• green_square@yiffit.net
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    The price of playing skyrim for every minute of my life until I die

    With game pass: Over $9000.00

    Just buying the game: $59.99

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Gamepass is a great deal if it has 4 or more games a year come out that you want to play, and that’s if you pay full price instead of buying cards, etc.

      • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        I keep hearing how great Gamepass is but I really fail to see how unless you just began gaming like one year ago. Every once in awhile I look to see what’s on there and it’s just old games I’ve played before.

        • redfellow@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I really don’t get much use out of reviews and trailers. The only way for me to know if I like a game is to try it. I test tons of Gamepass games and finish half a dozen a year, give or take.

        • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Gamepass is great for extended trials, especially indie games with middling to good ratings. Other than that, it’s nice to play the back catalog of MS games if you missed them. At least for PC, that’s what I got out of it.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Just in the last month it’s had Sea of Stars, Starfield, Lies of P, and Payday 3 release.

          Lots of others too, of course. But those are the 4 that caught my attention.

        • redfellow@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          They decide what they do offer to publishers for game pass rights. If they increase the fee, it’s because they started to pay more for whatever offered to us.

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          I feel like that’s stretching reality unless you’re getting localized pricing for lower income countries. I’ve never seen an AAA game drop below $10 in just 3 years, especially if it’s an AAA game that also got DLC. On average it’s usually just 40-50% off after that kind of duration, mayyyybe 60% off. Anything more than that is usually because the game sucked ass or it’s really old.

    • Gabu@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      The price per minute I’ve paid for playing Skyrim + Skyrim SE + Skyrim Anniversary Edition, all DLCs included: Less than 0.01 USD/minute

      • Gabu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        If you bought Skyrim on Steam before 2016, you got all PC versions for free up to now.

        • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          If Todd was to be asked about any of this you’d be paying for looking at their promo stuff. Greedy cuck. That’s why they pushed so hard for FO76 to be always online, even though it’s completely pointless.

  • dx1@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    We wouldn’t be ever hearing any of that if SOME PEOPLE weren’t actually paying for them

  • owatnext@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Lmao literally the only “subscription” I have is my phone bill, which I pay yearly. Also maybe you’d consider my insurance a subscription? Sounds very dystopian.

    Edit: is rent a subscription? Regularly refilled prescriptions? Where is the line? I have fallen into a quandry.

    • maniclucky@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Do you pay on a recurring cycle? Can you function in society without it? If yes to both: subscription.

      You need a phone, utilities, rent/mortgage, insurance (if we’re being realistic) so I wouldn’t call them subscriptions.

    • m3t00🌎@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      moved my house phone to a Gvoice account. gets mostly spam anyway. voicemails transcribe to email. bye att

  • patachu@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Everyone is saying Piracy but I say Public LIbraries, which often have CDs/DVDs/BDs/games now (depending on your locale). They’re taxpayer funded, so you might as well get your money’s worth, and they keep track of how often stuff gets borrowed which determines future financial support.

    (And if you are tech-savvy enough to be on Lemmy, you probably know how to make a … permanent copy … for yourself to keep)

    • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Libraries are great. Just think about it, if libraries as a concept hasn’t already exist, there is absolutely zero chance it will be invented in our time due to our overly restricting copyright law.

      • CosmoNova@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        Which is exactly why big corporations are lobbying hard to get public library stripped of funds by any means necessary. I mean you can even 3D print spare parts in many libraries for free by now! The super rich cannot have that.

      • Heidur@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        And also due to a rightward shift in the Overton window. A place where people just get to borrow books for free? That’s socialism. And it will completely kill the entire books industry

    • Polar@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Or save the time and gas money and download it.

      I mean shit, I don’t even have a DVD burner in any of my computers. Haven’t for a decade and a half. You expect me to grab my external drive to burn a copy? I can download anything on my gigabit connection in 5 minutes.

  • librechad@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    I just got charged $165 a couple days ago from two yearly subscriptions I totally forgot I had. We need a better solution. The banks should just implement the usage of Virtual Cards like Privacy.com does. It’d be so much more convent for people to cancel subscriptions, if they’re allowed to have multiple different virtual cards that they can easily toggle on or off.

    Why don’t the banks do this?

    • IdleSheep@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Why don’t the banks do this?

      Both of my banks allow unlimited virtual card creation. I think it just depends on where you live.

    • drathvedro@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      You are right. The fact that cashless transactions are built on a pull model, where a shop/service is charging you instead of you being the one who sends the money, is absolutely fucking insane. I recently lost a few hundred bucks just because the shop used the wrong currency to charge me, leading to a double conversion at the absolutely shittiest rates, and by the time I got to someone in charge, the transaction was already cleared and set in stone. With a sane system this never would’ve happened.

