In the UK we at least still have most of the residual EU consumer protection law in place, so a lot of this kind of stuff that’s common in the US would be illegal here. That said, companies still manage to innovate new ways to screw the consumer all the time.
One of the games you can download on Android with a Netflix subscription is Into the Breach. I played that game so much while I had a subscription. It plays so well on mobile and I wish I could just pay the devs to own a copy but sadly Netflix is the only way to play it on that platform. I doesn’t quite seem worth resubbing to Netflix for one game.
I just want games where the devs get to release the game they wanted to make without the studio enshittification microtransactions, always-online single player and so on tagged on to it.
I know everything I’ve spent on video games/gaming hardware since 2016, and all the books I’ve read in the last couple of years.
I’m the kind of nerd who tracks this kind of thing, so here is a list of the number of months between purchasing each phone I’ve owned, from newest to oldest:
5, 44, 47, 28, 23, 18, 46, 40
The first number is 5 months from my latest phone purchase to the present day. I’m not looking to replace this device any time soon. The previous two phones I owned lasted a decent amount of time, nearly 4 years each. Before that I was buying cheaper second hand phones that didn’t last as long. And if you go way back, the final two devices are pre-smartphone era where phones were simpler with less to go wrong and less need to upgrade.
I’m almost never willing to pay current AAA game prices for a game that it’s possible I’ll be bored with after a few hours. I’d much rather spend the same amount on 3 or 4 well-reviewed indie games as the chances are I’ll get at least one game amongst them that I’ll enjoy investing my time into.