Signalis
Member
I also laugh when I read or see the "free part". They must stop paying for GP or PS+ and they'll see how free those games are
Raphael Colantonio (Arkane Co-Founder) "Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass)"
Klayzer
Member
How many times will it have to be said? The game sub model base, is totally different from the movie/TV base. It's not even comparable, imo.
SILKYSMOOTH30FPS
Member
Why would you care about Ultimate? The thing is like $15 Canadian, and you can get it for $1, which i've already done in the past, and plenty of people are still abusing it by creating new accounts. Playing a brand new game like Doom The Dark Ages for $1 feels like a scam, and MS allows this for a long time. No wonder the quality of all their exclusives have dropped like a rock, and the amount of releases is nowhere near what it once was. I mean, just look at Halo 4 and compare it to Halo Infinite as an example. Halo 4 looked amazing for its time, was full of expensive to produce set pieces, and had a ton of cinematics, another thing that's expensive to produce. Then you look at Infinite, a game made for gamepass, and everything feels and looks so cheap that it's as if the budget for the game was less than half of what it was for Halo 4. Games made for being Straight To Gamepass are killing Xbox. What am i saying... it's not killing the Xbox brand, it has killed it, it's over.
They've reworked it already for their console userbase to a point where standard gamepass misses out on most of the releases and you need to pay for the $20 tier to access games, even third party releases that aren't day 1. Once or rather if they achieve a similar market adoption on PC they're likely to try and push those people over to the more expensive tier too. They will never shut down a $2B in revenue venture even if profit is low or nonexistent. You're better off having that and slowly turning that into margins (cutting operating cost and increasing price) than shutting it down.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Ok... how so... You said it was $100 million was the issue, I showed you it was not. Movies, video games, music, everything will move to subscription service. Heck, even productivity software is now all subscription: Microsoft Office, Quickbooks, Turbotax, Salesforce, the use of Looker or PowerBI (plus the server space). Why would games be the one outlier in the entire world? An argument you have not proved.
Jaybe
Member
I think rather than sunset game pass, Microsoft will simply continue to raise price of it incrementally to a price point that becomes a turn off and is there simply for the heavy enthusiast to subscribe to (and people that forget to cancel)
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.001
Sega channel was accepted in the 80s, PlayStation plus in the 2010s and now all of a sudden game pass is gross business practice?
Wasn't the criticism of Microsoft not being game focused and now they have GAME pass.
These weasels keep finding new stuff to cry about
Wasn't the criticism of Microsoft not being game focused and now they have GAME pass.
These weasels keep finding new stuff to cry about
What the hell are you talking about? They made all bethesda and activison games day 1 along with all their inhouse titles. If anything thats the only thing ms delivered and has stood by. Doom eternal was day 1 gamepass and did alright under the same conditions.
What makes you think in the past decade even if those games you mentioned came out based on ms track record there was any decent chance of them being anything above medicore?
gamepass shouldve only been for legacy titles and indies. New releases should hit it after 3months-year after release, depending on a games success.
StreetsofBeige
Member
Exactly.
A ton of the gaming stuff MS cut the past week were either overdue games with nothing to show (after a gazillion years of time and budget), or the games were lousy.
No amount of successful or unsuccessful GP subbing is going to fix that stuff. MS just said forget and cut the cord.
No different than Sony cutting studios or firing 40 people from Bend Studios. Gaming division makes billions of profit every year and couldnt even be bothered to keep on the payroll 40 Bend people. But it all makes sense because they just want to trim the fat.
People have a weird assumption that every big company has to keep every person employed till the day they die like endless pocketbooks. It's all about saving some cash. If the people are good enough, they'd keep their job like the other 96% of people. So if Job Bob Janitor and Sally Secretary can keep their job, it cant be that hard to be among the 96%. You got to to be really screwing up or a waste of space to be fired at a big tech company among a handful of % of people affected.
I can afford giving tech companies more money buying games for $90-100 CDN and paying for the top tier cable/internet plans. What do I care if I spend an extra couple grand per year. I wouldnt even notice it. But I pare down to buying games dirt cheap, just GP it, and scrimp down to levels of internet service I can live with (which at this point according to my ISP's current available plans my choice is the lowest tier now! It used to be second lowest, but I guess they got rid of the bottom one). Good enough for me. It's about being efficient with your cash. Not blow it on stuff that isn't worth pay for. I dont give a shit about having upload/download bandwidth at 2x or 3x the speed for an extra $50/mth. I'll save the money.
