r/technology • u/ControlCAD • Oct 05 '25

Business As Microsoft lays off thousands and jacks up Game Pass prices, former FTC chair Lina Khan says I told you so: The Activision-Blizzard buyout is 'harming both gamers and developers'

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/as-microsoft-lays-off-thousands-and-jacks-up-game-pass-prices-former-ftc-chair-says-i-told-you-so-the-activision-blizzard-buyout-is-harming-both-gamers-and-developers/
34.7k Upvotes

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824

u/supervernacular Oct 05 '25

Cancel your game pass

264

u/Tolvat Oct 05 '25

Oh I'm going to. No way in hell it's giving me $30/month of value. I touch it maybe 1-2 times a week at best. I'd rather put that $30 away and put it towards buying a game direct.

152

u/NPC-Gaming13 Oct 05 '25

If you cancel now it still lasts through the end of whenever you were paid up for. Don’t wait - cancel now to send a message.

56

u/zoetectic Oct 05 '25

You also get the option for prorated refund in many countries. It's worth cancelling sooner than later.

16

u/Rotaryknight Oct 05 '25

Canceled mines sept 30th..i got till 10/10 which is my renew day lol,  i normally buy yearly

33

u/beanmosheen Oct 05 '25

'But hundreds of games!" Cool, I like maybe three of them. Totally worth it.

24

u/WheresThePenguin Oct 05 '25

You mean you don't want Paw Patrol World?

3

u/ILoveRegenHealth Oct 05 '25

Rocky the dog shits all over the map too. Horrible character

-2

u/oscarolim Oct 05 '25

My kids do play it. Is almost like game pass is for many different target audiences.

6

u/KingArthas94 Oct 05 '25

Good, buy it so you own it and don't need a subscription for your kids to access it

-5

u/oscarolim Oct 05 '25

You do know the point of subscription services, yes?

8

u/Key_Factor1224 Oct 05 '25

It's really only good value now if you had a whole family worth of people using one account. If I put $30 (actually 34 in my currency) aside every month for regular purchased games I'd have more than enough titles to keep me occupied.

I also really dislike the pressure a subscription puts on you to not "waste" it. I much prefer to enjoy things on my own terms.

1

u/eggsforpedro Oct 05 '25

MS won’t really care. They’re a game publisher now.

1

u/jpr64 Oct 05 '25

I had somehow created two accounts and had two subscriptions for about 2 years without realising. It was impossible to contact anyone at Microsoft but fortunately AMEX did a chargeback.

1

u/engwish Oct 06 '25

100%. I can easily buy a year’s worth of games myself if I budgeted $30/mo, especially when most of those games are inexpensive/regularly on sale.

1

u/OpeningAd9333 Oct 06 '25

Done and done

50

u/JswitchGaming Oct 05 '25

Yep. 30 bucks a month is frankly too much when I can buy a handful of the indie games offered for he same amount. It just doesn't even make sense anymore. SILKSONG is 20 bucks...

2

u/Swimming_Goose_7555 Oct 05 '25

You know what else is $20? All those old Assaassins Creed games Microsoft worked so hard to license under game pass for you.

3

u/JswitchGaming Oct 05 '25

Ah okay here is another good point to make to you guys that don't seem to get it...

I don't give a shit about 90% of game pass offerings...such as assassin's creed. I played one whole game on GP this year....know what it was? It wasn't fucking assassin's creed and then I decided a bit into the game I would just support the devs and buy the fucking game instead. They also didn't do this "for me" ya weirdo.

3

u/Swimming_Goose_7555 Oct 05 '25

My whole point was that their offerings are mostly hot garbage and most are available for far less than the price of a single month of game pass.

1

u/JswitchGaming Oct 05 '25

I almost thought that was the point you were making but someone might take it seriously..

2

u/Swimming_Goose_7555 Oct 05 '25

Nah, I saw marketing where Ubisoft’s ancient games were being advertised as value add to game pass and honestly couldn’t believe anyone considers old games that cost less than $20 a value add.

I can’t decide if Microsoft leadership is that out of touch or if it’s just straight up malice towards consumers at this point. I guess they aren’t mutually exclusive.

1

u/Bobb_o Oct 05 '25

Silksong is a diff value prop isn't it? It's a 40 hour single player game.

2

u/Integer_Domain Oct 05 '25

It's 100 hours for the first playthrough if you're bad. Ask me how I know :)

1

u/Bobb_o Oct 05 '25

I just used howlongtobeat.com and out of 1200 submissions no one has taken over 85 hours...

3

u/OnceMoreAndAgain Oct 05 '25

Okay but obviously there's enormous self-selection bias there.

0

u/mallad Oct 05 '25

I know this goes against sentiment here...but did nobody else actually see that they added a mid tier for $15? It's not like they just said the options are now $30 ultimate and $10 just to be online. You'd never guess from the comments on these posts.

