r/pcmasterrace • u/Crafty-Bee208 • 4h ago
Meme/Macro It's time to cancel all the subscription
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u/MikeCodev 4h ago
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u/superboo07 Linux 4h ago
Ill pay good money for something worth the money. but anything over sixty is really pushing it, and companies got me fucked up if they think Ill spent anything over 80 for a standard edition, Ill just play a different more affordable game atp.
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u/Erus00 4h ago
You dont want to go for the $120 Deluxe Premium Supreme package with 2 skins and 48 hours early access?
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u/superboo07 Linux 4h ago
if it included a physical copy of the game all on disc for PC I'd do it. but thats the only thing that'd encourage me, and the copy on the disc would have to be completely drm free.Ā
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u/dogs4lunchAsian 4h ago
Just buy it on GOG and put a copy of the offline installer on a usb drive
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u/superboo07 Linux 4h ago
yeah but i wouldnt pay over 80 dollars for that.Ā
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u/dogs4lunchAsian 4h ago
That's the point. You said that you would do 120 if it included a physical copy of the game all of disc DRM free, when in reality you could already do that for much less.
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u/NookNookNook 2h ago
Diablo 3 collectors edition came on a thumb-drive that looked like the Shard they trapped Diablo in. I used that thumbdrive to install windows for years.
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u/TootsTootler 1h ago
Ok, thatās fascinating ā the Diablo 3 USB drive was recognized as legit for other software installationā¦ why?
Edit: one assumes these shards contained an UID specific to you?
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u/sidepart Ryzen 9 3900X | X570 | 48GB DDR4-3200 | 1080Ti FTW3 2h ago
I (apparently according to the flattened box I found the other day) paid $70+tax for the AoE deluxe set that included AoE, AoE 2, and the expansions for both. That was like...25 years go or so inflation-wise. So yeah, I'm with you. I'm willing to pay if the value makes sense. I still have those CDs and all the shit the set came with. I can still install the games! It's great.
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u/SpecterDK 7800x3D | 5070 Ti | 3440x1440 OLED 4h ago
I'm fully willing to buy deluxe editions of games if they aren't going to beg for more money every time I try to play. I can afford it and it's a way to support passionate developers that make a good product. Anything with a battle pass or in game store I'm buying on a deep sale then never giving another dime.
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u/Cormentia 3h ago
I mean, I'll definitely do it, but only for games where you always have access to it. Like WoW. Not like in CoD where you lose everything with every new game that comes out.
And I'd be willing to pay a lot for a remake of Ocarina of Time.
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u/AFlyingNun 1h ago
and 48 hours early access?
This shit's actually sinister and I will not be shocked if it becomes more and more mainstream.
Look at Starfield. It did this, and the result was all the Bethesda fanboys that love deepthroating Bethesda bought that shit. Like 83% positive review score during the Early Access.
Then when it releases to the general public, plummets down to 56% positive reviews. Turns out the most die-hard Bethesda fanboys are not the most reliable source for if a Bethesda game is actually good.
Lesson being: Bethesda was rewarded for taxing their die-hard fans a premium. No spine, they just said "yes Todd, please screw me harder" and then proceeded to claim it was GOTY all years, resulting in some rather effective marketing that caused a lot of other people to buy it and play it before they realized too late what a piece of shit it was.
Problem is there's "nothing we can do about it." There will always be die-hard, hardcore fans that are overly invested in a product or company, and they will always always always snort that premium copium and try to convince others how much fun they're having with their shitty game.
Best we can hope for is if it becomes extremely commonplace, maybe the general public will learn to never ever ever trust the review scores of the early access fans.
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u/Snarfbuckle 37m ago
the only time i did that was for a free to play game because it was just good.
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u/Ok_Calligrapher5278 3h ago
I paid 64ā¬ for Factorio and the expansion, the euros per hour is, at the moment, at 0.03ā¬ and still going down.
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u/MadeByTango 58m ago
nd companies got me fucked up if they think Ill spent anything over 80 for a standard edition
$60
When the fuck did we jump to $80 acceptable for standard edition? Slipped that in there huh?
