I’ve got Game Pass. I’ve got PS Plus Premium. I’ve got EA Play bundled in somewhere. I’m paying for Nintendo Switch Online because I want to play old N64 games occasionally. And I just got asked to subscribe to yet another service to access a game I actually wanted to play.

Something has to give.

Gaming subscriptions were supposed to make things simpler. Pay one fee, get access to loads of games. The “Netflix of gaming” pitch sounded great in 2020. Now, in 2026, the reality is that we’re paying for multiple overlapping subscriptions, most of which we barely use, and the actual cost of gaming hasn’t gone down at all.

The maths don’t work

Let me add it up for an Australian gamer who wants decent coverage:

• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: $22.99/month ($275/year)
• PlayStation Plus Premium: $24.95/month ($300/year)
• EA Play: $6.99/month ($84/year)
• Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack: $59.95/year
• Ubisoft+: $24.99/month ($300/year, if you’re into Ubisoft games)

That’s over $1,000 AUD per year if you’re subscribed to everything. For context, buying four full-price AAA games a year costs around $400. You’d need to play more than ten games per year across all these services just to break even compared to buying selectively.

Most people don’t play ten games a year. The average is somewhere around six to eight, and many gamers spend the majority of their time in just two or three.

The quality problem

Subscriptions also create a perception problem. When a game arrives “free” on Game Pass, it feels disposable. You download it, play for 40 minutes, decide it’s not grabbing you, and move on. You never would have given up that quickly on a game you paid $80 for.

This hurts developers. Games that might have found their audience through word-of-mouth and slow sales growth instead get a brief spike of subscription downloads, most of which result in ten minutes of playtime. The data tells the publisher the game “underperformed,” and the studio doesn’t get a sequel.

I’ve seen this happen to Australian-made games on Game Pass. A brilliant indie title gets added to the service, gets a wave of downloads, and then disappears into the algorithmic void. The developer gets a licensing fee from Microsoft, which helps with cash flow, but the long-term impact on the game’s visibility is often negative.

The price creep

Every subscription service has raised prices in the last two years. Game Pass went up twice. PS Plus restructured into tiers that made the comparable offering more expensive. Nintendo Switch Online increased when they added the Expansion Pack tier.

This is the streaming playbook: grow the subscriber base with low introductory pricing, then gradually increase prices once people are locked into the ecosystem. We watched it happen with Netflix, Disney+, and every other streaming service. Gaming is following the same trajectory.

In Australia, where prices are already higher due to exchange rates and the market size, these increases hit harder. A $3 monthly increase on a US-priced service becomes a $5 increase in AUD, and it adds up across multiple subscriptions.

What I actually recommend

Pick one. If you primarily game on Xbox or PC, Game Pass is the best value. If you’re a PlayStation player, PS Plus Extra (the middle tier) is sufficient for most people. One subscription, used well, is a good deal. Two or more is where the maths fall apart.

Buy games you know you’ll play. For the games you’re genuinely excited about — the ones you’ll play for dozens or hundreds of hours — just buy them. Ownership means no subscription expiring, no delisting, no worrying about whether it’ll still be on the service next month.

Cancel what you’re not using. Check your gaming subscriptions right now. When was the last time you opened each one? If it’s been more than two months, cancel it. You can always resubscribe when there’s something you want to play.

Where this goes

I think we’re heading for a correction. Subscription growth is slowing across the industry. Publishers are realising that putting their biggest games on subscription services day one might generate subscribers but also cannibalises full-price sales. Some will pull back.

The steady state will probably be fewer, more focused subscriptions with better curation. And games that actually command a premium — the GTA VIs and Elder Scrolls of the world — will continue to be sold at full price because they can be.

In the meantime, do the maths on what you’re actually paying. I bet it’s more than you think.