I'm Leaving
Xbox
Microsoft raised Game Pass by half in one go, crashed its own cancellation page, lost millions of subscribers, and quietly put it back.
A library you rent is not a library. Everything on Game Pass can be withdrawn, repriced or removed, and 2025 was the year Microsoft demonstrated all three.
I'm Only Renting
Nothing in Game Pass becomes mine, however long I subscribe. Titles leave the catalogue without much warning, including the large ones I joined in order to play, and I am tired of building on rented ground.
They Tested My Limit
In October 2025 Ultimate went from twenty to thirty dollars, and so many people cancelled that the cancellation page fell over. Microsoft's own new chief later admitted it had cost them millions of subscribers, and I was one of them.
The Rollback Cost Me
The price came back down to twenty-three dollars in April, still above where it started. Day-one Call of Duty was taken out of the deal and arrives about a year late instead, which is not what I subscribed for.
GOG
A Polish store selling games with no rights management at all, downloadable as offline installers you keep forever. Its preservation programme repairs old titles so they still run today. It is PC only, and the catalogue is classics and indies rather than the new console releases you are leaving behind. It also changed hands in December 2025, and preservation work costs more than it earns.
itch.io
A marketplace of over a million games where developers set what cut the platform takes, including nothing at all, and you can pay above the asking price if you want. Still owned by the person who built it. This is experimental and independent work, not the blockbusters — a wonderful place to browse and a poor substitute for a console. Much of it is free, which is also why the platform runs on very little.
