Atomfall 'Immediately Profitable' at Launch Despite Countless Players Coming From Game Pass

havoc00

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Atomfall developer Rebellion has said that its hit British survival game became "immediately profitable" upon release, despite the fact that a chunk of its 2 million players came from Xbox Game Pass — and therefore did not buy the title outright for themselves.



Rebellion has not revealed sales figures for Atomfall, which launched for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S back on March 27, 2025.

Instead, the developer has simply discussed the fact that Atomfall has been its biggest ever launch in terms of player numbers — something that will have been aided by Game Pass subscribers simply checking the title out via Xbox and PC.

Still, Atomfall has clearly not suffered as a result. Speaking to The Game Business, Rebellion said the post-apocalyptic northern England simulator had immediately made back its development costs.

And now, Rebellion says, the studio is currently discussing plans for potential sequels or spin-offs, while continuing work on Atomfall's ongoing post-launch support and DLC.

In a previous interview with IGN sister site GamesIndustry.biz, Rebellion boss Jason Kingsley said that Atomfall's launch as part of Game Pass had successfully avoided the risk of "cannabilising" sales.

"What you gain from that cost is disproportionate," Kingsley said, noting that however a game sells, Microsoft does guarantee a "certain level of income" to mitigate risk.


 
>Get Microsoft to pay the development costs of the game with a gamepass deal.
>Sell one copy of the game at launch
>???
>Immediately profit
Checkmate atheists
 
Because they are reusing so many assets. I have played the game and many assets are literally textures from Sniper Elite
 
A really interesting game that I need to wrap up at some point. I enjoyed the approach to more open areas and lack of waypoint markers. Exploration feels organic and the locations are interesting. I'd like to see more engaging combat and better stealth mechanics going forward though.
 
I swear some of you think that companies put these games on Gamepass and Playstation+ Extra/Premium for free as is evidenced by the first sentence in the OP. Good lord.
 
I swear some of you think that companies put these games on Gamepass and Playstation+ Extra/Premium for free as is evidenced by the first sentence in the OP. Good lord.
I mean you literally read every day some argument about GP "not supporting developers".

When in fact GP-style deal money is a steady, fixed income that actually comes when a developer needs it (during development).
 
Without knowing the game's budget, how much MS paid, and how many copies it sold, this is a kind of non-statement when it comes to how successful the game actually is. I downloaded it, played it for 20 minutes and uninstalled it. Yet I am counted as "player".

(I might play it later, just wanted to test it for now)
 
Is the game profitable because it generated enough revenue from players to be profitable, or is it profitable because Microsoft gave them a chunk of money and ate whatever loss there was?
 
Without knowing the game's budget, how much MS paid, and how many copies it sold, this is a kind of non-statement when it comes to how successful the game actually is. I downloaded it, played it for 20 minutes and uninstalled it. Yet I am counted as "player".

(I might play it later, just wanted to test it for now)

Engagement baby!!
 
Hey, as long as dev studio budgeted properly, i got 0 qualms with that, and yeh- its perfectly fine to get a gamepass microsoft deal, w/e it takes to make it within game's budget without hurting game's quality, u can even make the deal with the devil :D
 
Why "despite".....Why not Because of.
Yeah, lol, I noticed that.
Awkward Krieger GIF by Archer
 
It's pretty clear that the overwhelmingly major problem with gaming is simply that AAA studios are just spending far far far too much money and time to make their games and have become wildly inefficient and bloated to the point that they need the best part of 10mil sales to be profitable. It really doesn't need to be this way.
 
It's a decent game, I think in my OT short little review I mentioned that It wasn't going to win any awards and be forgotten by Summertime.
Ok I'll take a look on gamepass when there's a bit of downtime in releases. Still kinda chewing through Towerborne and Expedition 33.
 
Why "despite".....Why not Because of.
Because people have assumptions that create bias and can't get past them sometimes. Obviously it is because of the GamePass deal. Any good game that launches on GamePass too should do better on on other platforms for users without access to GP than it would with those gamers otherwise because there is more discussion and word of mouth.
 
Waiting on a sale since it seems pretty barebones, but I'm glad they feel good about it. Hopefully they get to make another one and expand on it.
 
What made this game weird too me was the fact that it didn't have a day/night cycle and instead the game was daylight all the time. For a survival game that just seems like a completely bizarre omission.
 
Interesting, the game graphically is AA B tier, the missions are fun but nothing You have not seen before. The gameplay es pretty basic not deep( inventory management , habilities)

This is an example You can get proffits with a fun Game and without bleeding your resources. Bet te Game cost less than 50 US millions.
 
Not all Game Pass deals are created equal. We know this.

Some work out, some do not.
Which ones haven't?
Games like Clair Obscur, Palworld, Manor Lords have still been break out hits even with the gamepass option available. The also rans like Atomfall are breaking even at launch.
They only complaints I recall seeing is that some people dont manage to get a deal.
 
Which ones haven't?
Games like Clair Obscur, Palworld, Manor Lords have still been break out hits even with the gamepass option available. The also rans like Atomfall are breaking even at launch.
They only complaints I recall seeing is that some people dont manage to get a deal.
If only we had a forum where there were devs/threads who complained about it not working out well for them with Game Pass.

Gamer amnesia is the worst.
 
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If only we had a forum where there were devs/threads who complained about it not working out well for them with Game Pass.

Gamer amnesia is the worst.
Links?
I remember threads where people there were complaints that deals were drying up or the offers were way lower than they used to be. I remember a thread where a 'developer' gave his opinion that it was devaluing games etc. I remember some threads about developers abandoning xbox completely because they couldn't get developer kits and couldn't get anyone from xbox to answer them.
I dont recall any threads where a developer said they regretted taking a gamepass deal.
 
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