I cancelled too! I really wanna see what excuse Microsoft will pull out to walk back the changes.
Hit 'em where it hurts, people.
Pro financial tip: Be a patient gamer. Get the games you are interested in during sales. Fuck FOMO and pre-orders.
Shortly After Xbox Game Pass Prices Spiked, the Page to Cancel Game Pass Subscriptions Was Overwhelmed
Submitted 3 weeks ago by SalamenceFury@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://wccftech.com/xbox-game-pass-subscription-cancel-page-overwhelmed-after-game-pass-price-hike/
Comments
Macaroni_ninja@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Guitarfun@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Lately, I’ve only been buying indie games. I can’t drop $70-$80 on one game and even when those games go on sale they’re usually $40-$50.
If you read reviews and do a little research you’ll find that there are actually a lot of really cool indie games and you can multiple games for just a fraction of the cost of double or triple A games.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, I’ve got so many more games than I have time to play them that there’s never a need to play full price for anything. I wishlist em and pick them up when they’re on sale less than £10
Macaroni_ninja@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Exactly. My limit is also under 10 eur for most games on my wishlist, or 20 eur for games Im interested the most.
Landless2029@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I always preferred waiting a year for AAA games. Patches, mods, guides and sales.
Even better when GOTY editions or bundles with all the DLC on sale.
ibot@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I agree. But if you are on a console and want to play online, you already need a subscription.
I want a subscription free Console that supports online play.
ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
That’s just a computer. If you’ve heard about the steam deck, you can set up a pc to be basically the same but more powerful and permanently hooked up to a tv.
ICastFist@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
I want a subscription free Console that supports online play.
Sorry, best we can do is a PC or phone
zanyllama52@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Word. Just give me a completed game that is mostly bug free and has all features that are alleged to be part of the game on release.
sadfitzy@ttrpg.network 2 weeks ago
Be a smart consumer. Don’t pay for things you could be getting for free just so the business can have a nicer campus.
If it’s a major release, wait until the game is finished and then torrent it.
doctortofu@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
The price increase is absurd. I cancelled too, because while I do play quite a bit, this level of corporate greed is completely unjustifiable to me. If rather watch playthroughs of new games on Twitch or YouTube and then buy them a year later on sale than pay this bloody much, eff that.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To be fair it‘s as absurd as it was inevitable. Gamepass was always meant as this temporary thing you can try out to play some new games until everyone jumps ship because of increased prices. It has been preached for years.
M137@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why watch playthroughs at all? Just wait till the games are on sale. And only a year isn’t that long, wait more and get better deals with more complete games. There’s nothing saying you need to hurry in any way, and several things saying it’s a good idea to wait. There are more than enough games available for anyone to not have to constantly claw at the newest releases.
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 3 weeks ago
“watch playthroughs of new games on Twitch of YouTube”
welcome to my life for the last couple of many years lol. Not that I’ve been boycotting per se, but I haven’t bought a new game in years cuz my laptop is over a decade old so the best I can play is minecraft, or just use my xbox one for battlefield 4. the corporate greed from the last decade has caused me to never buy this crap again. I love videogames so much, thank god for emulators.
I don’t need any trash EsaudiaA dishes out. People need to go play old/vintage games, get back to the roots, before games were nothing but meaningless cash grabs.
whereyaaat@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
Just so you know, they only thought you were stupid enough to pay more because you were stupid to enough to pay at all.
Use your brain before your wallet. Start torrenting.
bblkargonaut@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s nice they pulled this nonsense during a steam sale. Cancelled and picked up halo mcc and silksong.
copd@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
silksong isn’t on sale.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Coming for the sale and leaving having bought a game not on sale is part of why sales exist!
Glide@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
You know, fundamentally, I don’t hate Gamepass as a concept. “Netflix, but for videogames” is an idea I can get behind, as it widens the audience for something I love by lowering the bar of entry. There are plenty of people out there that benefit from being able to play a few games here and there without needing to commit hundreds of hours to $100 purchases.
But Netflix has overstepped with price hikes and ads, and I’ve cancelled my service with them. That Microsoft thinks it can charge some ~$40CAD a month is pure hubris. I hope they learn quickly that, at that price point, the enthusiast market will happily cancel and just buy their games outright, and the casual market will decide it’s an expense they don’t need.
mintiefresh@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
It’s honestly cheaper to just buy games than pay this subscription per year.
