I never liked the idea of cloud gaming or gaming subscriptions, but I’ve found myself using both. They make a lot of sense for someone who likes gaming on their phone. Still, I’ve stopped allowing these services to auto-renew, and I feel it’s for the better.
5
Expiration Dates Help Me Digitally Detox
I’m not going to tell you that gaming is bad. There are many games that I absolutely love. More than that. There are certain games that my life is richer for having experienced.
Yet on the whole, gaming isn’t a hobby I want to turn to whenever I find myself feeling a bit bored. If I’m pulling out my phone for entertainment, I’d prefer to read ebooks or work on my collection of graphic novels. I have a closet filled with board games, many of which are great for solo play while giving my eyes a break from a screen.
Knowing a game subscription is about to end lets me know that a break is coming. I can get a few more evenings of gaming in, knowing that I’m about to take at least a month off, if not more. It may not be a full-blown digital detox, but it is an intentional pause in a habit that can very easily eat up more of my life than I’d like.
4
Auto-Renew Makes Me Feel Obliged to Game
When you crunch the numbers, cloud gaming can save you a lot of money compared to the cost of a gaming PC. Game subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass can be cheaper than building up a game library. Yet, since you’re making a regular payment, you feel compelled to get your money’s worth. How do you do that? By gaming as much as you can.
Auto-renewing subscriptions have a different mental impact than gaming consoles do. If I decide to buy a Nintendo Switch 2 later this year, and after playing through the launch games I don’t touch the system for two months, that’s not that big a deal. I know that my family and I will get plenty of enjoyment out of the purchase in the years ahead.
If I have a monthly subscription and I go two months without playing anything, I’ve wasted two months of fees. Neither Microsoft nor NVIDIA are hurting for cash. No need for me to just toss it their way.
3
I Can Choose My Cloud Gaming Windows
I played video games most days throughout my childhood, but as an adult, I regularly take extended breaks. It just happens. I tell myself that I logged so many hours gaming growing up that when I pick up a controller now, it largely feels been-here-done-that. I eventually lose interest.
The thing is, I don’t always lose interest as quickly as I like. Sometimes I play through a couple of games I don’t care all that much for, before stopping to ask myself “what am I doing?”
There are two types of games that I play. There are those I stumble across and think, “this might be interesting.” Then there are those that don’t have the ambiguity: I know I want to play them bad enough that I’d probably run out and buy something to play them on.
These latter games are the ones I want to focus on, and I can let more of the former go. When a game excites me, I can plan to reactivate a subscription for a few months and let it lapse once the game is done. This way I’m not restarting a new habit. Instead, I’m experiencing a game in much the same way I go to a movie theater once or twice a year, but I don’t feel drawn to go every week.
2
I Have Too Many Subscriptions Anyway
Gaming isn’t the only culprit here. My wife and I have video streaming subscriptions. We have news and magazine subscriptions. We support some creatives on Patreon. My wife has a subscription to Spotify (I prefer to purchase MP3s outright). We have Play Pass, because it’s a really good value if you have kids. We have cloud storage subscriptions, and since we’re willing to pay for privacy, we have an email subscription as well. There’s a subscription for our password manager. There’s a subscription for a cooking app. I could go on, but seeing them all written out, I really don’t want to.
In short, I have more subscriptions than I want. I wouldn’t be surprised if you do, too. In my case, it’s time for some of them to go.
Gaming is one that makes the most sense to pause and resume as needed, much like video streaming services that you can cancel after you’ve finished binging that one show you just have to see. I can’t pause my ProtonMail subscription like I can Game Pass.
1
Ultimately, I’d Rather Buy Games Outright
While game subscriptions can save money, and I find them to be a practical option for those of us who don’t have certain dedicated gaming hardware, I still don’t like the cloud streaming model. While there are myriad reasons, I’ll stick to the financial one. I’m not someone who likes renting. I prefer to own.
My wife and I bought a house as quickly as we could. That way, each monthly payment was an investment. We also locked in a rate that wouldn’t go up each month.
With gaming subscriptions, money spent is money lost, just like rent. Part of me would rather finance a console and make the same monthly payment toward paying that off. Or I can stretch my money further by continuing to establish a taste for the quality mobile games I find in the Play Store.
No, I don’t technically own any game I buy on the Play Store. I don’t own any game I’ve purchased digitally, whether that be a title on the Nintendo eShop or my larger library on Steam. It’s all a license these days. Odds are that any game I grab on a Steam sale right now will still be playable in ten years without me having to pay any extra money. That’s something I can’t say about Game Pass.
Will I continue to make use of game subscriptions? Sure. I did ultimately resubscribe to Netflix in order to try out some of the best games on Android. But that’s not money I’m happy to watch disappear each month. Going forward, I’ll pick and choose when that happens.
And if I find myself only reactivating NVIDIA GeForce NOW for one or two months a year just to play the latest Life Is Strange, that’s ten months of savings. Money saved is money earned.
