Jinn's comment about MS Game Pass in the Lies of P thread sort of struck a chord with me, in that it strikes me this ship has already sailed.
"Ownership" of a game in the sense of control of it and freedom of access to it hasn't existed in years for the PC space. A lot of years. Ironically, the main place you can still own most games in the traditional sense is on consoles because they still have discs and some of those discs don't require any online access to run (though that's changing) and in a few cases (generally Nintendo titles), they'll function relatively well with no Day 1 patch or any other crap required. However, I'm really only concerned with the PC space in my thoughts below because consoles are following the same trend, except being phased out in favour of other devices like phones.
Even when physical media was still a thing, when discs had to phone home for authorization with some shitty DRM schemes that locked people with valid keys and discs out of their games due to servers being taken offline, or lack of internet, etc. I have a bunch of game boxes on my shelves still containing discs that are basically just coasters these days. I haul them around because I like the boxes still on some level, but I may end up getting rid of them like I have much of my other gaming memorabilia simply because I tire of moving them around and many of them are essentially worthless now other than to collectors.
Subscription services offer choices, for instance, if you have kids who don't know what they like, you can offer a library of whatever to them to tool around with without having to pony up for a full game price for something that's either dog shit, or holds their attention for all of half an hour before they get bored. They also allow you to try things whether there's a demo or not, to see if they're something you like. And you don't have to haul around a bunch of shit, other than whatever hardware you have (and with Cloud services, not even much of that), so it's quite convenient.
It strikes me that the more portable systems and services become with internet access becoming more prevalent and more of a selling feature for many things, e.g. office files, etc. the more that these services will continue to grow and the idea of "owning a game" will become even more archaic.
Years ago, I still put in floppy drives for every computer I owned, so I could reinstall classics like the Quest for Glory series, X-Com, etc. These days, most of my computers don't have any drives at all, so even if my CDs weren't useless, I'd have to build up another system from my spare parts to use them anyway, or get an external drive. I don't pretend that I won't watch a ton of wasted money go up in flames if Steam goes tits up tomorrow, or whatever other site you prefer, and I think the time will come where you may want to see how many of your GOG installers can be held on whatever storage drives you have available and whether they continue to work longer term once that service goes dark.
So anyway, subscription services. Are these the future? A fad? The destruction of gaming as we know it? What do you think?
"Ownership" of a game in the sense of control of it and freedom of access to it hasn't existed in years for the PC space. A lot of years. Ironically, the main place you can still own most games in the traditional sense is on consoles because they still have discs and some of those discs don't require any online access to run (though that's changing) and in a few cases (generally Nintendo titles), they'll function relatively well with no Day 1 patch or any other crap required. However, I'm really only concerned with the PC space in my thoughts below because consoles are following the same trend, except being phased out in favour of other devices like phones.
Even when physical media was still a thing, when discs had to phone home for authorization with some shitty DRM schemes that locked people with valid keys and discs out of their games due to servers being taken offline, or lack of internet, etc. I have a bunch of game boxes on my shelves still containing discs that are basically just coasters these days. I haul them around because I like the boxes still on some level, but I may end up getting rid of them like I have much of my other gaming memorabilia simply because I tire of moving them around and many of them are essentially worthless now other than to collectors.
Subscription services offer choices, for instance, if you have kids who don't know what they like, you can offer a library of whatever to them to tool around with without having to pony up for a full game price for something that's either dog shit, or holds their attention for all of half an hour before they get bored. They also allow you to try things whether there's a demo or not, to see if they're something you like. And you don't have to haul around a bunch of shit, other than whatever hardware you have (and with Cloud services, not even much of that), so it's quite convenient.
It strikes me that the more portable systems and services become with internet access becoming more prevalent and more of a selling feature for many things, e.g. office files, etc. the more that these services will continue to grow and the idea of "owning a game" will become even more archaic.
Years ago, I still put in floppy drives for every computer I owned, so I could reinstall classics like the Quest for Glory series, X-Com, etc. These days, most of my computers don't have any drives at all, so even if my CDs weren't useless, I'd have to build up another system from my spare parts to use them anyway, or get an external drive. I don't pretend that I won't watch a ton of wasted money go up in flames if Steam goes tits up tomorrow, or whatever other site you prefer, and I think the time will come where you may want to see how many of your GOG installers can be held on whatever storage drives you have available and whether they continue to work longer term once that service goes dark.
So anyway, subscription services. Are these the future? A fad? The destruction of gaming as we know it? What do you think?