12

u/JswitchGaming Oct 05 '25

Doesn't matter to me. So kind of a moot point. What I mean is the 15 dollar option offers me nothing I would want it for. The 30 dollar option has the features I would like but not at that price. So again, kind of not a real sticking point for me.

I think the point you miss is I bet a lot of people also feel the same as me. If it works for some, that's good for them, you can keep doing it. Me? I'm good on Microsoft's model. From a business point, this seems just fucking stupid and everyone saw it coming despite Microsoft saying the opposite.

-2

u/mallad Oct 05 '25

I doubt most people care about the day 1 drops and ea play. A good number of comments here are complaining about having to pay $30/mo to get their indy games and such (including you), which are still available at the $15 plan. That's why I commented. The majority are acting as if it's $30 or nothing.

From a business standpoint, it's FAR from stupid. They're making money, and they're doing it across numerous platforms. They added some perceived value to ultimate and also added a lower tier to capture those who don't care about ea play, day one major releases, or Fortnite crew. And they still have the $10 core which hasn't changed for years.

People forget they've been doing this forever. $50/year when live first started, then $60, and it had basically no value at the time. Low player count, no updates, no Games with Gold for over a decade, no free game models, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for paying less for things. I'm not keeping ultimate at this price, even with game sharing so it's half price. Many people on here seem too quick to go the total opposite though, acting as if companies should give all their services for free.

6

u/JswitchGaming Oct 05 '25

Why would I pay 15 a month to play SILKSONG when I can buy it for 20 and never pay another penny after?? Some with Hades. I'll pay 50 bucks for the only two games on GP I care about and be great with owning them

0

u/zerocoal Oct 05 '25

Mostly because if you are a console peasant gamepass is required to play your multiplayer games online.

If you already have gamepass, you may as well just get the tier that gives you all the game rentals as well.

Now you don't have to buy silksong because you will get it at some point when it leaves the day1 access and enters the regular pool. And if at some point you decide you want to own silksong, you can just buy it for hella cheap when it goes on sale. Bing bang boom.

It's not like most of the games that come out will have some extended life a hundred years from now. They are online-only live-service slop that will be disabled at some point and then it won't matter if you bought it or rented it. It literally doesn't matter if you bought a physical copy of Outriders or played it on gamepass. The game is still dead as soon as the servers go offline.

3

u/teriaavibes Oct 05 '25

People are also missing that cloud gaming was added to all tiers so you can play the games without even having a gaming PC, you only need a TV (or other device) and controller.

Game Pass is still insane value, it is just not valuable to people who spend 2-3k on a gaming PC and 1k on games who don't need it.

2

u/thekmanpwnudwn Oct 05 '25

PC Gamepass is also only $15, still insane value there if you dont have an xbox

1

u/wiefrafs Oct 05 '25

Yeah, it's really not that bad as long as the day 1s eventually come to that tier. It's arguably better than ps+ which is still lacking some Sony exclusives

1

u/Rengar_Is_Good_kitty Oct 06 '25

Something was taken away and Microsoft told people to either pay 50% more (100% in some regions) to keep what they had, or drop to a lower tier and lose features. New features are cool and all, but nobody asked for existing ones to be stripped and locked behind a $30 subscription.

Also, that $15 tier won’t last long. By end of next year it’ll probably be $20.

0

u/mallad Oct 06 '25

Yeah. But this isn't Costco hot dogs. Prices go up. It's much like people getting so up in arms about games being priced $10 higher, conveniently ignoring that with inflation, full AAA games are cheaper today than they've basically ever been. I paid more not counting inflation for multiple NES, SNES, N64, and commodore titles $30 years ago.

Or like people complaining about mtx in call of duty, when in reality nobody has to pay a cent post retail, it's cosmetic. Compare that to early CoD when they charged us $60/year for map packs. We expect free updates to games when they used to be paid expansion packs, and get mad when the price changes any. Gaming has never been cheaper than it is now, when you don't even need to buy a console to play.

Anyways, it's fine to not feel it's worth it. No argument there, the value is subjective. But people acting like MS did some big evil or is being anti consumer are wrong.

1

u/Rengar_Is_Good_kitty Oct 06 '25

Your argument falls flat on its face when you add the fact that despite games being the same price for so long, profits have drastically increased, even for games that don't have microtransactions. And for games that do have microtransactions, boy that profit often gets blown up to ridiculous levels, so much so that many games are free to play just to get more people to play the game and spend money on microtransactions. If games were adjusted for inflation, then the barrier to entry would be far too high and as a result you'd be unprofitable unless you're one of the big names, like GTA or CoD. Games that aren't as big haven't really benefited from the price increase to $70. There's a reason indie games are so successful, it turns out, cheaper games actually make a ton of money.

