Welp
Players can only access the lowest rank of competitive gameplay for free, and access to any higher levels costs a subscription fee of $2.50 a month. That’s right, you’ll need a subscription to play GeoGuessr on Steam, for some reason.
Not only is this price point bizarre for a game that you can literally just hop into similar browser versions and play for free, but […]
GeoGuessr has required a subscription to actually play for a while now. I think they had a very limited Free tier until 2024, but it was not a great experience. The developers claim that they need to charge a subscription fee because they need to pay Google for the Streetview API access. To me, that seems plausible and would justify a subscription model (as opposed to a one-time purchase).
On the other hand, OpenGuessr seems to be a free alternative that offers a very similar game. That certainly seems like a better alternative if it’s sustainable.
I understand the subscription model is required since every player is bound to cost them money for every round, but apparently even if you’re already subscribed to GeoGuessr you have to pay again for the Steam version which is absurd to me.
Yeah, that seems quite weird and not customer friendly at all. I was wondering if it has something to do with Steam’s in-game purchase conditions (mostly the fee).
I’m not sure if it’s just because Ubisoft has a special contract but for Trackmania I’m able to pay the subscription either through Ubisoft directly or through Steam.
Geotastic is another great alternative that is funded by donations and ads (which you can remove by donating once)
Yeah I enjoyed GeoGuessr and wishlisted it in Steam when it was announced. Got an email from Steam saying it was available and opened the store page to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews.
I’ve played OpenGuessr and it’s pretty close to the same experience, I never do versus or anything, just a casual player. I did notice it tended to put me in the same countries quite often, like 8 instances of Brazil and 3 in the Philippines in 20 rounds, but still enjoyable.
I think it was obvious that it was never going to be a free game again. The problem is making it look like it’s free to play and then hitting the player with a paywall after a few games. Also, the subscription model is shitty. I would readily put down a onetime payment for something that works as least as good as the web version, which is a lot more polished than the free alternatives I’ve seen. But I refuse to buy into this subscription model.
You can thank Google for that - they are charging for every API call. A one time payment would either have to be ridiculously high, or it could ruin GeoGuessr.
I had to look way too hard just to figure out what the fuck the monetization scheme is on that article that kept repeating the headline 3 times, holy shit
I always thought that given that personal use of google street maps os free for the user. It would be really easy to just make a copy of that game for free relying on scrapping instead of api calls.
Insert chad scrapper vs virgin API user meme.
I’m assuming it has to do with paying for the Google map api calls. If that’s what it is they should say so if that’s not what it is they are scummy
Playing a game like this involves a heavier server load compared to normal use, right? Would that incur a significant cost to said alternative? (I don’t actually know how the magic box works.)
since its open i’m assuming you can download the data and host it yourself, freeing the regular public server not made for these requests. and that it would probably be cheaper than paying google for api calls.
don’t quote me on any of that though, quite a bunch of assumptions off the top of my weary head. i’m not versed on the specifics of this magic box either and was hoping for someone who does to chime in.
