Frankly, I don‘t think we need another subscription service, in a world where everything and everyone is already trying to sell us their subscription services.
It is often said that one of the biggest benefits of gamepass is that it incentivizes subscribers to try more games that they wouldn‘t have tried otherwise, which in turn opens the possibility for further monetization through mtx/dlc. On the other hand, a subscription might still be a considerable hurdle for many, a psychological barrier that could be unappealing to those who don‘t want to sign on to a subscription service.
I don’t think Sony (or Nintendo, for that matter) should imitate gamepass, but try to do something new when it comes to content delivery. The question is, is there a way to incentivize people to try more new games, like gamepass is doing, without forcing them to sign on to (yet another) subscription? This is actually something I‘ve been thinking about for a while.
For example, how about a payment system inspired by arcades, where people have the option of paying a small amount of money to play for a short amount of time, instead of having to buy the whole game at full price?
So let‘s say you want to try out the new CoD multiplayer, but don‘t want to pay full price since you aren‘t usually into mp games. Instead you have the option to pay a dollar to play a match of multiplayer, for the next match you pay another dollar, and so on. Or, alternatively, if you want to try the singleplayer, you can pay a certain amount (let‘s say five dollar) to play the first level, and if you want to continue to the next level/chapter, you pay another five dollar, etc.
Of course, paying per match or level wouldn‘t really work in certain games, like Assassin’s Creed for example; for games like that it would probably make more sense to pay for time instead. So if you just want to see the world in the newest AC for a bit,, try the combat etc, you pay one dollar, and can then play the game for let’s say one hour, either through streaming, or by downloading the necessary parts of the game (downloading and install times shouldn‘t count as playtime, obviously). When the hour is up, you can continue your session by paying another dollar, or leave it and try another game.
To make it even better, let‘s say that each dollar you spent this way on a game gets subtracted from the game‘s full prize. So if you are really into the game, and play it for tens of hours (or have payed for lots of levels or matches), you‘ll eventually have spent enough money that you can access the full game without having to pay anymore. The game is then yours forever, as if you had bought it regularly. Or, if you’re already convinced that you want the full game after playing only a few levels/a few hours, the money you spent gets subtracted from the price, and you can pay the rest in one go. That way your playtime isn‘t ‚wasted‘, and you won‘t have to pay the game‘s full prize on top of whatever you have already paid for.
Now, those are just examples; I haven‘t actually calculated if one dollar per hour/match or five dollar per level is enough for this idea to be profitable. It would probably be necessary to adjust the price/time ratio for different kinds of games. But this would provide a great incentive for people to try games they‘re usually unwilling to spend much money on, without forcing them to subscribe to anything. For example, I personally have no interest in buying most sports games, but if I could play a few rounds/matches for a dollar or two, then I would probably try it out at least once.
The concept probably has tons of holes I haven‘t thought about, but I think the idea could be pretty cool if implemented correctly.