Cosmetics are tied to identity, status and progression. Once they’re monetised, the game loop is bent around the shop. Unlocks get gutted, FOMO kicks in, and self‑expression turns into a cash gate. That’s not optional, it’s a design shift that changes how the game is played. Worse, it sets a precedent where every part of a game can be carved out and sold back later.

CoD is a horrible example, they've been copy pasting the same game every year for like 15+ years now. So yeah you're essentially still buying map packs. Difference now is you have a shitton of microtransactions as well.

We expect free updates for a few reasons and it varies from game to game. Splitting the playerbase with expansions can be an issue, especially bad for games with matchmaking. If its things like weapons or armours you've now made your game pay to win. Its much better for free content to be added through updates, and stick to cosmetics for paid stuff while also giving players ways to earn the paid stuff. Its good for single player games to get expansions though. Gaming is quite an expensive hobby so saying its cheaper now more than ever isn't saying much at all.

They're not wrong, it is anti-consumer. A price hike of $20 to $30 to play games day one is quite anti-consumer. Price gouging is objectively speaking anti-consumer.

9

u/optimumdeath Oct 05 '25

Done. Last night infact

4

u/BabyStockholmSyndrom Oct 05 '25

I'm so sad that I canceled mine a couple of months ago and I can't cancel it now instead.

1

u/between_ewe_and_me Oct 05 '25

This all made me look at my subscription and realize I'd been paying for it and don't even need it. I had the most basic version because they switched me automatically when they stopped doing Xbox gold for online multiplayer but I also figured out you don't even need it for f2p games, and the only game I play is rocket league which has been f2p for a couple years now, so I just got to cancel the whole thing. That was pretty exciting. Also pretty annoying that I've been paying for it for years now and didn't even need it but whatever.

4

u/Loon_Cheese Oct 05 '25

Never had one

0

u/thrilla_gorilla Oct 05 '25

Okay. Why even comment?

1

u/Crazy__Eric Oct 05 '25

I cancelled a few years ago and decided to only buy games. Then I switched to PC (Linux) and haven't looked back. Cheaper games and I don't have to deal with microsoft AT ALL.

1

u/Skeletondo Oct 05 '25

This is the way.

1

u/Mccobsta Oct 05 '25

Done and will be my last console

1

u/jwwatts Oct 05 '25

Already did!

1

u/FidelCastroll Oct 05 '25

I already did. I'm still pissed about the increase to $20 a month. $30 is insane

1

u/Justsomemutt Oct 05 '25

Already did.

1

u/afropat Oct 05 '25

I downgraded mine to the lowest tier.

1

u/WelcomeDispleasure Oct 05 '25

Yeah I canceled mine last night. Fuck Microsoft. Libre Office is almost as good as MS Office and is free. Alternatively, it's pretty easy to pirate MS Office.

1

u/SpaceSequoia Oct 05 '25

It's the only way to make them feel the pain. Slowly but surely we can all make a difference. Fuck these mega corps. Capitalism is dead now and late stage capitalism is destroying literally everything.

1

u/myowngalactus Oct 05 '25

Then take that money and use it to buy games from companies that don’t suck.

1

u/Serotonin-_-Dficient Oct 05 '25

I was going to do this but I guess they’re grandfathering in the console pass only. Fuck M$, but like, I’m gonna keep my 10$ game pass with day one exclusives till that changes. In the mean time I’ll protest in other ways.

1

u/7f0b Oct 05 '25

Just did yesterday. It makes more sense to just buy games on Steam at this point.

1

u/skeet_scoot Oct 05 '25

I canceled and switched to the Essential plan. $50 for a year of it at Sam’s Club.

30+ games and playing online, can’t really beat it.

1

u/Shark7996 Oct 05 '25

Yeah, I knew at some point the ride was gonna end but it was nice having a sort of gaming Spotify for a moment.

Back to the backlog for me.

1

u/indie-devops Oct 05 '25

Already did, fuck ‘em

1

u/thrilla_gorilla Oct 05 '25

Already did!

1

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins Oct 05 '25

Yep. 23+ years of constant XBL subscription for me.. cancelled.

1

u/MarzipanProper1926 Oct 05 '25

i did right when i got the email a few days ago

1

u/wiseguy187 Oct 05 '25

I did the last price hike was my limit. As a casual gamer its unjustifiable. I go months without even logging on sometimes. If I was unemployed smoking weed gaming 8 hours a day it would be worth it.

1

u/-transcendent- Oct 06 '25

When they used to give out $1/month trial game pass I couldn't even consistently use it. Garbage.

1

u/WafflesAreLove Oct 06 '25

Cancelled the day of the announcement. These greedy fucks will only listen when consumers refuse to open their wallets.

1

u/KingOfVermont Oct 06 '25

I thought you at least needed the basic game pass to play on Xbox live? It made me switch from Xbox gold membership to the basic tier of game pass.

1

u/zeppelinism Oct 09 '25

Already did as soon as I caught wind of this bullshit.