jim
I wouldn't expect you to be interested, but in a way I feel that the subscription approach makes more sense from someone of your persuasion.
What I mean by that is that a service like Steam requires you to buy the game, and then considers it legally to be a subscription that they can withdraw - and if they go bust then you lose the service altogether. Which is clearly objectionable, and an ethically / legally dubious position.
At least in the instance of a subscription, whether that is for Sky TV, Spotify or Origin Access, you pay (presumably) per month, and if the service is withdrawn or you decide you don't want it any more, perhaps because the service isn't meeting your expectations, you cancel and that's the end of it, you cease to pay. There's no ambiguity.
I'm not interested at the present price point or with the list of games, but as a concept I think it does make sense. There are some games out there which I'd happily play through over the course of a month in exchange for a cheap subscription that I could subsequently cancel, and if I really loved the games I could then purchase them at a far lower price a year or two later for future re-runs.
I take the point about Sky TV (etc) but, illogical though it may be, I see that type of service as different. Firstly, the wife wants the TV options. Second, it's bundled with high speed broadband (not Sky) and phone line. Third, the TV sub really is for a constantly changing set of TV programming. Fourth, the wife still wants it.
Games, films and movies, however, I see differently. For games and music, if I want it enough to pay for it (as opposed, for instance, to broadcast radio services) then I buy the CD. Games, I might play a lot for a short period and not again for months or years, or I might play a little bit, over a very long time. For instance, I have a couple of racing games (Superbikes and motoGP) that I pretty much only ever play when two or more of a small group of us get together, but we've been doing that for, oh, 20 years or so.
So, with a purchase, I decide
up front, is that specific game, or CD, or film, is it worth £x? With a subscription, I just pay £y/month, whether I get value from it or not. My circumstances are such that I regularly spend lengthy periods, from days to a month or more, away from home and often at short notice. Sometimes, I go for a long weekend and end up not coming home for weeks. And at that ‘second home’, I don't have a net connection that can be relied on. At best, it's slow, and a fair bit of the time, non-existent. And to be honest, I like it that way. It's a quiet, relatively remote, country lifestyle and the absence of a ‘proper’ internet connection, while occasionally irritating, is also very much part of the appeal.
So I'd either be paying a monthly sub for something I spend several months of the year unable to access, or I'd spend lots of time starting and stopping subscriptions.
It's the same basic reasoning for why I'm not interested in Office 365, why there's no way I'd buy an Xbox One that required an always-on connection, why I still haven't stopped fuming at Adobe over going subscription-only for Photoshop, etc.
I can see why you might think a subscription service might suit me but, truly, it doesn't. I regard ANY regular payment as a drag. Believe it or not, I have exactly one regular payment, and that's for that TV/BB/phone subscription because, you know, the wife wants it. Other than that, I'd cheerfully dump all three. I even pay utilities, water rates, etc in advance, annually in the case of water rates.