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u/Stonebagdiesel 4h ago
Games are cheaper than they ever have been historically. Atari games were $40 in the 70s, thatās ~$200 in 2026 dollars. Street fighter 2 cost $70 in 1992, which is ~$150 in 2026 dollars.
The reason things feel different now is because there are simply so many cheap options between older games and indie titles. But $70 for a AAA is not at all unreasonable when you look at historical pricing.
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u/The_Chaos_Pope 2h ago
$70 is unreasonable when you look at what people are buying instead of AAA games.
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u/Creative_illness 2h ago
Every time this get brought up, they willfully ignore the change on market share, as well as the record profit margins there are right now. Why? What about the stagnant wages since then? What is the price of monthly bills in comparison with those wages? I just don't understand this disingenuous take lol.
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u/Stonebagdiesel 2h ago
At the end of the day these companies will charge what people are willing to pay. And people are clearly willing to pay $70 for a game. I donāt see why market share or profit margins have to do with this.
What Iām calling out is $70 isnāt outrageous when you consider that historically pricing has been way higher. N64 games were $60 more than two decades ago.
I donāt buy games at $70 because I prefer roguelikes, indie games, and gamepass. If you think $70 is too much, then donāt buy it. Thereās thousands of incredible games that cost significantly less.
Just donāt pirate it. Downvote me all you want but pirating hurts game devs and is bad for the industry. It will just push games more towards micro transactions.
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u/Creative_illness 1h ago
I do think 70 is still outrageous. If we are going by the metric of the past, those were complete games, finished games. I love Cyberpunk 2077, but what they pulled was awful, no man's sky anyone? More and more I see this Bs of companies pulling anticonsumer practices, but when people are fed up with this what happens? Ohh don't pirate games, poor developers. Please!! And I have paid full money for some titles, and I do think some of them are worth the money. Especifically the ones that you buy and they do not cover extras on micro transactions and all that bull. But I'm sorry, this sudden defense that games were whatever 100s adjusted for inflation is such a stupid line. The face of this industry is completely different rn. And if you wanna call for morals on the consumer side. Please first look at what the market looks like first. Fuck corporations man, seriously.
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u/jigsaw1024 R7 5900X RTX 2070S 32GB 1h ago
It's not really easy to do an Apples to Apples comparison for old vs new games.
Old games came with a lot more: Box, cartridge/disc, instruction manual, map, and sometimes a book of the game world or other swag.
Cartridges in particular were not cheap.
Plus there is all the logistics and their costs that go into moving those items around before they finally reach a retail shelf.
The retailers also usually got about 30% of the retail price for their profit and expenses, assuming full retail and no discounting.
Today, none of that exists. The biggest cut in digital distribution is the digital store and the publisher. That's over half the price of game right there roughly.
With digital distribution, I fully expect games to be cheaper today, even accounting for inflation.
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u/Stonebagdiesel 1h ago
The most expensive games today are less than half the price of the average game in the 90s. So yeah, the pricing is taking that into account.
AAA development cost has also skyrocketed. They made Doom for $200k, whereas the average AAA game nowadays costs over $300M.
And $70 is the price of the most expensive games. Some of the best games Iāve played are $30 (factorio), $20 (silksong) or free (Fortnite).
TBH I donāt think most $70 games are worth it, but only because there is such a backlog of incredible games for a fraction of the cost. Itās cheaper than ever before to be a gamer, so I find the complaining about the $10 price increase to be weird.
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u/DijuridoosDesert 41m ago
Games were more expensive back then because a developer couldnāt expect to sell millions of copies, nowadays the cost is spread over many times the amount of consumers
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u/TheRealAfinda 1h ago
Yeah. I personally couldn't care less how big a budget a Game has had or how good the marketing is.Ā
I'll look at gameplay and try to estimate how much time and enjoyment i might get out of it and that determines what i'm willing to pay.
The only ones getting the benefit of the doubt are Studios with a good track record and from which i've had a lot of fun with past titles.
