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Bang for buck: Which gaming subscription offers the most value right now?

By Kenneth Ang - 23 Jun 2020

The other side of the fence

EA Access: Niche games and some solid classics

Image: Electronic Arts

Now, you might argue that EA Access does pretty much the same thing as the Xbox Game Pass, but where these two differ is in terms of their audience demographics. From an objective point of view, most of the titles there right now either have relatively more niche fanbases or simply aren’t doing that well in gamers’ books. Series like FIFA and NBA 2K are more geared towards gamers who are familiar with those sports in real life, while others like Anthem are just hovering about the “meh” category, to put it nicely. Sure, there are some really good bits like the Dead Space and Battlefield games in there, but these "oldies" are only going to count for so much in terms of value.

To be fair, we're not saying those who pick one service don't like the other at all, but then it goes back to the question of which you'd rather fork out money for, assuming you could only select one.

Essentially, you could say that EA Access, while theoretically similar to the Xbox Game Pass, largely offers games that are either an acquired taste or for those taking a trip down Nostalgia Avenue, so to speak. Which means that if we’re taking the position of a generic gamer who wants only the best and latest, it’s simply not as enticing as the latter. But what about the Apple Arcade?

Image: Electronic Arts

 

Apple Arcade: A members-only street market for mobile games

To be honest, the disparities in terms of game offerings here are rather obvious, and platform difference is but one of them. The Xbox Game Pass offers free flow gaming on two platforms: Xbox One and PC, while the Apple Arcade is restricted to iOS devices. Now, that’s a pretty big gap in terms of demographics already, but there’s one other thing to consider. Check out the Gaming section of the App Store: there are definitely tons of games from different genres on the Apple Arcade's repertoire, but how many of them rank among the top-performing mobile games? 

Indeed, you hardly see any. Granted, all those games might be mobile-exclusive to the Apple Arcade, which means you'll never be able to play them on Android devices, but there isn't much "good meat" to be found on this cow at the moment, although the quantity is there. This roster is also dictated (some might say, hampered) by Apple's mantra of only allowing family-friendly games into its Apple Arcade library. Which is to say that apart from personal curiosity and interest in a particular mobile title on the roster, there simply isn’t much that the Apple Arcade subscription offers right now, although this could still change in future as more developers hop on board the bandwagon.

Hopefully so, as the Apple Arcade is actually quite popular among indie developer.

 

Image: Capcom

Despite the potential benefits of the Netflix-style subscription mode, there's no harm in adopting the older, but apparently more straightforward stance either. Here, users pay a flat fee every so often to renew the membership, but instead of getting a large library of games to pick from anytime they want, they get exclusive discounts on various games in the store, which are often rather substantial.

Additionally, a common tactic used by services with this model to encourage signups is that players won't be able to play online multiplayer without them. Admittedly, it sounds a tad underhanded, but hey - they're businesses. Still, the most obvious counterargument against spending money here is that “gamers still need to pay for the games”, which is true, but unlike the Netflix-style model, you actually own the game this time - terminating membership doesn’t completely restrict your access to it

 

PlayStation Plus, Xbox Live Gold, Nintendo Switch Online: Members-only fire sales

In fact, you could say Sony has made the best use of this concept in tandem with what we call “platform exclusivity”, which largely (and amusingly) ensures that the PS4’s closest competitor, the Xbox One, can’t "hijack" the popularity of its hottest games by tossing them into the Xbox Game Pass.

Image: HardwareZone

That isn’t to say users have to pay for everything, though. Sony does give out occasional freebies to PS Plus members too, some of which are absolute top-shelf games. If memory serves, among the most recent of these big-league games were Call of Duty: WWII and Monster Hunter: World, and being able to play them forever regardless of membership was a big hooray for me personally. The only main drawback, though is that players will need to subscribe to access the online multiplayer aspects for the majority of PS4 games

In short, Sony's main angle is one which favours "quality" over "quantity". They might not throw an entire catalogue's worth of games at you for free, but many of the titles that they give discounts for usually cost a bomb. And as we mentioned earlier, the PlayStation 4 has got their whole platform exclusivity gig going on too.

Meanwhile, Xbox Live Gold and Nintendo Switch Online both ride along with the "subscribe or no online play" tactic, although you're somewhat "coerced" to buy the former if you have the Xbox Game Pass too. It's interesting that Microsoft has found a way to make money concurrently using both models - the Game Pass might give you access to a lot of games, but you're pretty much stuck to playing alone without an Xbox Live Gold subscription to go with it. To be honest, the latter is arguably the Xbox equivalent of PS Plus - member discounts, occasional freebies, the usual works. Considering that they're both the same for the most part, we'll just skip right ahead to Nintendo's take on subscription services.

Image: Nintendo

Apart from the standard member discounts, Nintendo Switch Online also takes a page out of EA Access' book in the sense that they give a huge catalogue of old favourites to go with the subscription. Subscribers can enjoy a constantly-updated library of classic NES and SNES games using their Switch, and Nintendo has actually created some external infrastructure to go with it too. For example, Nintendo Switch Online subscribers can also use the associated mobile app to initiate voice chats and other interesting functions. It's an especially smart move when you consider that many people bring their Switch with them when they go out - it's much easier to take on multiplayer raids and bosses on the go when your friends are but a button away.

Last but not least, let's address the outliers, which are the services who adopt either one of these models but prioritise users' accessibility to games above all else. 

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