Plus, you get to keep the games.
sadfitzy@ttrpg.network 2 weeks ago
It’s even cheaper to torrent them.
And you actually get to keep them.
LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I already canceled because of the atrocities Microsoft does / is / supports.
PKscope@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not that the harm hasn’t already been done, but I did just see this: thisweekinvideogames.com/…/microsoft-pulls-azure-…
LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Thanks for sharing! Small wins!!
wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
EA also further buried the ability to cancel EA accounts, after the announcement they had been sold to the Saudis and Kushner.
other_cat@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Between that, this, and Disney+ cancellation page “accidentally” going down during that fiasco, this is exactly why I’ve switched to using only virtual cards for subscriptions. Pause/Cancel the virtual card, voila, no more subscription.
hydrashok@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Good thing I never signed up for one.
Any Steam game that requires an EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard, whatever account is a total non-starter for me. I’ve looked at some of the newer Battlefields when they’re on sale for like $2 and I still can’t be convinced. Likely never will.
Ok with me, there’s lots of other publishers out there, both independents and studios, that I’d much rather give my $2 to.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
they dont want SA or kushner to hold an EMPTY bag, but i suspect they will get alot of cancellations in the future. wish they seperate westwood so a proper CNC can be revived.
ICastFist@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Westwood, my beloved 😢
Would be good if Maxis also got out of their throes, though that’s extremely unlikely, given The Sims
SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
And Kyrandia!
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To be fair, those kinds of changes do not usually happen so rapidly after a purchase, and was likely already planned for implementation and started before the sale.
In other words, it is likely EA was already planning to make that change regardless of if the sale went through or not.
voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I haven’t subbed to gamepads for years because I knew this would eventually happen. Gamepass was designed to get people used to not purchasing games and instead letting them come to them. Subscribers now have to chose between paying even more each month or losing access to the library of games available to them.
thoro@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Gamepass only ever made sense to people who had time to play or dabble in a sufficiently large amount of games per year and felt the need to play some new titles soon or immediately instead of waiting. Otherwise, eventually your total subscription costs would outpace the total cost to purchase what you played, especially if purchased on sale at a later date. And the value gets worse if you ever replayed a game (s).
I’ll never really understand the excitement about this service. It was always a Trojan horse.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Gamepass only ever made sense to people who had time to play or dabble in a sufficiently large amount of games per year
Exactly. I only played two games before unsubscribing. You have to have so many free time to make the gamepass worth your while and money.
sadfitzy@ttrpg.network 2 weeks ago
Gamepass only made sense if you’re an idiot.
Everyone who isn’t stupid knew that they were renting access to something they could be getting for free. The business can raise fees whenever it wants, and you’re stuck either paying the higher rates or cutting your losses and having nothing to show for the money you wasted.
Renting is a scam and only morons think otherwise. Hopefully some of them grow up after seeing this, but I doubt it.
SippyCup@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I learned after a few months of game pass that most of the games that looked interesting actually weren’t. It’s no big loss, and it’s cheaper to just buy the few games I actually want anymore. Doubly true now.
garretble@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Honestly, I’ve kinda gone back to buying physical media.
I bought DK Bananza on cart, and guess what? After I finished it, I gave it to my brother. Imagine that! Sharing a game you own? Madness.
I’m eager to pick up Ghost of Yotei from the store this afternoon, as well.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For PC games that’s impossible, at most you can find a disc-shaped steam redeem code
syreus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Family Share works really well in my experience. It worked better when I could change the users more frequently but this model is still works pretty well.
garretble@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s why I don’t really use Steam to buy games anymore, too.
At least maybe use GoG if possible to get a DRM free version.
zanyllama52@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
I’ve never gone away from buying physical media, but I could understand exactly why you would want to return to it.
garretble@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
For me, when the Switch 1 came out it was just nice to have everything on the device and you never had to do the most heinous thing of taking a moment to put a cart into the device.
But more and more I buy one to two games a time and focus on those, so that issue is largely not a thing any more.
sadfitzy@ttrpg.network 2 weeks ago
You never needed physical media in order to share games with others.
You still don’t, and you can share with more people digitally.
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 3 weeks ago
Between the cost of housing and the cost of food, and the fact wages aren’t that much better than they were 15 years ago - you’d think they would realize they are asking for the scraps people have left.