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u/OutlyingPlasma 2h ago
anything over sixty
To me this price point is a giant red flag telling me it's a shit game. I haven't seen a game for more than $50 in the last decade that wasn't just microtransaction hell bloated with frustration mechanics.
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u/DijuridoosDesert 49m ago
Iām willing to spend hundreds on a good game if it feels justified but so far I only really buy games under 10 euros.
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u/mythrilcrafter Ryzen 5950X || Gigabyte 4080 AERO 27m ago
To me, the benchmark is "Is this worth X, Y, or Z of my work hours and will I actually even play the darn game?"
I've spent $80 on games that were happily well worth FAR more than 2 hours I spend answering emails on Monday morning, and I've bought many $5 that I have never once even downloaded.
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u/BuggyYonko 4h ago
My rule is 30 bucks, but most games I buy are 20 and below.
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u/Abjurer42 2h ago
Yeah, $30 is a good price point these days. Deep Rock Galactic and Two Point Museum cost that much without a sale, and those are two of the few I would buy at full price.
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u/Domino_RotMG 4h ago
I think Baldurās Gate 3 is the only time Iāve broken this rule.
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u/MrMakerHasLigma 9070XT | 5700x3d | 32GB 4h ago
It's not the only time that I've broken the rule, but it's one of the games that I've got the best value out of. It has however broken my personal rule of "get at least 20% off on each game".
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u/dogs4lunchAsian 4h ago
Yeah I'm willing to pay based on value. If it's a fun indie, I'll pay like 5 bucks for it or get it from a Fanatical bundle, but if it's something like 2077, KCD2, Skyrim, or Silksong, I'm more than ok with paying 30-40.
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u/Toto_nemisis 4h ago
Doom 2016 was the last game that was full price for me.
Bg3 I grabbed for like, $40 but I forgot about it because it was early access and I dont buy early access games either.
I would agree though, bg3 is amazing!
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u/PacoBedejo 9800X3D | Strix 4090 OC | 64GB DDR5 6000-CL30 | 4TB Crucial T705 2h ago
I'll spend up to $60 today. Same as $20 when the NES released.
https://i.imgur.com/aZXa4kT.png
Except for MMOs. I go full stupid for those. /shame
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u/HaggisAreReal 4h ago
how does this meme adjust to inflation?
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u/CrimsonAntifascist 2h ago
Don't care about inflation. What matters is the comparison of rest my income increase minus the rising costs of being alive.
So, 20 bucks still.
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u/ResponsibilitySad817 2h ago
If this is a reference, I'm completley lost.
That aside, no more than $20 would be insane, but handy. However, I would hate to see devs lose out on profits after they worked so hard on a game.
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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 1h ago
This was Monkey Island in the 90s, and the joke is that it was more than $20.
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u/ResponsibilitySad817 1h ago
Ahh, okay. Thanks for clarification, lol ugh..
Evidently I'm an uncultured swine.
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u/raziel_beoulve 3h ago
Completely agree, still have a huge backlog I can co through while waiting for more affordable prices
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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 1h ago
Just because everyone misses the joke, Monkey Island was more than $20 when it came out.
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u/superboo07 Linux 4h ago
piracy is fine IMO if you arent doing it for commercial gain. if you're scraping the internet and selling an AI model based on that (expecially fuck the artwork and music models), or selling access to pirated content its very scummy though. when money is exchanged it should go to the original artist
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u/Crafty-Bee208 4h ago
Completely agree. Pirating a game or movie for personal use is one thing, but mega corporations stealing data from artists just to resell it as an AI tool is genuinely disgusting.
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u/Traditional-Park-353 1h ago
They're stealing data from everyone, not artists specficially. And strangely, I'm actually ok with it despite being anti-corporate/billionaire on most other issues. Moving the needle on AI however much is genuinely one of the most impactful things humanity can do today. Otherwise we're going to stall out on advancing medicine/physics and fixing societal problems that humans always keep repeating, etc.
