The Horrible Truth Behind Microsoft Buying Bethesda

Why Wouldn't You Get Game Pass?

Xbox Game Pass has quickly become the most affordable way to play AAA games, with players spending as little as £7.99 a month to stream Doom Eternal, Destiny 2, and Gears 5. With the service reaching 15 million subscribers, it won't be long before streaming games become a popular option for players. Yet platforms like Game Pass could lead to devastating results in the future.

With games becoming available on Game Pass from Day One, it will become more costly to buy games as hard-copies. The incentive to buy discs is slowly dying out, with many hard-copy AAA games, making players spend hours downloading content once they get home and insert the disc into their favoured consoles.

With more and more games bought digitally, many players are only paying for a license of a game. If game companies decided to unlist a digital game you "own", it may become lost forever. P.T. is a prime example of a game that is unfortunately no longer available after being removed from PSN, dwindling out of existence. The preservation of games becomes increasingly difficult as streaming becomes more commonplace.

Modding is also a concern. With players no longer owning the hard copy of a game, it’s significantly more challenging for fan-made mods to be implemented, especially on consoles. It’s no secret that Bethesda would like to monopolise on the modding community, after their highly-criticised move of forcing paid mods onto Skyrim. Hopefully, the company has learned from the backlash it received, but there are no guarantees. Under the helm of Microsoft, Bethesda could make bolder moves to restrict free, easy-to-install mods in future titles.