I think from the game development side there are pros and cons. There are games that struggle to demand a high enough sticker price that do better under a subscription service.

The problem is that, much like subscriptions elsewhere, these are deliberately underpriced and used as a loss leader to sink competitors and the direct purchase market, so they aren’t priced reasonably and it’s unclear what the money flow towards creators is supposed to be.

And it’d be one thing if the money was flowing at all, but in the current industry, with Microsoft shedding people left and right while holding a ridiculous amount of IP, both active and inactive… well, it’s not a great look for the industry as a whole to be dumping content below cost for the sake of a speculative move. And to make matters worse, I don’t think that many people know just exactly how much of a money pit Game Pass is.

And that’s before the more fundamental issues with ownership and preservation. Which I have strong feelings about, it’s just that they happen to be so strong that I’m typically the one to remind people you don’t own your Steam games, either. Would certainly like a fix for that, too.