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u/lesgeddon imgur.com/pbEx8cc 1h ago
Education fixes all those problems you think AI can magically fix with stolen knowledge & creativity.
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u/Interloper_Mango Ryzen 5 5500 +250mhz CO: -30 ggez 4h ago
I would also like to add that when someone can afford to buy something they should either buy it or boycott and not pirate it.
I feel like a lot of people pirate under the guise of virtues but in reality just want to cheap out.
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u/altaccount_28 1h ago
One more caveat and thats if you can not get access any other way. Movies and TV shows that have licensing rights so confusing that no company will ever sort them out for a blue ray or streaming so they just die in a memory hole. Or the company it self no longer sells it, looking at you old games.
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u/SenoraRaton 16m ago
Whats wrong with seeking a better value proposition?
I will gladly pay nothing given the option.1
u/Interloper_Mango Ryzen 5 5500 +250mhz CO: -30 ggez 6m ago
assuming you are not super poor. you are still committing a crime despite having the means of having the funds to pay for it.
That is like saying "what's wrong with going into a hotel and binge on the breakfast without renting a room"
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u/thedeuce75 4h ago
Agreed, I used to pirate stuff 20 years ago when I was broke AF. Now I can afford to pay for things and I do. You can wrap it up in any justification you want, but stealing is stealing.
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u/stormdelta 3h ago
Agreed. There's a big difference between my underpaid librarian friend pirating something vs myself who makes six figures.
Most of the things I "pirate" these days are either as an alternative means of circumventing DRM for things I actually did pay for, or for games that are so old the hardware isn't even sold anymore anyways which IMO doesn't count since anything you pay is just going to prior buyers not the people who made it.
E.g. I "pirated" several Switch games to play on emulator that I literally own physical copies of because I ironically preferred the emulator experience, and ripping the cartridges myself would have required a lot of extra work/hardware.
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u/Rubbersoulrevolver 5m ago
It's okay to steal and not pay for things if it's not for commercial gain?
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u/Wonderful-Bet3093 4h ago edited 4h ago
The golden age of Piracy...
Lets become a pirate together
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u/Outrageous_Theme_777 4h ago
Itās death by subscription out there. These corporations expect you to forget and keep the sub going.
Word of advice: lock your payment card if possible. Itāll cancel automatically. Sometimes you do want prime for a delivery or hbo sub for a new season. Lock your card after resubbing and you wonāt be robbed blind as they expect most people forget.
Obviously if youāre not able or have qualms about sailing the open seas.
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u/EmergencyO2 1h ago
Some banks / cards allow recurring transactions to continue even if the card is locked
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u/Crafty-Bee208 4h ago edited 3h ago
For me Honestly, the cycle of services getting worse and pushing people toward piracy just proves how much companies take loyal customers for granted.
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u/Alternative_Ear5542 2h ago
I saw a quote the other day about how companies seem increasingly annoyed that they have to go through us to get to our money and that resonated.
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4h ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/stormdelta 3h ago
Even more an issue with media for me.
Most streaming platforms suck to use even on the highest paid plans, and there's been many times I've pirated something despite having access to it on a paid streaming account purely because the user experience of their website is so bad.
Crunchyroll's one of the worst offenders. Closed captions don't work on almost anything on their site that has dubbed audio - you know, a feature that every TV service in the last 40 years has figured out since even before the internet.
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u/NightOfTheLivingHam 3h ago edited 3h ago
Ironically crunchyroll was a piracy group that stole fansubs from other groups and took credit.Ā
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u/stormdelta 3h ago
Yep, plus barely anything you pay them even goes to the people who made the shows. I genuinely don't feel bad about pirating anything on CR, especially since most of it is generic slop anyways.
The only anime I don't pirate are the rare shows that aren't generic slop that I actually worry about more seasons being made of, like Dorohedoro.
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u/GonWithTheNen 20m ago
companies take loyal customers for granted.
Oh, PLEASE do not start me. Cable companies, ISPs, et cetera, always have discounts for "new customers only", but offer absolutely nothing for the customers who've beefed up their revenue by being with them for years.
