Stepping Back From Game Pass: Reclaiming Intentional Gaming

Stepping back from Game Pass wasn’t a dramatic statement — it was me reclaiming intentional play, and dropping the pressure to maximise a subscription. 

The breaking point wasn’t one single feature or one rage moment. It was the slow creep. The way the costs stacked. The way the subscription became something I “should” be using, rather than something that supported how I actually like to play. 

When the costs start stacking 

And then there was the absurd contrast that made it impossible to ignore. 

A game I fancied playing — Guardians of the Galaxy — was about £6 used on disc. Not sixty. Six. The kind of price where you buy it, stick it on the shelf, and you’ve got it. Properly. No timers. No “coming soon / leaving soon”. No mental weight.

At the same time, I was also paying for Boosteroid — basically another monthly cost — so I could play PS5-style titles I already owned on Steam, with better performance than my PC could manage at the time. And the worst part is I wasn’t even using it consistently. Months would go by without me touching it. 

That’s when the guilt kicked in — not guilt in the dramatic sense. Just that nagging feeling that I was throwing money away. Paying for access, paying for “options”, paying for the idea of playing things… and then not actually doing it — while knowing that access would disappear the moment I stopped paying. It started to feel more like finite rental than building a personal library. 

So I made a change that felt almost boring in the moment, but instantly better in practice. 

I cancelled Game Pass Ultimate. I didn’t swear off the whole ecosystem — I’m not trying to be pure about it — but I stepped down. I may still keep Essentials, because that suits the way I play online and keeps the basics covered. 

And I cancelled Boosteroid entirely. It was sitting there unused, and when I did try to use it, I had a few frustrating moments just getting into games quickly and reliably. That’s a conversation for another day. 

Choosing ownership over access 

Instead of paying monthly for libraries I wasn’t properly using, I put that money into something that actually stays mine: a sensible mid-level PC upgrade (CPU and motherboard), and I started building out my Xbox One physical library. Nothing flashy — just choices that felt more honest and more permanent. 

The upgrade helps cover what Boosteroid was doing for me — playing those Sony PC ports at a reasonable level. And the Xbox One/Series era is in a funny moment right now: physical games are often cheaper than ever because so many people have access to so much through subscriptions. I wouldn’t be shocked if some of those prices creep up again over time, once the “why would I buy it?” mindset shifts. 

The surprising thing that changed immediately wasn’t my library. It was my mood — the pressure to “make the most of it” disappeared. The burden to play a particular system because I was paying for it disappeared. And suddenly I could just play what I wanted when I wanted — an old 360 game one night, a cosy Switch game the next — without that low-level feeling that I should be maximising a subscription. 

I haven’t suddenly become some saint who only plays perfectly curated masterpieces either. I’ve just stopped carrying the guilt of not playing what I’m “meant” to be playing. 

Because the truth is, I still want to play loads of modern stuff. I still want to go back to The Last of Us Part I and Part II, Spider-Man, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon — all of it. I’m not rejecting those experiences. I’m just choosing the timing. 

And if that means I play some of it at slightly lower settings on a mid-level PC, or stream it, or use a Steam Deck, I’m fine with that. I’d rather accept a tiny compromise in performance than let the whole hobby become a treadmill. 

The one thing I miss 

Of course, there’s a cost to stepping back. Discovery is the obvious one. Subscriptions can be genuinely brilliant for stumbling into things you’d never buy outright. Jusant is the perfect example for me — I found it through Game Pass, and I’m glad I did. 

But even that comes with a strange flip side: discovery can start to feel forced. Like you’re grazing, sampling, collecting experiences, but not really building any relationship with what you own. That physical connection disappears. The shelf doesn’t grow. Nothing becomes part of your “library” in the meaningful sense.

And personally, I feel a much stronger pull to pick something off my shelf and actually play it, rather than flicking through a Netflix-of-gaming doom scroll. It’s the intentionality: purchase, curation, selection, playtime. 

And then there’s the long-run value question — which I don’t think people like saying out loud — you can pay for years and own nothing at the end of it. If that sits fine with you, genuinely, fair enough. But I realised it didn’t sit fine with me once the costs started piling up. Far too much of modern life is subscription-based now — tech, cars, even homes — and you slowly lose that sense of ownership. Physical media is a small example, but it scratches that itch in a way streaming never quite does. 

The hobby feels like mine again 

The best way I can describe where I’ve landed is this: I feel like I’m choosing my own path again. At my pace. With my intent. Not as a slave to a subscription cycle or a mainstream algorithm. 

Game Pass is still a great service, and Boosteroid can absolutely have its uses. I’m not denying that. I’m just admitting that, for me, it started to pull my hobby in the wrong direction — towards pressure, not pleasure. 

And the moment I stepped back, the hobby started feeling like mine again. 

A few more from Retro Tech Tonic

• Backlog as a Library: Why I Stopped Treating Games Like Tasks
  The same mindset, just from the other side: less “clearing”, more choosing, and a healthier relationship with what you already own.
• Jusant Review
  A proper example of the kind of discovery that does justify subscriptions sometimes — quiet, focused, and the sort of game you remember after the credits.
• Call of Duty (when it stops feeling like fun)
  A look at how easy it is for big live-service games to slide from “I fancy a few matches” into routine, obligation, and habit.
• Retroid Pocket 6 vs Pocket 5: Why I’m Not Upgrading Just Yet
  Same approach, different topic: enjoying what I’ve already got instead of treating upgrades like the default setting.
• The best way to play PS2 games in 2026? A Journey into PS2 Fat Mods
  The practical side of the “library” idea — building a setup that makes it easier to actually play your collection, not just hoard it.
• Terminator 2D: No Fate Review
  A good example of the kind of game that suits this pace: pick something, commit to it, enjoy the time with it, and stop worrying about what you “should” play next.

Some external recommended thoughts on this

• DF Direct Weekly #234: Huge Game Pass Price Hike Causes Outrage — a grounded discussion of the pricing/tier shift and what it means in practice.
• Skill Up: The Gamepass dream is over — a blunt, player-first take on the value shifting and why it changes how the service feels.
• The future of physical game collecting… – Lauras Cloud Save
  More of the same topic, but framed around the reality of how people actually buy and keep games now (and what we lose when everything becomes a licence).
• The Guardian: What the Xbox Game Pass price hike says about the rising cost of gaming — proper games journalism framing the wider “subscriptions vs ownership” tension.