I’ve always just bought games when they’re on a good sale, I’ve never had a game pass type thing. But maybe they just want to squeeze a bit more out of their most loyal customers and they’re accepting that it is a dying model.
Prox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Once upon a time, the idea with subscriptions like this was to have customers set it and forget it. Charge them a small/reasonable amount and they’ll keep giving you money forever. Giving people a reason to think about - or worse, evaluate the merits of - the monthly deposit they’re giving you used to be a sin for companies.
But here we are, seeing the difference between “companies” and “corpos”.
AppleTea@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
…is the difference being publicly traded on the stock exchange? The only company I can think of that doesn’t fall under “corpo” is Valve, and it seems to mostly be because they don’t have to answer to shareholders.
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I canceled. I don’t want the features they added. I don’t even use all the features they charge me for now. I just want to be able to try out so new games every so often. I’ll take the $30 I save and buy those same games, probably with some money leftover
whereyaaat@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
You should start using your brain instead of your wallet and begin torrenting.
For all the money you’ve wasted renting games with gamepass, you could’ve been owning them with a fraction of the cost of a VPN.
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I understand, but I do want to support devs, especially indie devs, when u can. That’s why I have no qualms about canceling an expensive service and putting that money directly in their hands when it’s possible
RunJun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Just canceled my 4 year old subscription. Can’t wait to hear the complaints from my kid but Netflix is likely next.
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The missus and I sat down about a year ago and tabulated up how much all of the various streaming subscriptions were costing us per year (it was close to $1,000 when including YouTube Premium).
We cancelled every single one, and put that money towards building a home NAS and filling that up with downloaded media. No more ads, stupidly low bitrates, or TV shows & movies disappearing because a license expired.
The server has more than paid for itself at this point, and every additional spare dollar is being put aside for our kids’ tuition.
RunJun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I have a 16TB server and an extensive steam collection. I already explained it to him and he was fine about it.
ICastFist@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Never too late to introduce them to all of your favourite classic games, either
Easier if you start with Bomberman Party on the PS1 or the arcade Neo Bomberman. I think those play much better than anything Bomberman released after 2004
If the kid enjoys strategy, starting out with Age of Empires should be easy. Or just leave them messing around with Settlers 2
whereyaaat@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
Nice.
You wasted hundreds of dollars and have nothing to show for it.
You are average!
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Knowing Microsoft, I’d like to thing that it went down like this:
Pardon me, your department isn’t achieving the expected 20% annual revenue increase.
But we’re just selling subscriptions to games that cost us nearly nothing. It’s free money.
And you need to make more money from it, increase your subscriber count or your costs, or we’ll cut your staff.
wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Now is probably not the best time to sell my xbox… I bet the market is flooding
verdi@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
For years I’ve been warning whoever would listen that XboxGP, much like any other content subscription service owned by a public company would inevitably lead to a massive consumer squeeze. Fortunately it happened before MS managed to metastasise into a monopoly in gaming too. Good riddance.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Getting users to pay extra for features that should already be included with their overpriced consoles is such a scam.
Ffs xbox live used to be free -_-
etchinghillside@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
Internet is being shitty on link. What is the price increasing to/from? When was the last increase?
calliope@retrolemmy.com 3 weeks ago
I really appreciate this, you just saved me at least $20.
Microsoft’s user experience is awful at every step in a browser. I wanted to like XBox but it’s clear why they’re losing.
Gerudo@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Turned off my recurring billing. I’ll have about 3 months then it’s bye bye. I have been a customer since 360, but now will probably sign up for Playstation Network for the first time.
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Netflix Spotify Disney and Amazon proved that price hikes are effective at increasing profits even despite the loss of subscribers. Capitalism baby.
I think the only time collective cancellations actually hurt one of these companies was that time Jimmy Kimmel made fun of the president and it took an estimated 1.7M ex-Disney Plus subscribers.
VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Buying isn’t owning, but it has to be better than this…
zanyllama52@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Never would I ever subscribe to a game service. That’s just me.
_AutumnMoon_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I have never had gamepass, it just seemed like a waste honestly
mrfriki@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It was nice to have Xbox a month or two a year to play new releases. Guess that it’s over now, no problem, still a patient gamer.
ibot@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I just bought 12 month of Ultimate on eBay. I always did this in the past, because it’s cheaper than buying directly from Microsoft. So far, I made good experience with it.
