A deep-dive into the future of subscription gaming. Updated on 18 February 2021
Video game subscriptions are all the rage. Or, maybe that s not quite right. It
looks like video game subscriptions
will be all the rage, in the
not too distant future,
if things carry on in the direction they re going right now. Right now, of course, people are getting their games in more or less the same ways they always have - buying them outright, or downloading them as initially free-to-play - but right now, too, the biggest tech companies around are toying with their own, subscription-based alternatives. Google has Stadia Pro, Amazon is rolling out Luna (alongside Prime Gaming, formerly Twitch Prime), Apple has Apple Arcade, and more internally to the industry itself there are plenty more, from EA Play and Ubisoft+ to PlayStation Now and, sitting atop the monthly payment pyramid above all, Xbox Game Pass.