Microsoft just raised the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $29.99/month, and fans aren’t happy. Many are canceling, some are calling for a boycott, and even Microsoft’s website is struggling to keep up.

  • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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    8 days ago

    I used to think Game Pass was a good idea but more and more I rather owning my games.

    (yeah, yeah, I know, you’re only buying a license)

      • Gladaed@feddit.org
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        8 days ago

        Even there you only get a license. You don’t get to resell the copies. Or claim ownership.

        • warm@kbin.earth
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          8 days ago

          Legally sure, but what people mean is you have a copy and there’s no DRM/online check-in to execute it and play it. Steam offers DRM-free titles too, it’s entirely up to developer discretion.

      • plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        Unless you have limitless storage, you still can’t access the title when their servers go offline. So no you STILL don’t actually own it.

        This is the worst perpetuation of the GOG program that keeps getting tossed around.

        • e0qdk@reddthat.com
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          8 days ago

          You can get huge HDDs for about $15~20/TB (US) right now – possibly even better priced if you spend more than the 30 seconds I did looking. You can get up to 30TB in a single disk now if you really want.

          I have hundreds of games I’ve bought on GOG over the last decade or so. I have a copy of the offline installers for every single one of them, and they can fit on a single HDD. Literally the first thing I do when I buy a game is download the offline installer so that it’s mine forever.

          If you give a shit about preserving the games you bought and don’t do the bare minimum of downloading the offline installer for what you paid for… that’s not a problem with GOG; that’s on you.

        • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          By that logic, you don’t own even physical media that you yourself made. It’s going to rot eventually, so you need limitless storage for the backups.

        • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          A lot of Steam games also have this functionality. Turn your steam offline and see what games are still available to play. You can store them on whatever drive you want as well.

    • Zephorah@discuss.online
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      8 days ago

      GOG. It’s not all games, but you can own some of them. Steam, in spite of the CEO that keeps it decent, started this lease under the guise of buying model.

      That said, subs are much worse. If the Disney/Kimmel situation taught us anything, it’s that boycotts work.

      Subs are costing most Americans, on average, $300/mo. (More Perfect Union covered it.). That’s a monthly grocery bill for 1-2, if you buy right and cook. Subs are part of the “squeeze” that siphons money to the top 1%.

      • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Loads of steam games can be played in offline mode and stored in drives. That always been a feature and has never changed.

        They just don’t need to promote it, who needs it knows about it, but people love circle jerking that GOG lets you own your titles. Both do, and both aren’t available to download when their servers are gone, so they are functionally identical. If Steam promoted it, it would probably be caught on and called out that it’s not actual “owning”. It’s weird seeing GOG being referred to differently, and people eat it up. It’s marketing, that’s all.