But the MOMENT you call and say, "I'm cancelling my service", ohhhh....! suddenly they can offer you all the discounts in the universe.
Fuq'em all.
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u/Toruviel_ 4h ago
I saw corps strip farmers of water ... and eventually of land. Saw them transform Night City into a machine fueled by people's crushed spirits, broken dreams and emptied pockets. Corps've long controlled our lives, taken lots... and now they're after our souls! V, I've declared war not because capitalism's a thorn in my side or outta nostalgia for an America gone by. This war's a people's war against a system that's spiralled outta our control. It's a war against the fuckin' forces of entropy, understand? Do whatever it takes to stop 'em, defeat 'em, gut 'em. If I gotta kill, I'll kill. If I need your body, I'll fuckin' take it! Fuckin' hell ... You still don't see it. But you will one day.
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u/Shark7996 51m ago
I think of corporations more like The Borg.
I don't blame them. They were just drones, acting with their collective instinct. You! You had a choice!
"You" being all the politicians that continue to accept bribes and stand by watching our economy eat itself.
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u/DarthWetWipe 2h ago
if enough people fucking cancel their shit, things can actually get better.
CANCEL IT ALL. Delete your Facebook. Stop supporting psychopaths
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u/Ordinary_Debt_6518 Amd Fanboy 3h ago
Leave my multibillion dollar company alone š”š”
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u/chorey i9 -14900k | RTX 5080 | 32GB G-Skill 4h ago
When they price it beyond reason, beyond wages, I stop buying and they wonder why their sales are dropping, it's always the price is too high or you cannot get it, this is a supply problem only they can fix once they realize they have priced themselves out of the market.
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u/That_guy1425 2h ago
If the price is beyond reason then they always have been. Video games have been extremely resistant to inflation.
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u/Hot_Schedule_1486 4h ago
It's not that you need corporations to lose, it's that you need heartless, unethical corporations to lose despite their efforts to prove otherwise.
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u/purpletiecomputers 2h ago
Watch the YouTube video about how piracy actually benefits businesses. Wild stuff.
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u/Jazzlike-Price401 4h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/1K8NlomCFNuKcGlHxT
And so began the Great Pirate Era
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u/shawndw AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, RX 6750XT 12GB VRAM, 32GB DDR5, Arch Linux 2h ago
I could subscribe to a dozen different streaming services or 1 VPN.
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u/AstroPozzo 2h ago
Or not even to the VPN
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u/shawndw AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, RX 6750XT 12GB VRAM, 32GB DDR5, Arch Linux 2h ago
No you absolutely need a VPN nowadays if you are going to torrent. Most trackers penalize leachers and studios will go after seeders.
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u/chipface Nobara | Ryzen 9800X3D | 64GB DDR5 6000 | 9070 XT 2h ago
I got so many forwarded copyright notices from Rogers for my grandpa's torrenting(some had a ratio of 120). Then I heard some Canadians were having to pay up in 2018. So I got a VPN. The notices went away overnight.
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u/AstroPozzo 2h ago
Nah I don't. My country (Italy) doesn't five a fuck about piracy, and I always seed at least until I give back the same amount of gb I downloaded
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u/Leather_Education113 2h ago edited 1h ago
Iāve never received any notice in the nearly 20 years Iāve been pirating without a vpn, but these days I use a debrid service + stremio to replace every streaming service, I also just use it to download my torrents since itās faster and I can use it as a seedbox. The good thing about debrid services is no VPN is required as DMCA notices can only be issued to the debrid service provider and not the end user.
If for whatever reason I need to torrent on my own network, I do use a VPN since I have one. So I just bind the client so itās automatic
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u/KindledWanderer 13m ago
If you live in such a country, a seedbox is still the better solution anyway.
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u/NookNookNook 2h ago
Friendly reminder that you don't need to see ads when you watch Youtube. Firefox + UBlock Origin, Install Today.
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u/JamesWeeb18 1h ago
I'm tired of big ass corporations making money when I don't notice that they're making it behind my back. The subscriptions suck and i pyrate out of spite and I'm glad that I do.
