Google has prepared its new subscription service Play Pass – they offer for $ 5 a month to get access to 350 games and applications without ads and additional purchases inside. This is similar to Apple Arcade, but there is a fundamental difference between the two.
How it works
Apple Arcade subscription only gives access to games, some of which are exclusive. Google has added not only games to the list, but also applications. In addition, all the apps on this list are taken from the Play Store, which means you can buy them without a subscription. There are also free applications, but when you subscribe, ads disappear from them and additional functions open that were previously available for money.
Although the rest of the services are similar. They cost the same – $ 5 in the US. The subscription can be made as a family subscription to be divided by 6 people. But in the first year, the Play Pass costs only $ 2 per month, almost 20 rubles per person.
It turns out a lucrative offer for those who like to play on a smartphone or tablet. Especially considering that many of the games on the Play Pass list cost more than a month of subscription. But for developers, the benefit is dubious – they will receive money for the hours that the user spent in the application.
What do they give by subscription
On the official page of the Google Play Pass service, many interesting and famous games are shown, which separately cost a few dollars, and by subscription they are free. There are much fewer applications there: they show Tunable for creating simple music, Pic Stitch for collages, AccuWeather for weather. But this is only part of the promised three hundred.
I wondered what Google has to offer for $ 5 a month. The complete list of subscription applications is nowhere to be found; on the Internet, they generally forgot about this service immediately after the announcement. So I had to subscribe myself to explore the range. It turned out to be easy to connect the Play Pass in Russia, the instructions will be at the end.
It turned out that the most interesting thing Google brought to the main page. Everything else is low-grade games and useless programs. Therefore, it is not worth keeping a pretty number of 350 applications.
By my rough estimate, there are no more than 50 really good games in the Play Pass. There are beautiful two parts of Monument Valley, an exciting sandbox Terraria, an unusual farm simulator Stardew Valley, the legendary Star Wars: KOTOR, an eerily attractive Limbo, an interesting puzzle Bridge Construction Portal and a few dozen more good games. Each of them is worth special attention, and by subscription you have the opportunity to try everything at once. True, not everything will be convenient to play on a smartphone – ideally if you have a tablet.
But there are many more strange games. There are very primitive things like Sudoku, chess or a few dozen solitaire games that are easy to find for free in the Play Store. The only plus is that they come without ads. But board games are not the worst thing. The subscription offers a lot of the same type of quests, bad copies of GTA and just a bunch of junk games, most of which you don't want to install even for free.
The problem is that amid dozens of bad games, really good things are lost. Google understands this very well, so almost all worthy games are offered first in the lists. But some still have to look. So I stumbled upon Game Dev Tycoon, This Is the Police and Reigns by accident.
I did not find any good subscription programs at all: there are a bunch of calendars, music players, photo editors and other applications that can be replaced with better analogs. Of the more or less useful, there is the Moon + Reader Pro, but it has been sold many times for a penny.
What is the result
You can try the Play Pass to play some fun games and then turn it off. Getting a few dozen cool games for $ 5 a month is a good deal. Especially if the subscription gets to Russia at a price of no more than 200 rubles, which can be divided by six.
True, Google overdid it in pursuit of the number of applications, so out of 350 positions there are only no more than fifty worthy examples. There are no useful programs here at all. The company clearly needs to raise the bar for quality for third-party developers, because now everyone is allowed in. In this regard Apple Arcade looks more interesting.
How to connect in Russia
Play Pass has only been launched in the US so far. Google has promised that the service will work in other countries, but it is not known when. If you were not scared away by my review of the service, then you can subscribe in Russia by changing the Play Store region.
Important: you shouldn't change the region on your main account, because you can do this once a year. I recommend creating a new account for this.
- Connect to an American server through any VPN
- Go to 'Settings' smartphone → 'Applications' and find the Google Play Store there. Click the 'Stop application' button
- After that, you need to open the Play Store, in the side menu go to 'Account'.
- The store will offer to change the region to the USA – for confirmation, you need to enter your bank card details and zip code.
In my case, the service accepted the Sberbank card and the Delaware city index without any problems. If you plan to use only the trial period, then it is better to immediately cancel the subscription so that later the money will not be withdrawn.