep, me with my years of working for MSFT, playing their games, configuring their software and using it at large businesses… and then realizing its all fucking overpriced broken garbage from first hand experience, and then replacing it all with open sourcr shit both at home and at work…
Yep, I really am sound like live under rock.
Nobody care about your credentials though, your “people still use microsoft product” comment is the one that sounds like you’re living under a rock.
I think he’s just not an idiot like most of the people who are finally cancelling their subscriptions.
I know, it’s rare to find someone who isn’t eager to be ripped off.
It’s honestly cheaper to just buy games than pay this subscription per year.
Plus, you get to keep the games.
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?
no numbers were shown that day