I’m reverting more and more to physical media. On the surface, the convenience of digital content seems nice, but corporate greed spoils everything.
You know why Blockbuster worked? I was a kid, and this was a long time ago, so the exact figures may be off, but you could enjoy and experience the entirety of a movie for like $8, or you could buy that new release for like $30.
And you got to keep a 90 minute experience for 24 hours, or pay a little more to keep it for a week.
Now, the great thing about movies is you only need to clear one evening to watch it, so let’s say, realistically, most people have one solid 3 hours of free time a week to really sit down and enjoy a good media.
So, sure, Ubisoft, take your $70 game (don’t try and tell me a video game is worth $120 because you’re withholding half the content; Blockbuster also didn’t try to charge you 50% more for a directors cut or extended edition), rent it to me for $18. Let me play the guaranteed maximum experience of say a 20 hour game over 8 weeks, and for just $2 more I can have it for 6 months. Oh, and last year’s releases? Half price.
Somehow I don’t think that’s what they have in mind.
My initial guess would be around $70/month based on new game prices but that could be too high if we compare with streaming prices:
If we take those averages it could be somewhere between $10/month (average for sports streams) or $50/month (average for live streams).
Could be something for Twitch streamers, but they sometimes get send free copies to review so even then its not a 100% match.
I really hope this flops fast.
They also have to compete with services like Microsoft’s GamePass, which offers tons of games for one monthly subscription fee. So unless they’re gonna offer their entire library of games for a comparable price (or less, since they probably have fewer games total), they’re gonna be in for a really rude awakening.
With games I would take into account the average playthrough as I don’t buy a game a month. You can then compute the average price per hour played and prize the subscription service according to that amount.
Also digital games for $70 is a scam, they should be cheaper than physical games. Sucks having gamers getting comfortable with not owning their games.
