In addition to the more special mainland market, the purchase of games throughout the ages is often in the form of a buyout, as long as the player buys once and receives the physical version, it is equivalent to having a permanent right, even if it is resold to others for a second time, this way of applying it to no matter what kind of transaction outside the game is very normal, it is also very simple to give you money, give me ownership of the practice. However, with the development of the Internet era and the improvement of game capacity, the cost of access has increased, the proportion of digital games has also increased year by year, and even most independent game manufacturers have chosen to sell only in digital stores, which is the most common situation in the current game field.
However, the way digital games are sold, although they save access costs, they also greatly limit the benefits of second-hand transactions, making many players start to think about spending hundreds of dollars to buy a game that may not be opened again after completing the level and asking "Is it worth it?" , so that before purchasing the game will also be more cautious, can not get off the hand to see the live level. In such an environment, in addition to some of the more well-known new series or games that are advertised by spending money, game manufacturers must come up with a new way of payment, so that players can get the highest benefits under the lowest consumption.
And it is the "game subscription service" to be discussed this time, here I will not talk about another kind of cloud game subscription, such as GeForce Now, Google Stadia, because there are many gaps and time in practice. First of all, the subscription system can play dozens of hundreds of games in a time for a little money every month, since 2014, EA has already launched a subscription service "EA Acces" on XboxOne, until 2016, there was a PC version of "Origin Acces". Not long after, perhaps seeing the success of EA, Microsoft also launched its own subscription service "Xbox Game Pass" on XboxOne in 2017.
However, compared with the many video subscription services on the market, the nature of the game is hugely different from them in terms of content, and even in addition to the subscription payment model, other can not be referred to at all. There are also more and more questions, is the increase in subscription platforms even more expensive than the buyout? In the end, is there only one big one left? How about the developer division model, is indie games without human rights? Ultimately, it's the question "Are they really worth it?"
Following EA and Microsoft respectively joined the game subscription pie, through the financial reports can see how these two companies rely on their positions in the top few revenues, at the end of 2018 Discord announced a partnership with hundreds of developers to launch a game subscription service exclusive to Nitro paid members, followed by Upplay, Apple, google also joined the battle in 2019.
Although Discord announced this big war in advance, because most users really don't know that a voice software will actually have a subscription service, plus the hiding place is not easy to find, it is a very powerful thing to be able to survive for a year before choosing to close. From the perspective of other services, in addition to Apple and Google, Microsoft, EA, Uplay are game developers, with a large number of exclusive IP allows subscribers to enjoy games that are not available elsewhere, Microsoft is also included as a platform manufacturer, in order to make a cross-platform service called "Xbox Game Pass Ultimate" in 2019, which can be used from XboxOne and Windows 10 platforms inherit archives from each other.
Under so many choices, players often find that the attraction of subscription services is not how many games there are, but the exclusive games in their services, and when a player chooses whether to buy a service or game, the priority is undoubtedly whether they like it, otherwise even if you can't play more games, you can't attract that group of consumers. Which of EA's "Anthem" and Microsoft's "Sea of Thieves" did not announce that it would launch a game that would be launched simultaneously after the subscription service, leaving countless players to spend money to subscribe? Wouldn't it be worth it for these people to play the game at a lower price than a buyout, and there was still a month to play slowly?
So the game subscription system for players to save money is certain, basically in addition to the game consumer can not have and there is no substantial loss, but like this, EA's EA PLAY members also provide exclusive discounts, if some multiplayer or huge content of the game, after playing a month to experience hundreds of games still feel worthwhile, you can directly buy at a discounted price, is currently the healthiest mechanism in the whole platform. Even if not, most of the games are enough for you to have a limited time in a month, or aaa blockbuster package to two months of full DLC content is worth it.
As for another question that many netizens are worried about, if every manufacturer has a platform in the future, won't the monthly fee spent in the future be higher than the buyout? About this point is actually not right, right is that really high every game manufacturer has to jump out, and just right every month to launch a bunch of games, then it is likely to happen, but the probability is really too low, after all, the server cost is not cheap. If not, it means that the game subscription service is not like the video subscription service, which can be watched and listened to anytime and anywhere, but only the games that really pay attention to are usually launched early by the AAA masterpiece and the members play this kind of activity first, and they will be interested in subscribing.
When the players' problems are solved, it is also a good idea to talk about the situation of indie games in the subscription mechanism. The player choice mentioned earlier, as well as the games offered by platform vendors and large companies, are all beneficiaries of subscription services, so what about third-party independent developers? From the current means of sharing, it is divided in a similar way such as calculating the number of games downloaded by players and the time of playing each month. That is to say, the longer the player plays and the more downloaded, the more it will naturally get a lot of profit from a large number of players, so as mentioned earlier, compared to cheap indie games, why should players not simply play those more expensive AAA masterpieces after paying a monthly fee? There may be players who worry that the subscription mechanism will kill the idea of indie games, but in fact it is not as cruel as everyone thinks, but it helps those developers.
This is a fake issue, after all, in the same state, whether the independent developer is launched in the subscription service or not, even if no one downloads it, there is no loss to them, after all, no one buys or takes a share, not that it costs a lot of money to board. The subscription mechanism provides this kind of opportunity for developers, more like a free or low-cost advertising effect, they can make the subscription service provider's game library look more and better, let everyone notice that the game is recommended, try it out and think it's fun, but would rather spend more time playing AAA masterpieces. In this way, even if the group of players does not buy it, there is still a great chance to buy the game in the special price or in the store afterwards, just because they are cheap enough compared to other games and monthly fees.
In summary, a subscription service is a worthwhile feature for players who don't want to spend a lot of money on a game. And developers can also use this to attract players who rarely spend a lot of money to buy games at a quantitative price, and even for the sake of independent game manufacturers to achieve publicity effects. At best, it's good for anyone, but it's no surprise to anyone, and it's no surprise to subscribe when you want to play anyway, which is undoubtedly the ideal choice for today's games.
And the subscription service wars? From the current point of view, the PC, console field in addition to Microsoft really includes other third-party game manufacturers of the game, the other two are the main service contains exclusive game features, anyway really want to play you and then go to other platforms or their own PC platform to buy can also be, naturally no one will object.
Because of this, compared to the subscription service war, who will fight to the problem of a monopoly, unless Sony or Steam, Epic Games, Nintendo then join, otherwise in the current situation, it will not change much from the past, and some are just an ideal payment model that saves money and time.
In addition to a few in this article, there are still many vendors doing subscription services, but they are likely to be drowned in the torrent of not many exclusive products.