      In my home country they actually recently started to adopt such a model. Instead of you giving the card# to everyone, they instead show a QR code with all the necessary payment details: BIC, SWIFT, IBAN, the rest of scary numbers, order number and the invoice. You just open the bank app on your phone, point it at the code, review the sum and any possible fees, press confirm, and the moment the transaction is cleared the page just reloads automatically with order confirmed. I believe there’s also a special URL schema for when you don’t have a PC, but I haven’t tried it yet so can’t tell for sure. With this approach, subscriptions are much easier to manage, because it’s the bank’s job to send the money, so they can list all recurring payments on a special page where you could just cancel one. Also helps with scummy services that stop providing service the moment the subscription is canceled - they won’t even know you did until the the next day the payment is due.

      EDIT: There is indeed a custom URL schema, and lots of cool stuff like offline payments without plastic. But some of it is still clunky, including subscriptions, which only a few banks support and most services are opting to use their own billing systems for now.

    • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      No one wants this other than user. Banks, just like everyone else, are in a business of making your wallet lighter.

      • CosmoNova@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yep. Once they got you signed up for a bank account, the last thing they want is you thinking about money.

        • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          It seems people think otherwise according to down-votes. Not that I care about those but am finding it incredibly humorous there are people who think bank is your friend. Lol.

    • Jako301@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Most subscriptions can be canceled with a few clicks, usually right after buying it without loosing the paid for time. If you cant manage your subscriptions, that sounds like a problem you should address yourself instead.

      Your suggested solution of simply turning off the credit card the subscription is linked to doesn’t cancel said subscription, it just results in a breach of contract from your side. That only works cause most companies can’t be asked to deal with you, otherwise the subscriptions would continue and the incurring cost would sooner or later be sent to a collecting agency, with additional charges for late payments.

    • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      We need a better solution

      Sorry to sound harsh, but…self control?

      I have a subscription for a VPN. I’ve been sitting here for a couple of minutes trying to think of others. I suppose my internet etc is a subscription

      I can’t think of anything else

      • EddoWagt@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        I just have a subscription for music and cloud storage, that’s it. I don’t understand how some people have all of the subscriptions

    • joenforcer@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Why don’t the banks do this?

      They get a cut of every transaction, and the more debt you accrue, the more money the bank makes if you carry a balance. They are financially disincentivized from protecting you from your spending.

  • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Wait, Spotify? Don’t you mean “a pile of garbage”?

    I have to be honest, I hate this thing even with the paid plan. Everything sounds so compressed.

  • NathanielThomas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    I mean, I know capitalism pursues money to the death, even when it’s no longer needed or when it’s already perfectly fulfilling a market share. But the greed still staggers me every time.

    It wouldn’t be so bad if Bezos and the top people took 99% but there’s literally no reason to make him a trillionare.

  • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Good thing from the current situation is it being the end of times for these services. Constant need for income increase to appease share holders means infinite growth, which is impossible. But individual doesn’t see that, they just want more. So progress of any software towards service model is pretty straight forward.

    First they start splitting software into smaller versions and selling both for slightly higher price combined than when they were single piece. Then they start releasing more frequent versions but that has limited impact. So they start introducing forward incompatibilities. Only new software will support both old and new versions of the document, forcing buyers to buy latest. When that reaches its optimal maximum they decide to switch to yearly subscription and force everyone to use those by same ways as they forced them to use newer versions.

    Subscription based model is limited. It has no progression other than increase in price and it’s only a matter of testing how much people are willing to pay. Sometimes even go above reasonable price but then go with “exclusive” content as if to justify higher price. This of course works for a while, but exclusive content costs money and is harder to produce consistently at high quality…

    And after that, there’s no progression. It’s a battle royale among service provides but they can’t back out because of share holders and can’t revert to other business models. So some of them will stretch themselves thin and burst others will keep on living from that vapor until a new contender comes.

    • Lt_Cdr_Data@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yep, absolutely. My family still has spotify and netflix subscriptions, but i already canceled prime before the previous price hike. I’d have already canceled netflix if it was my decision and the only service i still see value in is spotify.

      • hamsammy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        Unfortunately, I believe that feeling will change if you look into how Spotify actually harms the artists by forcing them to use their product even though they make slim to none profit. The more you know.

        • Lt_Cdr_Data@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Not really. Fixing systemic problems is not up to the individual. I’m paying for music, which i already only due to the convenience.

  • Polar@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t hate subscription based services if they’re priced fairly and make sense.

