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$6.2B in profit wasn't enough: Nvidia hikes GeForce Now prices for Canada and Europe
(www.theregister.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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subscriptions == Corpo tax for the plebs
🙄
I've spent $75 for 3 years of gamepass. It has been hands down without argument the best value in gaming I've ever seen in a service. You are delusional.
Almost like they price it cheap until they conquer the market, then jack up prices
MS probably doesn’t even make a profit with GamePass. They spend hundreds of millions to get Triple-A games on the service. GamePass is great for the consumer but in the end it will destroy the industry as we know it and give MS way too much power in the industry. People like to shit on Epic for their exclusivity deals, but MS is doing the same with GamePass. MS is trying to monopolize the customer base. And once they have achieved that they will not only raise their prices but lower the amount they will give to developers. And before you say MS doesn’t do exclusivity deals and you can still buy those games on Steam, many people will stop buying games if they can get them from a subscription service for cheap. Like the commenter above.
Phil Spencer confirmed it's not making money in the FTC leaks. That's why in MS's financials they don't disclose gamepass financials.
It actually staggers me how widespread the belief that MS won't up prices is. I wonder if they thought the same about Netflix or cable TV subscriptions? Lol
And yeah, also in the FTC leaks MS stated they'd love to do a hostile takeover of Nintendo or Valve if they got the choice. I don't know why people think Microsoft are on their side. They're a 2.5 trillion dollar company with a history of anti-competitive behaviour lol
I dont think anyone doubts the prices will go up, but if it costs less than a AAA game every few months then people will pay it for the ability to play those games without a console or PC and to be able to play multiple games for the price of one
And again if that happens I'll happily evaluate the value. For now I'll choose to save thousands and use that money in the future for theoretical price hikes.
It won't, it's just slippery slope bullshit, but I'm ready with three money I saved.
You don't think MS will up prices? Lol
Phil Spencer in the MS FTC leaks literally said that Gamepass isn't making money. Now, personally, I'm of the belief that MS is a for-profit company rather than a charity, in which case they'll up prices.
They have to up prices or shut down gamepass. That's not my opinion, that's capitalism. Microsoft will not keep gamepass if there's no possibility of making money from it, and there isn't at current pricing (source: Microsoft).
And save thousands? Thousands? You'd seriously be buying more than 33 AAA games each year for full retail price? Then never playing them again? Sounds like you're exaggerating by a pretty large amount lol
Oh at least 30. I probably clear a game every 2-3 weeks. And even if they up prices
I'll deal with prices as they come for now, I'm saving, yes thousands and playing more games than ever.
Yes valve, ea, Ubisoft, Nintendo, sony, all on the verge of bankruptcy. I'm sure all of them will crack any day now.
This only really works if they start making games exclusive to gamespass
I don't think that necessarily has to be true.
Even so, MS is already dabbling with buying publishers and wielding them as a weapon through enforcing exclusivity. See buying Bethesda and destroying development of the PS5 port for Starfield. I think it's naive to think this will get better and not worse.
And they will definitely not charge you more for it when they are a monopoly, no siree
Any day now valve, Sony, Nintendo, ea, Ubisoft will all fall!
Who says they'll have to?
I can still boot up games I've owned since the age of 5 or games on steam that lost their licensing like Prey (2006) or some Lego games, come back to me next month when you can't play Persona 5 Royal as it's getting pulled due to licensing. Time and time again, subscription models are great value until a point where the market share is big enough and the user base is invested enough that the price gets hiked. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't make me delusional, and frankly that was a pretty rude comment.
I, and the vast majority of the gaming community, will play a game once and never pick it up again. Most don't even finish.
For the one of two games I might actually want to play again, I'm happy to toss an additional $10 at the 10 year discounted rate.
I'm still $55 ahead of you purchasing on release.
Same with gamefly. $15 a month and I've saved thousands and thousands of dollars renting for 2 weeks and sending it back.
Doing some napkin math:
I spend $210 annually on gamefly + gamepass. I have played no less than 30 games this year (it's higher but I'm not keeping track). That's $1800 USD I've saved. I'm more than happy to eat into that and purchase a game if need be.
Ownership of video games, is VASTLY over rated and valve has you by the genitals.
I'm very skeptical that you're describing the majority, let alone vast.
That's a fair assesment. But what's the ratio games that you actually go back to compared to the amount of games you own in total? Unless you only play very few games, the amount of games a person owns vastly outnumbers the games they actually go back and play multiple times. Just looking at my steam library, I own hundreds of games I've completed once and have never touched again along with about 2 dozen I actually go back and play occasionally.
But you're still playing all the games you had as a kid? 10 games a year adds up pretty fast when we're talking about still wanting to play them all years later.
https://deathisawhale.com/2021/01/20/how-many-players-actually-finish-games/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1875952118300181
I don't think the "actually finish games" was the unlikely thing about what he said
That "only worth playing once" thing only applies to story heavy, fixed map, pure single-player games, which are mainly a sub-set of AAA games, typically on consoles.
