Google has already been forthcoming about the availability of free games every month for Stadia Pro subscribers, something which gamers have grown accustomed to with other similar services on different platforms. Today the Stadia director of product has clarified that a little bit more during the official Stadia AMA on Reddit, noting that the free games given out to those who subscribe to Pro will be “roughly one per month give or take,” but it will also be a growing pool of titles.
Up until now there has been some confusion on whether the free games each month would be accessible only for the month they were released or stack up in a library not too unlike PlayStation Plus and Xbox Games With Gold. Since games will be a growing pool this means players who subscribe to Stadia Pro will have an ever growing library of games that they can play which they did not have to buy like the standalone titles.
Naturally, you will need to keep your Stadia Pro subscription in tact if you want to continue playing the games you were given for free. This is how it works for both Sony and Microsoft’s versions of the service, so it’s not surprising to see Google taking the same approach and going along with the industry standard so to speak.
Although games will be a growing pool, it’s not entirely clear if there will actually be a free game every single month. Roughly one per month give or take could mean that some months will have one while others will have more than one, and it’s also possible that some months may have no free games at all. What’s more likely though is that some months may have one, like November’s title which is Destiny 2″ The Collection, while other months may have two or three smaller titles.
This would make a lot more sense from a comparative standpoint as you’ll often get two games each month with PS Plus, and in the past there have been three or four if they were smaller games.
So, you get roughly one game per month while you subscribe to Stadia Pro, but what happens to those games if you unsubscribe at any point? They’ll stay in your library and will reappear the moment you decide to resubscribe, but just like with PS Plus any games that are offered to Pro subscribers while you’re away will not be accessible if you ever restart your subscription, so there’s incentive to keep it around as you never know what you might miss out on.
With that said, it’s always possible to keep an eye on the titles that will be free each month, and resubscribe during the months where a title you like is available. This way you don’t miss out on any games you want to add to that growing pool and you can skip the ones you don’t care for.
With the games staying in your library, this gives players a little more freedom to cut their subscriptions if they ever need to step away for a month or two, and surely this will make the idea of subscribing a little more enticing to consumers knowing that they have this opportunity.