The way it usually works is, that you get a few codes you need to redeem. I got three codes for 36 month of EA Play and then one code for Ultimate that is supposed to transform the EA Play subscription to 12 month Ultimate. But due to the the price hike, the subscription transformation changed as well and I did not get the 12 month.
I’m now in contact with the seller and he tries to find a solution. I want to have my 12 month Ultimate that he offered for the price. But it also sucks for the seller. Seems like we both didn’t know. He basically sold it to cheap. I paid 150€ for 12 month Ultimate and he just now increased the price to 200€.
The new prices are insane! 150€ a year is already my upper limit. I’m not gonna pay 200€ or even more a year. I think, if my new subscription is over, I will not extend it. I like the idea of Game Pass, but that’s to much money.
The thing is I really like Game Consoles. I want to play in front of my TV. I wish, Steam would make another Steam Machine with Steam OS. I do want an all in one solution. The last thing I want is a gaming PC. I hope, alternatives to Xbox Consoles and Playstation come up.
I know, I could also use the XBox without GamePass, but I do play online something and it would be nice to get away from subscriptions completly.
Siegehammer85@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I work in the IT software licensing industry, it’s a fucking cancer I can’t wait to fail so bad that when we have the first extended internet outage failure so bad that it shows the world that subscriptions are a liability that shouldn’t exist
OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Just cancelled mine. I have barely been doing ~2 games per year, and the cost was low enough for me to not really care about the months I didn’t play at all.
But a price increase is the straw.
moakley@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m usually fine with paying more for things I enjoy that are worth it. Like $70 games are just not a big deal to me.
I’m also too lazy to cancel most things. I’ve ignored Game Pass price hikes before and justified them by thinking of all the games I played without buying.
But this one is just ridiculous. There’s no value here, no way for me to justify it. I was enjoying Silksong on Xbox because I didn’t have to buy it, but now that I do have to buy it I guess I’ll do that on my Switch instead. Replaying it is going to be rough, especially without my Elite controller.
I hope Microsoft gets their shit together, because Xbox has been my favorite game platform for years.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
… and here is yet another opportunity I have in the past 6ish months to post the same comment:
People still use Microsoft products?!
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
The thing about this shit is…
Microsoft, like Google, is now a user-data driven company and they have already made loss/profit ratio analysis on this long before they released the price increase. They’re absolutely banking on people cancelling but making up the difference and then some from the people who stay.
For a thought experiment lets consider how many subscribers they were reported to have in Feburary: 34 million. Let’s assume that everyone is paying for the highest tier to make the math easier. So current income would be 34 million x $20 a month and thats $680 million a month. 34 million x $30 a month is $1.02 billion. The difference is $340 million a month. Let’s divide that by $30 a month. That gets us about 11,333,333. So they can hemorage 11 million users and still break even.
The math doesn’t bode well for us who vote with our wallets.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
One could imagine that conveniently, Microsoft’s online support pages and the support staff were designed to only handle hundreds of thousands of cancelations at a time.
ramble81@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
And it gets even better. Instead of up to 33% leaving, say 50% of that group convert to Premium instead of Ultimate. That isn’t any lost revenue since the price is going up to what Ultimate used to be. So that cushions their numbers even more.
quackerjo@lemmy.wtf 3 weeks ago
I’m not a certified math surgeon, but I think your math is wildly optimistic in favor of Microsoft due to how the subscriptions are actually brokendown per price tier.
I don’t doubt that they did a lot of math to figure out an acceptable level of churn for this change, I just don’t think it’s nearly as generous and wide as you’re calculating.
Jakule17@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Okay, but wouldn’t a higher price also discourage new people from subscribing in the first place? Or are companies that shortsighted?
Minnels@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Most of them are. Just make profit NOW!!
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The same math is there too. They can afford to loose one third of new subscribers to get the same amount of money.
But their new customer acquisition cost wont get higher at the same pace and they get more valuable customers whose payback period will be shorter.
Also i dont think its relevant here, but less customers means less operating costs, so they will most likelly save some money on customer service and behind the scenes things like server upkeeps etc., but i dont think these make real difference here.
Also if for some reason things start to go bad they still have option to create “a budget version” for the people who see the normal subscrition as too expencive.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Now factor in the cost savings from a lower server load and less staff to run the back end, and possibly the smaller licensing\use costs for the games available to play since less people would be accessing those games.