    Paying monthly for a service that then starts giving you less, adds more premium plans, introduces ads, etc. is garbage.

    Paying for a game, then having to pay a monthly fee to play (WoW, for example), is garbage.

    Paying for software, but then having to pay monthly to use the software, is garbage.

    Paying for software, but then having to pay monthly to be allowed to contact support (Blue Iris), is garbage.

    But paying for things like Spotify, where you get access to pretty much all songs as they release, have no limit on how much you listen to, and it has a fair student pricing or family pricing, that’s fine. Way better than paying per song.

    I mean shit, if I paid for every song I have in my library on Spotify, I’d owe $1430. My Spotify is $17 per month, spit between 4 people, so I pay $4.25. I can either pay for every song in my library and not add any more, or pay for Spotify for 28 years and continue growing my library…

    • leviathan3k@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Honestly, this.

      The economics of the world are such that people need to be paid for the content they produce. Having a direct relationship between me as the consumer and them as the producer is the way we don’t get shit like all of the ad-based spyware that surrounds shit like Facebook. It won’t completely prevent it, but it gives a good business plan for it not to happen.

      I’d vastly prefer something that didn’t require some megacorp as evil as Amazon. But… this could actually make as much sense as is possible with our current economic system.

    • cactus@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Personally I listen to new music for free and then buy the songs I like to support the artist. Spotify doesn’t pay them shit afterall

    • Aurix@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      WoW and other MMOs are not just games with slapped on subscription costs. It is a very specific subtype of games which have much higher maintenance cost than an arena shooter. There is a reason these games get shutdown when certain financial thresholds get passed beyond let’s do something more profitable.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Nah, fuck subscriptions. If I can’t buy it once and own it, then it’s a scam on consumers. Change my view.

      • Polar@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        I did. Look at my Spotify example. It’s literally more expensive to own the songs than to pay for Spotify.

        Unless you only want like 30 songs.

          • Polar@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            Still cheaper, though.

            I’d rather have access to pretty much every song on demand for $4 per month and not own it, than pay per song.

            I pay $4.25 per month for Spotify. That’s $51 per year. I have access to pretty much every song, or I could buy 39 songs to own instead.

            I save more than 39 songs per month. Financially it makes no sense to buy them. Especially if you consider I get bored of some songs, and never listen to them again.

            • ShadowCatEXE@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              1 year ago

              The way I look at it, is I don’t pay to listen to the music, I pay for the convenience.

              Most music I listen to is on YouTube, where if I wanted to, I could just download it and “own” the song for free. However, in the interest of saving time, letting Spotify create playlists based on what I listen to, I just pay a monthly fee. Not to mention that I can share my playlists on multiple devices, whereas if I download music, I can’t.

              I also have a family plan with all spots filled up, so that’s 6 people listening to all their music for $20/mo CAD. Far superior to buying an album or individual songs.

    • Zhao@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Spotify is the only subscription I still pay for. That’s it. Everything else is whack

  • m3t00🌎@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    estimate shipping charges eh, prime about even still. not a video user usually. one of few subs actually worth it for me. cable cutting scrooge I am

    • elscallr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Exactly. I buy Prime for the shipping. Being able to watch Wheel of Time without downloading it is a nice benefit.

  • Transcriptionist@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Image Transcription:

    A crazy trollface stick figure hides behind a crudely drawn square, holding a shotgun and saying “I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES” as an army of harp darps wearing blue helmets with various logos on them come through a crudely drawn door.

    Around the harp darps are various statements they are making as they move into the room. At the front left, below a harp darp wearing the Adobe logo, is the text “You can afford it, come on”. To the right of the Adobe harp darp is one wearing the Dropbox logo. Behind the Adobe harp darps is one wearing the Netflix logo, and behind the Dropbox harp darp is one wearing the Spotify logo. Between the front four harp darps is the text “Just $15 bro”. To the upper right of the Spotify harp darp is the text “Limited Ads dude”. Behind the Spotify harp darp is one wearing a Twitter (now X) Verified blue tick, with the text above its head reading “It’s less than a cup of coffee bro…come on”. To the right of the Twitter Verified harp darp is one with the Nintendo Switch Online logo. To the upper right of the Nintendo Switch Online harp darp is the text “It’s just a small monthly payment dude”, and to the bottom right of the same harp darp is the text “You use it all the time Anyway bro”. Behind and to the left of the Twitter Verified harp darp is one wearing an Amazon Prime logo, standing outside the door.

    [I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜 We have a community! If you wish for us to transcribe something, want to help improve ease of use here on Lemmy, or just want to hang out with us, join us at [email protected]!]