Last edited:
TheAmazingSpiderMan
Member
Thanks Xbox fans, you guys literally killed your own console.
Anyone with some decent business logic could see this model was never going to work in the LONG run.
Anyone with some decent business logic could see this model was never going to work in the LONG run.
POKEYCLYDE
Member
Yes surely, it was Gamepass subscribers that made it so developers can't release a game in under 7 years with budgets north of 300 million dollars.
After 7 years it would make sense that you'd have a playable game ready for release, but because of those Gamepass subscribers it's just not possible! Those damn bastards!
playbignbox
Member
You will be surprised when you research the budget of Halo Infinite lol
Durin
Member
I agree that gamepass, like most streaming services, isn't sustainable because it just doesn't make sense to get that much content for a small sub fee. That said, the root issue is the quality average of Microsoft's studios and their inability to stick to/execute on a strategy.
I've always operated on the assumption I'll sub because it's good value to me as a consumer, but they'll end up having to raise prices or diminish the service...which at some point I'll drop off.
Sub services make more sense for smaller studios who need the money to get their games out at all, and a backlog collection of older titles.
I've always operated on the assumption I'll sub because it's good value to me as a consumer, but they'll end up having to raise prices or diminish the service...which at some point I'll drop off.
Sub services make more sense for smaller studios who need the money to get their games out at all, and a backlog collection of older titles.
Valt7786
Member
Pal you've basically parroted what I said? Yeah, Bethesda's stuff was day one GP and...they didn't hit those studio's expected level of quality. Starfield? Indiana (ok didnt suck as such but it wasnt amazing either). Black Ops 6 also not exactly the best CoD to come out in recent years either. Look everythings subjective, maybe you think the sun shines out of Starfields arse I dunno.
Variahunter
Member
People need to realize that MS always had that strategy in mind :
Gamepass was a trojan horse in the games industry, and was supposed to destroy competition by absorbing the enormous losses thanks to MS infinite money. Long term plan of course.
Reasoning was pretty simple back then => who could compete with "free" games when it was 1$ a month ?
They didn't think quality mattered, hence the slop they injected in Gamepass.
After that, plan was simple :
Choose to not see it, if you want.
I'm not giving those dirty bitches a cent.
Gamepass was a trojan horse in the games industry, and was supposed to destroy competition by absorbing the enormous losses thanks to MS infinite money. Long term plan of course.
Reasoning was pretty simple back then => who could compete with "free" games when it was 1$ a month ?
They didn't think quality mattered, hence the slop they injected in Gamepass.
After that, plan was simple :
- Buy 3rd party studios (or even console manufacturer : that email from Phil Spencer wanting to buy Nintendo... you know, that good guy Phil)
- Shut them down until you're the only one left
- Profit because there's no competition anymore
- Ramp up the costs of gamepass, while decreasing quality and games budget.
- Fire even more people to please shareholders so you can make even crappier games thanks to AI, I mean what other choices do these idiot gamers have now ?
Choose to not see it, if you want.
I'm not giving those dirty bitches a cent.
Last edited:
Variahunter
Member
You're such an idiot fanboy.
Enough said.
SILKYSMOOTH30FPS
Member
Oh i am well aware of its $500M bs, but this includes the engine, not just the development of the game. There is no chance that such a cheap looking game, with literally 1 biome was worth anywhere near $500M.
You were talking about sales and games not being released.
xrnzaaas
Member
One of the bad things that Game Pass is doing for the gaming business is that it encourages making games with not that high production values. Would MS allow to work on a 200mil+ games like TLoU2 or Spiderman? Even Sony knows that they need to sell millions of copies just to break even. And here all the profits from Game Pass must be divided between everyone involved in having their games in the sub.
Besides it doesn't work like in TV streaming services. Netflix can make a 200-300 mil blockbuster with superstars in the cast, knowing that it'll bring a lot of new subscribers. It doesn't seem to work like that with bigger games and even the first new CoD in Game Pass didn't cause a massive spike in the sub numbers.