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u/the_calibre_cat 1h ago
one of my hottest political takes: nationalize streaming services. charge users a monthly fee, all content can be uploaded to it and the government takes 10% for maintenance and service (any profits get kicked back to the general fund), and the remainder goes to the content owners according to number of streams and watches or whatever.
would never happen in this stupid country but ONE good streaming site with everything, at a reasonable price. boom. easy peasy.
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u/JaesopPop 7900X | 9070XT | 32GB 6000 4h ago
It's okay to just say you don't wanna pay for stuff. This whole attempt to add a Robin Hood motivation for piracy has always rung hollow.
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u/FromDeepestFathom 2h ago
For most, it does probably come down to money, but for most in first world countries, Iād reckon it comes down to convenience. When Spotify and Netflix and co first came out, piracy took a huge dive, due to the (relatively) small cost, and mega convenience. Now with Netflix and others upcharging and still fucking having ads, along with further segmentation requiring multiple subs, etc., the convenience doesnāt exist anymore. So itās back to the old question: pay with money, or with time (pirating stuff).
There are other (valid imo) points like: if you buy a movie on Amazon, what happens if Amazon doesnāt carry that movie anymore? This is real life, it happens. You just lose the movie permanently. Youāre ābuyingā to rent. Whereas if you pirate it, youāll have it forever.
I think generally it does come down to corporations sucking massive cock.
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u/JaesopPop 7900X | 9070XT | 32GB 6000 2h ago
but for most in first world countries, Iād reckon it comes down to convenience.
For movies and TV shows, I can see this sometimes - might not be carried anywhere, might only be on an obscure subscription service. But I'm not really sure how you can argue that pirating is more convenient than buying a game on Steam.
I feel pretty confident in saying games are primarily pirated because it's cheaper than buying them. It generally takes extra effort. Not to say those are lost sales - that's another can of worms entirely - but it's hard to sell piracy of games any other way.
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u/FromDeepestFathom 2h ago
Weāre agreeing generally. Steam is much more convenient than piracy, the only ādefenseā in favor of pirating games that I agree with is, as mentioned, getting around DRM to actually own something. Most of the time nowadays, no matter the platform (other than GOG it seems) you are paying for a license to play the game, not actually a copy of the game. So again, if servers shut down, you can no longer play the game. Even single player offline only stuff (sometimes).
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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 1h ago
Or if you move to another country, your license only exists for the country you originally bought it in. I found that out first hand.
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u/KindledWanderer 15m ago
So itās back to the old question: pay with money, or with time (pirating stuff).
Plex/Jellyfin is does not cost time and offers better quality than e.g. Netflix.
The equation has changed now and is closer to: pay for a worse service or have a better service for free.
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u/JustaSeedGuy 2h ago
It's okay to just say you don't wanna pay for stuff
But that's just it, people have proved time and time again that they're totally willing to pay for stuff! Folks switched en masse from piracy to Netflix, for example, when Netflix started streaming.
It's that people want to pay a reasonable amount for stuff.
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u/Tomytom99 Idk man some xeons 64 gigs and a 3070 3h ago
I don't want to pay for things, but I'll put up with it if it's a reasonable value. Something something arm's length transaction.
With the enshittification of everything, it's becoming harder to find stuff that's of appropriate value for its asking price. That's the issue. I'm not going to knowingly get ripped off.
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u/ozone6587 3h ago
Value is a two-way street. It's not solely up to you to determine what is good value. You have 0 knowledge of the costs to make certain pieces of art.
What stops me from deeming any game, no matter how much was invested to make it, as something with a $5 value? You would obviously be extremely biased to undervalue something if it's just you making the decision.
You are just not willing to pay. You are not standing up for yourself and one-upping corporations. Drop the mask. You are not Robin Hood.
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u/JaesopPop 7900X | 9070XT | 32GB 6000 3h ago
it's becoming harder to find stuff that's of appropriate value for its asking price
So you don't want to pay for it. That's fine. It's not some adventure to take down the megacorps though.
