However, I also play games that are not on PC Game Pass. For example I pre-ordered Europa Universalis V on Steam, coming out in November, and that will basically eat up all my game time for at least a month. Earlier this year I bought the Nintendo Switch 2, and played the updated Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on it. So there are months in which I pay for the Game Pass subscription, but don't use it at all.

If we are all really honest to ourselves, this is mainly a problem of laziness. I'm too lazy to cancel my PC Game Pass subscription every time I don't foresee using it. Our household is also paying simultaneously for a Netflix subscription and a Disney+ subscription, although usually we are just watching either one or the other.

The obvious solution is intelligent management of subscriptions in an intermittent way. Subscribe to Netflix for 3 months, watch everything on there you want, then cancel your subscription, while starting the same cycle on Disney+. For the PC Game Pass, I could subscribe for some part of the year, play only Game Pass games during that time, then unsubscribe and catch up on my other games on Steam or other platforms. The only disadvantage is not getting to see the latest streamed series or the latest game right when it comes out. But hey, I didn't play Clair Obscur right when it came out. For streamed movies and series, the quality is still the same half a year later; for games you could even argue that playing a game half a year after release is better than on release, due to both patches, and more community support from mods or helpful videos on YouTube.

As the Game Pass price increase currently is just for the US, while coming later to the rest of the world, I will wait for the notice of price increase here in Europe. Then I am seriously considering cancelling my PC Game Pass subscription, in a kind of fake boycott. Hey, Microsoft won't even know that I cancelled due to Europa Universalis V, it will look like a cancellation due to the price increase for them. And the last time I cancelled for some time, I ended up getting 2 free months on resubscribing.

While intermittent subscriptions obviously wouldn't work for things like water, gas, and electricity, we need to remember that our subscriptions to game services or streaming services aren't essential, and that there are competing offers. The average American is subscribed to 4 streaming services at $69 per month. With an intermittent solution, they'd get basically the same streamed content in four 3-month subscriptions for a quarter of the monthly cost. I can cut my PC Game Pass subscription cost in half by only subscribing for half a year every year, playing other games in the other half of the year. I just need to make a bit of effort to overcome my laziness.