this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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And they are all getting dependent and addicted to something that is currently almost "free" but the monetization of it all will soon come in force. Good luck having the money to keep paying for it or the capacity to handle all the advertisement it will soon start to push out. I guess the main strategy is manipulate people into getting experience with it with these 2 or 3 years basically being equivalent to a free trial and ensuring people will demand access to the tools from their employees which will pay from their pockets. When barely anyone is able to get their employers to pay for things like IDEs... Oh well.
We watched this exact same tactic happen with Xbox gamepass over the last 5 years. They introduced it and left in the capability to purchase the "upgrade" for $1/year. Now they are suddenly cranking it up to $30/month and people are still paying it because they feel like it's a service they "have to have".
Which is why I've dropped it myself. Not worth the price.
I'm usually too lazy when it comes to canceling things, but I canceled Game Pass right away. $30 per month is just offensive.
Agreed
This recent massive price hike (it fucking doubled) is what got me to cancel my live, completely.
I've been subscribed since 2002, when it first released. So their greed lost a sure stream of income. I'm not alone.
Is it $30/month on top of Xbox gold or does the game pass include it?
It's included, but good lord if that's not a very high price for temporary access to a collection of bargain bin games. You could buy a full price game every other month for that money.
or 3-6 indies on sale - hell if you save up that money you can go nuts every steam/gog same, 360$ should get you around 1k$ games retail price upwards if you are a patient gamer
Edit: and you can KEEP that, not temporary
On top of that, I have personally developed some gaming habits that I don't care for at all as a direct result of gamepass.
What type of habits?
The theoretically vast availability has made me quick to abandon games that didn't deserve it. I'm having a lot of difficulty committing to even some objectively good games. I don't enjoy the bouncing around and yet I keep doing it. It feels related to FOMO.
Subscriptions are thieves of intentionality
Gold doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s game pass core or something…the rate went up with that forced “migration”. You do get access to a few “free” games with core, but you gotta pay way more to have the full deal. I think core (which is the cheapest, baseline option) is $70/yr now? (Edit- i just checked my statement, it’s $78.50)
Small sample but everyone i know dropped it on the increase to 30 bucks. One of them had been primarily playing PlayStation and xbox for the last decade but has gotten and primarily plays steam deck now.
Renting is always going to end up the same way.
I get that users think they get much value for low money, but it's always bait and switch.
Sure (statistically) nobody cares, though.
Textbook example of enshittification.
Hell, Microsoft and Apple did the same thing decades ago. Microsoft offered computer discounts to high schools and colleges, so that the students would be used to (and demand) Microsoft when they went into the business world. Apple then undercut that by offering very discounted products to elementary and junior high schools, so that the students would want Apple products in higher education and the business world.
The tactic let them write off all the discounts on their taxes, but lock in customers and raise prices on business (and eventually consumer) goods.