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> It's not the Boogeyman you think it is. You used to have to buy a game for $60 and if you didn't like it? Well too bad, that's $60 down the drain. Now you can just move on to the next one. I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable, but for the majority of gamers (casual gamers) a subscription based service is a better option.

Moving from an ownership model to a rental model is very anti-consumer.

So, sure, some people prefer to rent their couch. That's fine. You're effectively arguing that couch ownership should be forbidden.

You are going to have to provide a more compelling argument that "Well, I play every game only once, for 90m, before moving on to the next, so we should enforce my preference onto everybody!"

The majority of gamers don't play more than a handful of games in a year. There's just no time. You find a game you're into, your pour most of your hours into that game.



>Moving from an ownership model to a rental model is very anti-consumer.

In that case the consumers have worked against their best interests for decades in other mediums. You can even argue as such in the PC market where physical media has also lost.

>some people prefer to rent their couch. That's fine. You're effectively arguing that couch ownership should be forbidden.

in the same way in that you can still buy a CD or even record of a recent song, I'm sure you'll have physical media for quite a while.

But we should also face reality and realize that most people are fine renting media, so it should be no surprise if companies start to tailor towards the majority.

>You are going to have to provide a more compelling argument

sure: https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/11/mobile-games-now-account-f...

>In the U.S., users generally have eight games installed per device; globally, we play an average of two to five games per month.

we should never discount the mobile market in these discussions. nor teenagers.


So rather than han paying 8 times for their games, the players are paying many dozens of times more for the same experience?

I fail to see how this is a good thing.


If the players have fun, that's all that really matters. Remember that many of these aren't people who would magically jump in and play Skyrim if the mobile industry suddenly disappeared, even if Skyrim was given to them. It's a completely different audience.

Once again, this is deluxe entertainment, and the overall impact of spending more money on a hobby isn't the end of the world. I'm not going to judge how others use their free time and disposable income.


> If the players have fun, that's all that really matters.

That wasn't your argument. If you wanted to argue that, you should have done so from the beginning.

Your argument was that it is more beneficial for players to pay many times the price of any game they play often.


>Your argument was that it is more beneficial for players to pay many times the price of any game they play often.

No it wasn't. My arugment is that this is what players are doing already. I don't care about how you feel about gaming habits. My only point in replying to you is to say that

>The majority of gamers don't play more than a handful of games in a year. There's just no time. You find a game you're into, your pour most of your hours into that game.

is wrong. You asked for proof against that and I gave you a link for gaming trends. You countered with "That's not a good thing", and I don't care. Because that's not my argument. Whever you inferred that I applied personal judgement to these statistics is wrong until you made your comment about that judgement.

So there you have it. If you want to shift your argument to "this isn't good for the consumer"... well, I gave you my take. Take it or leave it, I have nothing more to add to that discussion. If you want to go back to talking about what and how people consume games, feel free to respond to that.

Yes, people do play multiple games a month, so they are also fine renting games to consume more. Even in console games, there are so many accounts to how Gamepass has reinvigorated some people to playing more games than before.


With the new model, consumers have two options now, instead of just one. They can rent the game or they can buy it. How is that not better?


Because tomorrow, they'll take away the option to buy the game. Everyone in the games industry is excited about streaming specifically because making everyone rent their games is long-term more lucrative.

We've done this dance with streaming video in the past. First renting was cheaper and easier. Then renting was the only option, and it stopped being cheaper or easier.


>Then renting was the only option, and it stopped being cheaper or easier.

1. you can still buy the blu-ray for any given recent movie. For non-movies, the alternative was cable, which you did not own. And hoping that they'd release a collection on DVD/BD

2. Despite all the price hikes, streaming is still more bang for your buck unless you only watch 1-2 movies a month. And still much more convinent. We;re not at this point in time in video, so i'm not worried about games in the next 20 years hitting that.


You didn't own cable but you could certainly record it. So we've taken a big step back there.


"You'll own nothing and be happy"

It described life in an unnamed city in which the narrator does not own a car, a house, any appliances, or any clothes, and instead relies on shared services for all of his daily needs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_ha...


seems a bit hyperbolic to compare not owning the software on a disc to not owning clothes. Fact is that deluxe entertainment isn't some crucial necessity for most people. So of course they don't mind the lack of ownership.


> seems a bit hyperbolic to compare not owning the software on a disc to not owning clothes.

True. Although, satire does tend to exaggerate to make its point. (I'm assuming the indicated source is at least in part satire, not having yet read it.)

Related to rent vs own: public libraries are (in a sense) renting, just paid for either indirectly or by other people.

> Fact is that deluxe entertainment isn't some crucial necessity for most people. So of course they don't mind the lack of ownership.

Until they try to play something from the past, and can't, because it relied on a game server, streaming server, or some other kind of remote asset that was not preserved. This portends a greater loss of shared culture compared to that which can be backed up or archived. Some people might be working on that, but I expect most will be made preservable only by rare rights-holders or illicit propagation.


Maybe people consider that eventually they die and that everything is rented in a sense...


> Maybe people consider that eventually they die and that everything is rented in a sense...

Nope. If you own something you can leave it to your kids.

If you rent it, you can't.




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