I did the math when this happened, they were absolutely banking on losing customers, but they misplayed their hand. They figured they would still be making money with the price increases even if they lost nearly third of their US gaming audience. By my back of the napkin numbers, as long as they lost less than 30%, they would be making more profit.

They must have lost more than they planned if they pulled a reversal or the price increase was a trial balloon to gauge response and whether people would come back for reduced prices.

These companies are of course happy to treat their customers like one big psychological experiment.

I was one of them. What started as a “Gold” membership for $60/yr or $5/mo broken down, became "Game Pass"around 2017 and included Games With Gold for $10/mo. I want to say including PC was $15/mo.

Fast Forward, my now $20/mo subscription went up to $30/mo, and for that $360/year price, that could afford me 5-6 triple A titles if there are even that many I’d actually be interested in. I canceled at the end of my $20/mo period.

I don’t play enough to make it worth it, Games with Gold are gone, and I rarely play online anymore to where I need to pay. Maybe CoD or Halo, but I think those are now free MP.

If MS wants my business again, quit fucking your previously loyal customers time and time again. Bring back the $5/mo gold only tier.

I feel like those hikes are only bc nobody else had alternatives to offer. PS just to massive price hikes, PC components went way up, so “to remain competitively priced” (aka gouge customers slightly less than the competition) they too increased prices…

Well fuck your stupid fucking subscription service. I’ll go back to pirating games. Thankfully, I hoard old PC parts so I’ll build my kids some solid rigs out of spare parts, setup a shared network folder for game installs, and boom, we all have access.