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u/Phaylz 4h ago
You seem to have a misunderstanding as to why digital piracy became a thing.
It's really not about the money or anti-corporation or any of that. It is about access. Sometimes, that is money. But when Steam popped up, digital downloads became more prevalent, and Netflix started streaming, piracy took a nosedive revealing that money and even ownership wasn't a big priority.
I am cool with not owning the games that I play through something like GamePass PC. Played a lot that I otherwise would not have. But if I do buy a game, I do expect it to be something I always have access to in some way, digital or otherwise.
If Steam or GoG disappeared and everything I ever purchased along with it, there would be some lawsuits going. But also, if that did happen, it would mean that a lot of shit will have had to go really wrong, really quickly, at a global level for something as big as Steam to just go poof.
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u/Training-Banana-6991 3h ago
It is always about money.
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u/JustaSeedGuy 2h ago
Only when money prevents access.
Otherwise people wouldn't have switched from piracy to Netflix.
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u/Brilliant_Tourist_76 3h ago
In some news " (certain games company) lost over 1.2 billion to privacy this yeah" bitch you didn't get those 1.2 billion in the first place to lose it.
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u/thegamesbuild 2h ago
The impact of piracy on content providers is statistically insignificant.
Very few people have both the savvy and the desire to pirate.
I'm 100% pro-piracy, but it's not hurting them. If it did, there would likely be another crack down, fines, criminal charges for civil infractions, maybe even a ban on encrypted communications.
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u/Oregon-Pilot 1h ago
This. People who were going to find a way to pirate stuff were never going to be customers to begin with, and smart companies know this.
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u/Otheruser337 4h ago
I'm doing this so Microslop can get hit by the sloparang (and so does you, Crapple!). Ain't trusting the telemetry and data harvesting their shockaneers are dishing out, so does the low-quality features like Slopilot the slopaneers have been experimenting with. (they are real slopaholics wowsers!)
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u/taymond19 3h ago
The more expensive the game, the more hours I need to put into it to be worth the cost. I got burned too many times. At least a dollar per hour of entertainment or I'm not buying
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u/StoneyBob__ 3h ago
I have over 50 games on my pc all of which Iāve collected during steam sales a good chunk of them I got for free.
I got the The whole bio shock series for under 2Ā£ and fallout new vegas for 70p
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u/Emergency-Judge5097 3h ago
Well it can be worse, I used promotion ls to access gyms for let's one dollar till the end of the year(it was December). I thought it was perfect but in the new year I found out there was a catch that I will pay monthly for access to the gyms for the entire next year, let's say 179.99 dollars a month (the currency is different, I wrote dollars just for easy understanding). I cannot resign till the contract is done. So yeah my bad because I didn't read the terms but damn that is a scam. With online subscriptions if u don't pay the access stops and not just goes on and on.
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u/BecaBakes 2h ago
I always thought it was really cool that he and I share a last name, i can confirm that my whole family is just as petty.
something something itās about sending a message something
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u/NRMusicProject 2h ago
For the last five years, I was only subscribed to Shudder, because I genuinely like horror and wanted to see the service do well. I frequently gave suggestions on what features I'd like to see (mostly UI tweaks that would make the site more friendly). Always had a polite response from some CS rep. Instead of applying any fixes (except the stupid overlay making the movie darker when I moved my mouse), they just doubled the price, made ads, and turned their CS rep into AI chatbots. They obviously didn't care about giving the customers a good experience at this point. I cancelled my subscription. Why pay for something like that when it's a much better experience on pirate streaming services? Besides, while paying for this subscription I wanted to see improve, I was still going to pirate sites to watch something I already paid for for that reason, simply hoping the site would improve. It did not.
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u/HoundNL2 2h ago
The only two subscriptions I have are Spotify (way too convenient) and real-debrid, if you know you know.
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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 1h ago
Spotify is the most evil of the streamers. Iād recommend Tidal, if you can. That way youāre probably not giving money to a guy thatās going to send it to AI warfare companies.
