What is your opinion on gaming subscription services?

[Runa216]

Got bored. Scrolled through all 599 games available on GamePass (like half of which were just different versions of the same game on multiple platforms), and here's the list of games I saw they were offering that I don't already have that I would be passably interested in trying out:

A Way Out
Alien Isolation
Battletoads
Call of the Sea
Carrion
CrossCode
Dead Cells
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Gears 5
Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice
Ikenfell
Katana Zero
Minecraft Dungeons
New Super Lucky's Tale
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Sea of Thieves
Spiritfarer
The Surge 2
Yakuza series

Almost every one of those games were ones I saw on sale, thought 'eeeh, still not worth it', and moved on. All but I think Gears of War, Sea of Thieves, and Call of the Sea. The rest are all games that have been in my wishlist for as many as 2-3 years, but I never wanted them enough to actually spend the 10-15 bucks to get them. Given my backlog, I'd never get to them anyway. And if I did want them, I'd want to support the devs by buying the game rather than letting them get some measly 20c of my monthly fee.

Point is, to a collector - someone who just buys all their games and keeps them - Gamepass is just a monthly fee for games to go at the end of one's backlog. I could not buy a single game until the PS6 comes out and still not make it through my backlog between PS4, Switch, and PC. Adding to that for a fee...for what? Convenience? I already don't touch the free games I get with PS+, and I use that for the online play and cloud functionality. (There are a handful of games I got for download on PS+, but I only play the digital versions because I already bought the physical editions and liked the convenience of the digital versions.)

Point is, everyone values things differently. I see absolutely zero value in this given my personal game-collecting and playing habits. To me, it just feels insulting to the devs, and I genuinely have no idea how it's good for devs or for Microsoft, to be honest. The only people I see benefitting from it are folks who buy games, beat them, and move on (sell them) anyway. Of course, that's just how I see it and why I actively dislike stuff like this. I avoid it like the plague. Doesn't feel right to me, and I resent it. Devalues my game collection. All the collector buddies of mine feel the same way (I'm actually shocked by this, to be honest; didn't expect as many people to agree with me, I thought I was like the only one in the world who doesn't like Gamepass/PSNow, etc)