Jeffool@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Game Pass obviously and absolutely affects game sales. At the same time this conversation only happens because we’re comparing “the industry with Game Pass” to “games at face value”. That second one only lasted 10-15-ish years. Before that, there was “the industry with game rentals”. Blockbuster was also absolutely eating up some sales.
Blockbuster was just seen as a “try before you buy” case to many, as you want to okay a game more than 3-5 days. So maybe the answer is not lease your game to Game Pass for a year at a time. Just offer it for a month or three. This also would let Microsoft make more deals for more games in their rotation. Seems like a shorter time helps everyone out.
Yeah, it used to be quite common for PC gaming magazines to include a demo disk, basically, here’s the game and the first level or two, often you could fit a couple game’s demo versions on one cd.
GamesPass could easily do something like uh… hey, this game here, you can play for 2 or 5 or 10 hours, and then if you want more, you can buy it with… I dunno, a 1/4 to 1/3 discount if you’re subbed to GamesPass, and you’ve got the playtime.
tobz619@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, honestly, what was wrong with games releasing Demos?
I think a lot of games would do well if they also bundled limited demos of other games with them too like back in the old days.