(Or multiplayer games when somebody only plays those games were their friends are, so the game stops being fun if most of their friends aren't there anymore, so naturally such people never get back to those)
Further, even amongst that kind of game, some are so good that they're fun again to play after some time (though it usually takes a couple of years to forget enough of the details for it to be fun again). For example, Fallout 3.
Methinks you're a very young gamer, who is mainly fad driven hence buys the same AAA games as his friends and doesn't buy indie games (which is where you'll find the most replayable games of all, as indies often have generated maps since they can't afford to spend millions of dollars on people doing level design) so yeah, all you've ever seen is games that are only fun once or for a very limited time period.
Youthfullness would also explain why you confuse your own behaviour with "the vast majority of the gaming community". (Which is extra funny because the average age of gamers nowadays is somewhere in the mid 30s).
I would be seriously surprised if you were an older gamer as they're more likely to buy games for their fun factor - not fashionability amongst peers or last gen graphics - hence sooner or later end up playing some indie game or other with generated maps, plus are much more likely to have picked up again some game they played and finished years ago and still fondly remember, just to discover it's actually fun again.
Let's not gatekeep "real gamers".
You should also read his comment again. He is not saying that a game is only worth playing once because the story or game is linear. Although no sources are cited, he is probably right that a fair percentage of people pick up a game and drop it soon after because it wasn't what they thought it would be or any number of other reasons.
Even if you are an indie gamer, the sheer number of indie games that come out each year is overwhelming, and again a lot are not super polished so you can probably also see people picking it up, playing it, not being impressed and then dropping the game.
So why spend $10 a pop per game when you can pay for one month and enjoy many of them?
There is no need to be materialistic. Yes there are games you will want to go back to in a few years or take your time with, but there are many many games that you may never touch again. If you think this is a minority opinion, check out some Steam stats. I think they support OPs argument.
There are also reasons subscription based models can and do suck, there is a reason they are popular.
Yeah, ok.
That is indeed a different view of that post which makes sense.
yeah personally I dont like the subscription model and wished more people setup their own server at home to stream their own plex and stream their own steam-headless or virtual machines but that just isnt realistic and people love thier streamed content more and more. Just look at me Im talking through you from a virtual machine on my server VPN'd from my phone connected to a monitor and keyboard. I dont carry a laptop anymore I just plug my phone in at work or at home and just use parsec
What a fun story.
My NES came with Mario 3, I raided before plains of power made EQ easy, and I spent hours chopping wood by hand in ultima because I refused to get a paperweight to hold down the hot key.
They are certainly games out there that have a longer shelf life. It's not all of them nor should it be and it's not how most people play games unless heavily multiplayer focused.
Well, somebody else provided a different take on what you meant (which is that people try and ditch lots of games which are shit, only settling down with some good ones) that makes sense.
Personally that's not how I do it (I would rather not waste time and trying tons of games if free), but that's me and I'm not going to claim that's how most people go about consuming games (I doubt it is, to be fair).
game pass is a really good value if you ask me I don't pay for it anymore but I have for a while
You're right. It is really good value. For now. That's how all of these subscription services start.
My netflix was once £6. Recently they've announced it'll be going up to £18, despite it losing a bunch of shows and films that used to be on there.
Back a long time ago, my SkyTV package cost very little each month. Now some packages cost hundreds.
Adobe and others have done the same thing with their subscription services.
I don't know why people are in denial that MS will do the same thing everyone else has done when Microsoft themselves said Gamepass isn't profitable in the FTC leaks.
What a hot take! People want to hate the service on ideological platforms. They don't want to see them math.
Spoken like a true sucker. You're exactly what these giant corporations want you to be.
Ok. Enjoy buying each game separately. $75 will get you a singular game. Don't play it all at once!
Lol... You poor kid.
And you're bad at math and financials if you think it's better to buy a singular game for $75.
For what it's worth, I buy every game I really like on Steam (I have over 1200 games on Steam), but I use GamePass for everything else.
I've saved so much money using GamePass. Sorry, but I'm not paying for Forza, Flight Simulator, Minecraft Legends, etc. All of those games I beat in less than a week, and they cost $100+ CAD. Literally saved money by not buying them, but got to play them all fully.
You beat Forza and MS Flight Sim in a week... yeah we're different people.
Forza 1 week. Flight Sim was fun for less than a week. That's ~2 weeks. One subscription for GamePass is 30 days. If you cancel before the 30 days, you get a refund for the remaining time.
It's quite literally a no brainer to take advantage of GamePass right now.
People who will comment "ya but you don't own them anymore", I don't care. I have 0 urge to play either game, because they are finished. I essentially saved $280 CAD playing on GamePass.
I'm not arguing that GamePass isn't good for you, it sounds like it's a good fit. I'm just saying you didn't beat any of these games, you got bored of them. You're the kind of gamer who likes a wide variety of games and dabbles from game to game with fleeting interest.
Some people try to master a game and will sink hundreds to thousands of hours into the ones you just mentioned. For them GamePass would not be a good deal.
I literally beat Forza and Minecraft Legends..
Ratio'ed.