Well, I suppose the headline says it all for this one. Those hoping to take advantage of Game Pass’ long-running “14 Days for $1” promotion for Starfield are out of luck. As of now, Microsoft has suspended the promotion until further notice. If you want to play Bethesda’s latest, you’re either going to have to pay the full $10 for the month or just buy the game outright (like we used to).

The promotion’s suspension was first noticed by Wario64 (a well-known leaker of gaming news) and they reported it on X (formerly Twitter) before other outlets like Neowin.net also picked up the story. As noted by both Wario64 and other sites, the promotion’s cancellation oddly coincides with Starfield’s launch next week. So, I guess this is just Microsoft heading all of those who were either waiting for Starfield to use their promo or were planning on abusing said promo through less-than-honest means. Whatever one’s circumstance, there’s not getting around paying the full fee this time.

A lot of people have been quick to call Microsoft scummy for this, and normally I’d welcome it. Major publishers like Microsoft do quite a lot to bilk people out of extra cash, so I’d usually consider the criticism well-earned. However, I suppose I can’t blame them too much for this. Game Pass hasn’t had a true killer app for the entirety of its six years now, meaning Xbox users have had basically no reason to be excited for the service. That might just change with Starfield though, so it only makes sense that Microsoft is going to get as much as it can out of it.

Personally, I’ve recently more or less come around to the opinion that Game Pass and services like it are a mistake. I mean, they are terribly convenient, and it’s nice to have access to so many games for so little money. However, I’m now feeling like these services make games all too disposable. You’re spoiled for choice and have no real sense of ownership over whatever you’re playing, so the old incentives and drives to finish those games and get everything you can out of them just isn’t there with Game Pass.

In other words, the games just don’t feel all that special. I’ve kind of got that feeling with Starfield too. It still looks good of course, but there’s something about being able to just sign up for Game Pass for a month and try it out that just leaves me feeling ambivalent towards it. I’m not sure having a full price boxed copy would change anything, but then I suppose I’d have a lot more reason to get emotionally invested in it. I guess we’ll see how this plays out at launch. Who knows? Maybe my attitude’ll change.

---

How do you feel about this development? Were you planning on using the promo or are you already a subscriber? How are you feeling about the Game Pass model these days?

Image from the Starfield Xbox Store page