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u/Kronogun 1h ago
I'm surprised more people don't look at the total lack of progress in their product, as well.
People like to make streaming / cable comparisons. So compare this;
What was Cable like in 1985? 30 channels and... that's it. What was it like in the year 2000? 300 channels. Digital Picture. DVR. Etc.
In the last 15 years has Streaming managed to improve in any way at all?
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u/Wespenwald 1h ago
Yeah. Dunno what made me lose my guard for a while, but it's up again - except for this platform, of course......
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u/Routine-Agile 1h ago
Not that I would ever pirate a movie or show, but I don't even know of any reliable websites to get that kind of information anymore or the best way to do it. For science if anyone wants to provide a hypothetically way to do?
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u/ChairForceOne 7945HX3D/7900XT 1h ago
For a while, streaming was handedly winning. Netflix for movies and TV shows, Crunchyroll and Funimation for anime. Even if CR started as a pirate site. The cost was reasonable and the service was good. You waited six months after a movie came out on dvd/Blu-ray and you could just watch it. Some TV shows came out a week later on Netflix, or day and date on Hulu.
I don't remember paying more than $9 a month for a service for a long time. Hulu was free with ads, or for a few bucks you didn't have to sit through them. Prime video was included with your account, without ads. It was a nice addition to free shipping.
Now every network has their own service, and they all keep raising rates. Piracy was falling for years, and now between higher costs and lower disposable income, it's climbing.
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u/maxton41 1h ago
I wouldnāt mind sailing the seven seas, but Iām too afraid to deal with viruses and Trojans and malware. I shouldnāt have to get a freaking VPN and then of course you gotta go to the VPN to get the right VPN or itās you know completely worthless
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u/Beastabuelos 31m ago
What subscriptions? I was subscribed to Netflix when content was good and prices were fair. Then they canceled pretty much every show i was watching and i haven't had a paid subscription to anything since
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u/mytransthrow 25m ago
So what has made you switch to this mind set?
I have been this way for a long time. Though with steam and steam sales I havent paid full price for a game in a long time.
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u/AlarmingAerie 22m ago
And I refuse to pay more than Americans (richest country in the world) adjusted for income for same shit.
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u/Nice_Soup 19m ago
Its time for people to actually own games beyond the license expiration and when live service-based games ends their ālifecycleā (shouldāve never made it in the first place as a foundation)
Sub and you own nothing
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 17m ago
But... if piracy becomes widespread then the companies will fold and nobody will create new content!
You know what, there is already too much fantastic content for one person to consume in one lifetime. We don't need any more content.
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u/Raidoton 8m ago
At what point has piracy "won" and corporations "lost"? When everyone pirates? Well if everyone does it, then there is nothing to pirate...
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u/Ok_Rent3222 4h ago
Need alternative to google photos, apple music or spotify, youtube premium and claude
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u/No_Interaction_4925 5800X3D | 3090ti | LG 55ā C1 | Steam Deck OLED 4h ago
Immich is an alternative to google photos.
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u/MilitaryBeetle 4h ago
I used to run Synology but they lacked search for album, and playing videos was slow as molasses
Switched to Immich and was amazed by how fast it was. I didn't even need to migrate, I just pointed Immich at my existing folders
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u/ShadowGamur 4h ago
Metrolist is quite good alternative for Spotify and Grayjay has quite good YT plugin
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u/dogs4lunchAsian 4h ago
Google Photos: it's already free but I'm assuming you mean free cloud storage, in which case there's a way to use a modded apk but that was a few months ago and could have been patched already.
Spotify: just download flac from like QQDL or smth, or a generic Youtube to mp3 converter
Youtube: use Morphe, better in every way
Claude: dunno about this one, I don't use AI in a way that would require me to pay for tokens
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u/Skelletor89 1h ago
Weirdly enough, LinusTechTips has a pretty good video on de-googling your life. There's tons of lesser-known alternatives out there.
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u/blushivyn 4h ago
Corporations spent a decade curing piracy with convenience, and then spent the next decade making piracy convenient again.