I have been mulling over this one for a while and I have finally made the jump. I have tried subscribing to GameFly a couple of times in the past with unfavorable results. I am a mood-dependent gamer. The games I play at any given point are as varied as my mood swings. It's almost impossible for me to focus on one game to play and see through it until the end unless the game happens to be incredibly good. This is why renting a game just doesn't work for me. But for $1? Just $1 to access the recently released The Outer Worlds? That's too good of a bargain to pass. Microsoft is gambling big here with their X-Box Game Pass for PC, which is currently in beta, by offering new subscribers a $1 first month introductory price and $4.99 promotional price after if one opted to continue with the service. Not only that, for them to include The Outer Worlds into the lineup plus the promise of all internal studio games will launch on the rental service? I was crazy to wait this long to take this for a test run.
The service includes plenty of games I already have, like Dishonored 2.
Would I be keeping the service after the first month? Probably not due to the dilemma I presented earlier. I rather just purchase games and then play them at my leisure without the fear of losing access to them because I don't want to pay a monthly fee. But there are several games on the current list that I am interested in, Gears 5 for example. It will be interesting to see how I am going to manage all this, especially after noticing that The Outer Worlds may not be Obsidian Entertainment's best offering, so far anyway, which means that it will be a struggle to stick with the game. Even if I decided to extend this subscription to a second month, the low price point makes that a non-issue. Microsoft and its competitors have been trying to make the digital rental as a major part of their business. Microsoft may not be able to keep someone like me hooked but I am sure a lot of people may find their offerings irresistible.
