Xbox is at a crossroads, and one major speed bump in their path seems to involve their Game Pass subscription service. Two major price increases over the past few years have caused many to reevaluate our priorities. Myself included.
To refresh memories: I’m a sixty-something Boomer who plays video games. I’ve been a consistent Xbox player, and partook in regular multiplayer sessions with my Saturday Night Massacre Posse for about twenty years … until my retirement last year. I do have a PS4 console, because … Horizon Zero Dawn … but Sony was never been my gaming “home.” Rather, I was a long-time Xbox Gold membership holder and, when it became cost-effective, a Game Pass and then Game Pass Ultimate subscriber.
Even when the SNM Posse was active (so named, because that was when my day-shift gaming window overlapped with my fellows’ graveyard shift availability), we generally played only a few games on the regular. Rainbow Six, Gears of War, Borderlands, Destiny, Ghost Recon, Halo, Sniper Elite—primarily FPS or TPS style titles—these were our Go-To games, played predominantly in co-op mode (we weren’t an overly competitive posse). Sure, we’d feather in the occasional platformer or isometric or soulslike title, but they came and, after a few months, they went. And we played hard. We’d start after dinner and would go late/early, often until 0300 hrs. It was a stretch for me, but worth it, as the banter alone (plus the challenge of keeping up with my much younger fellows) was great fun.
Post-retirement, though, the SNM Posse just dissolved. Since I’m not one for playing with strangers—I can’t keep up with twenty-something’s twitch-muscle reaction times, and won’t put up with the crude and too-often offensive language that passes as “repartee”—this meant that my need for a multiplayer service had come to an end. Yet, Game Pass Ultimate offered so many games, including some “Day One” titles I knew I’d enjoy (Borderlands 4 and Outer Worlds 2, to name a couple of recent additions), so I continued with my subscription.
Then, this fall, Microsoft jacked up the Game Pass Ultimate subscription rate by 50%, from $20/month to $30/month, or $360/year (what? you want a discount for paying for a whole year in advance? who do you think we are? HBO? LOL!).
As outlined above, I do not burn through video game titles. I don’t play a game for a few hundred hours in a single month and then move on to the next shiny new title. I don’t consume eight, twelve, twenty titles in a given year. Even if I include the small indie titles I play, I might go through six games in a calendar year. Is that worth $360/year? Even with the now-standard $70 price for a Day One AAA game, is it worth it?
Nope. It ain’t. And I suspect a lot of gamers are working this math the same way I have.
I will probably play three, at most four AAA titles in a year, and if I wait a bit, I’ll pay a discounted portion of that $70 list price. I can pick up a handful of indie games at anywhere from $5 to $15, if they get good reviews and the gameplay matches my likes. I still have my Xbox account, should multiplayer opportunities arise, but I’m not depending on it. There are so many older RPG/FPS/TPS titles out there, games I’ve never even tried, there’s no reason to pay such an exorbitant subscription price (especially if I have to save up for a new console!).
Video games used to be a unifying activity. It was something that bridged the age gap between myself and the younger folks I knew. With people struggling to make rent and buy groceries, and with the costs of gaming increasing by 20, 50, 60%, it’s losing its broad-based demographic in favor of a more affluent customer base.
Sometimes I wonder if Microsoft really gets gaming.
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 