The game I most recently bought is Trackmania United Forever, still $15 on sale even though it came out in 2008. I suppose my purchase of that is less though than of what they get from a user playing their new subscription based (!) racing game for a year.
I wouldn’t call a game that came out in 2023 “old”.
Just 1 year can make certain genres ancient. Mostly multiplayer only titles, but also meme games.
For publisher bottom lines, it absolutely would be!
Basically anything not purchased this fiscal quarter may as well be non-existent to them - hence the push towards reoccurring monetisation.
Meanwhile I’m currently (slowly) playing through a massive backlog of games from the 2010s, so I’m good!
The game I most recently bought is Trackmania United Forever, still $15 on sale even though it came out in 2008. I suppose my purchase of that is less though than of what they get from a user playing their new subscription based (!) racing game for a year.