14 eur a month x 12 = an absolute metric ton of games on sale that I do actually play. I mean, spend 168 eur on games, its more than I can play in a year. All you get on the Bundle are games that have seen (deep) discounts. Or perhaps even got released for free on, say, EGS. On the flip side: not even just older games either but some even in early access or close to release are not priced that high... I bought Vampire Survivors and Hall of Torment prior to my holiday for what... 6,- together... V Rising was 24,99. Bulwark was 12,-... Farthest Frontier is 29,50.
These comparisons don't really do justice to the fact that any kind of preconfigured 'bundle' is much the same as a Game Pass: you don't control what content you buy. You get served content. Its only a good deal because you want to believe it is, but honestly, you can also maintain personal purchase power, keep 168 eur in pocket and spend it on the exact products you really do want to support and play.
But sure, if your mojo is 'I'll play what I get served' then that's fine and Humble is a fine deal too. Its a bit like 'linear TV'. You pay for cable, and then you'll just mindlessly zap between channels, its all moving imagery, so that's great. But in my mind, we got digital distribution exactly to avoid the linear TV slavery. We can now access the exact content we want, when we want it, without being steered and manipulated by the cadence publishers love us to be in to max their profit; or in the case of linear TV, watch as many commercials as possible.
And beyond that, there is the problem of 'Time vs consumption rate vs actual cost of services' when taken as a whole. Subscriptions always cost money, but do you get your money's worth every time? In the case of Bundles: do you really use all those game codes, or is the better half either 'gifted' (ergo not used, you wasted money bottom line) or just simply sitting in a library for years on end? And if you're playing your Bundle-games... that's time your not using your, say, Netflix account for all it is worth. Whichever way you push this, you're going to waste 'subscription money/time' unless you do three things simultaneously, which we mostly just can't unless we're talking about listening to Spotify while slaying Xenos scum in Battlesector. To some extent that's fine. But I believe there's no way you are actually keeping track of this, while you ARE certain money is filtered from your pocket every month. Tally up the cost of a few of those on-demand subs you've got and suddenly you're looking at >300 eur per year for content you never chose. Or 500. Or even more. That's serious money.
