I swore off buying 'new' games close to their release dates because I was sick of overpriced, unfinished games that are just trying to squeeze every cent out of me. Then BG3 came out and everyone raved how great it was, but I stuck to my principles and said I'd play it a year or so after its release. Then someone pointed out to me that the game plays well, has no charge for online play, doesn't have microtransactions, and is complete. So I bought it, figuring that this is the type of game we should be rewarding, and I've not been disappointed.

I don't even care about the replayability. I can see myself at some point going for another run at BG3, but that's a big commitment and I think I'm going to play BG1 and 2 before then, and plenty of other games.

I care if it's an interesting and enjoyable experience. I'd gladly play another Outer Wilds, even though it's hardly replayable, because it was such a good and unique experience. I don't care to play yet another Assassin's Creed or whatever other garbage that isn't interesting after you've tried it once and also purposefully wastes your time with stuff that is not designed to improve the experience, only playtime.

I bought it when the alpha was released.

Like two years of act 1 had me around 200 hours before it even released. Act 1 did seem bigger back then tho, the intro especially.

I've moved from PC to PS5 since and I'm definitely going to rebuy on PS5 eventually. It's the only game I still play on PC these days.

Fuck everything about them having like 3 actions while I get one at a 35% hit rate. Goddamn...

Even now Gamepass is only worth it for one or two months to play some indie games, maybe Yakuza if you're into that. It just doesn't make sense to have a long time subscription there like it used to be with Netflix a while ago. Most of the good stuff is older and most people already own that, I suppose.

Movie industry right now: oof, a hundred competing services was a bad idea, now what do we do?

Games industry right now: let's do what the movie industry did

It's already been normalized for music and videos for people to subscribe instead of owning. It may just be a matter of time for video games, or it may be that there are real lasting differences between video games and other types of media.

Of course, there are several sorts of games you can't own already, and many games that are all but inaccessible as abandonware type things, so that process is at least somewhat started.

You mean £5-20/month for 3 years as a "season pass"

Sony with Spiderman 3 be like: 50$ part 1, 50$ part 2, 50$ multiplayer, for those out of the loop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UubAtaGfqHE

Totally agree. However, I think the word you're describing is choice rather than freedom. You're always free to purchase what you want, nobody forcing you. It's just good to have choices.

Not sure what happened but it looks like your comment got tripled posted.

Because games are made subscription-based for profit, so the incentive isn't making a good game or giving the players more content or whatever.

The games that want to give the players more actual content have no subscription, like Terraria, Deep Rock Galactic, Stardew Valley or other fantastic games that keep getting free updates.

Maybe you could exclude early WoW from that statement but current WoW definitely fits in the greedy bag too.

You also can't step away from a multi-player game whenever you want, which is a huge problem when you have kids and a spouse. Your attention will almost always be needed the moment things heat up in your game.