This is all a race to the bottom and we're all going to be worse off for it. These subscription services started off innocuous enough by recycling old content, injecting life and cash into nearly dead (but good!) titles. And the subscriptions ate and ate and ate. And now they sign deals with studios before the game is even off the ground. Don't even get me started on all the acquisitions.

In the modern world of the internet, providing both a platform and a service ultimately stifles competition which ultimately harms consumers.

It's great that small studios are reaping the wild cash injections due to Game Pass, or PS+ or Apple's thing. It can be a life changing amount of funding. I'm happy for them. But it can't continue indefinitely without extinguishing the entire industry.

It's getting harder and more expensive to publish, whether bootstrapped or otherwise. And the publishers are rapidly conglomerating.

The early 21st century was ripe with rampant piracy and unbundling. And now we're practically worse than where we started. We own less, nothing is portable, we are slaves to the recurring subscription, and we must sell ourselves to the platform to put food on the table.

It's all so depressing.