Since Redmond they have always done the same thing, try to burst a market by putting the competition in a situation in which their products would not be profitable to keep the monopoly after wearing down the rival. With Xbox They have tried to end PlayStation and Nintendo for more than twenty years without success. His latest strategy is the Game Pass, with which Microsoft has returned to its already known nefarious practices.
The rise of Game Pass-style subscription services
However, we do not want to talk to you about Denuvo’s problems, but about those that the total loss of unlimited use licenses in games entails. The fact that we buy the games in digital format meant the loss of the real rights, real and not real, on them, since these platforms prevent the sale. However, we enjoyed unlimited games and without having to pay a fee.
At first glance, Game Pass is great, since we are talking about a large collection of games for little money per month, which is appealing to everyone. Well, do you remember those bootleg MP3 song compilations back in the day? Did you hear them all? How about your list of purchased games on Steam? We are sure that a good part of them you have not even tried. Are you going to play all the Game Pass games? Well, you’re not going to see all the Netflix options either, since there isn’t time for everything.
Game Pass, Microsoft’s Trojan horse
The way of acting of those from Redmond is always the same, burst a market for costs and then keep it for themselves. A very clear example was when they began to give away Microsoft Office or rather to sell it for the modest value of one dollar. The result? Office suites like WordPerfect and Lotus went down the drain.
Microsoft’s idea with Game Pass is simple, to create the feeling that games don’t cost what they should be worth, but that they are too expensive to sink other platforms and subjugate publishers to their service. The problem is that on the PC this will end up happening in a certain way. From the moment that Microsoft has a monopoly on development tools with Visual Studio and DirectX mostly.
An alternative has not been developed in all this time and despite the fact that there is no coercion from them to the developers, the Game Pass has been adopted by the developers. The reason? The huge piracy on PC and the fact that the platform is subsidized by hardware manufacturers. Pirates obviously want to play cheap and they are the ones on PC who are embracing Game Pass, which is much better than piracy for publishers, however this may be the end of full price gaming.
The price of games and the real situation
Many focus on the concept of profitability of the Game Pass and thus end up losing the trees in the middle of the forest. The issue is not profitability and the fact of focusing on it that way is wrong. The problem is long before the arrival of the Game Pass, where we have found that the games have not risen in price with inflation, but have instead kept the same figure on the label. The result? Actually, we paid less and less, which has led to the creation of alternative business models with which to capitalize in the middle of the game.
In other words, the games should really cost more, given the level of their production and promotion costs. And no, we are not defending a price increase, it is what it is. How do you explain the appearance of something like the Game Pass in this situation? Plain and simple due to the fact that the goal is to end piracy, however, for this to work there has to be a number of people willing to pay full price for something that is almost being given away to others.
Let’s not forget that you can fool a few all the time, many for a short time, but not all of the time. Honestly, it’s much better to have a collection of unused games in the Steam library than not relying on Game Pass. What with little effort is given with ditto is removed. Are you going to give a third party the power to decide what games you want to play?