Besides it doesn't work like in TV streaming services. Netflix can make a 200-300 mil blockbuster with superstars in the cast, knowing that it'll bring a lot of new subscribers. It doesn't seem to work like that with bigger games and even the first new CoD in Game Pass didn't cause a massive spike in the sub numbers.
yogaflame
Member
True. Example look what happened to Doom, even if its a good game. For older games it is okay that is why PS plus strategy for me is much better.
playbignbox
Member
These rumors at the time didn't take into account the marketing budget, but let's assume the budget is wrong and is half of that, I still wouldn't call a $250 million game in 2021 "cheap".
SILKYSMOOTH30FPS
Member
$250M is way too much from what we've gotten in Infinite. If i had to put a number on Infinite's budget, i'd say it's around $70M. That's why the story is dogshit, poorly animated with facial expressions from the 7th gen, 1 biome, empty world, pretty much no setpieces we're used to seeing in Previous Halo titles, including even the likes of Halo 5. The game felt indie as hell when you take into consideration that this is their flagship IP.
mayham2199
Member
It's no longer an if imo. It clearly doesn't work. The vast majority of the market just doesn't give a shit about playing so many games because they don't have the time. On top of the fact that so many of the top played games are ftp.
Kataploom
Gold Member
My opinion hasn't changed too much, only MS can say if their approach is right or not, maybe it isn't, but they've called games a success even when they seemingly don't seem too many copies, as long as MS is happy with the results we can consider it sustainable for them.
Now, I've seen something in the past few years: People had preferred to just buy games most of the time, it seems like subscription model isn't appealing to most games including myself, I still play on Game Pass but I've found myself preferring to buy instead of playing the games whenever they're available since I don't have the pressure of doing so asap before they get out of the service.
Maybe Game Pass is only appealing if it's cloud gaming so you don't waste your money buying them? IDK but if MS is ok with it, so be it, they're the most affected by far by its success or failure.
Now, I've seen something in the past few years: People had preferred to just buy games most of the time, it seems like subscription model isn't appealing to most games including myself, I still play on Game Pass but I've found myself preferring to buy instead of playing the games whenever they're available since I don't have the pressure of doing so asap before they get out of the service.
Maybe Game Pass is only appealing if it's cloud gaming so you don't waste your money buying them? IDK but if MS is ok with it, so be it, they're the most affected by far by its success or failure.
clappedcheeks
Member
Why is the Xbox side of this forum infested with so many apologists for MS. Developers speak out against something and the hounds come out to shout everyone down. We should be supporting the games and the developers that make them, not the asshole platform holders that don't give a flying fuck about anything other than the bottom line, and they have no compunction when it comes to fucking you over. That goes for MS, Sony and Nintendo. If you're defending the really crappy practices of these platform holders you have got to either be on the payroll or a completely brain dead troll and unfortunately there seems to be a lot of you fuckers around.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
i think it's only one dude with multiple accounts....it has been rough.
Jerm411
Member
The entire GamePass argument/debacle is why IMO MS and XBox are in such an interesting pincer point…
You've trained your audience to not buy games and subscribe but you're also making it clear that the type of games that feed something like GamePass won't cut it anymore and you're out to maximize money and sales…..so what's the solution?
The growth isn't there and isn't going to be there, it feels like the entire thing is kind of collapsing in on itself….the problem is you've made GamePass synonymous with the brand, you've actually made IT the brand so if you try and walk it back does it just destroy everything at all once?
I don't know what they're aiming for or what they're going to do but I personally can see a world where GamePass is slowly (and maybe not even slowly) walked back and eventually dissolved.
What is the endgame here? Interesting for sure.
You've trained your audience to not buy games and subscribe but you're also making it clear that the type of games that feed something like GamePass won't cut it anymore and you're out to maximize money and sales…..so what's the solution?
The growth isn't there and isn't going to be there, it feels like the entire thing is kind of collapsing in on itself….the problem is you've made GamePass synonymous with the brand, you've actually made IT the brand so if you try and walk it back does it just destroy everything at all once?
I don't know what they're aiming for or what they're going to do but I personally can see a world where GamePass is slowly (and maybe not even slowly) walked back and eventually dissolved.
What is the endgame here? Interesting for sure.
playbignbox
Member
Dude, in my country the monthly subscription to PC GamePass costs less than 1/10 of what an individual game costs... This year alone I've played Indiana Jones, Ninja Gaiden, E33 and I'm going to play Doom, Metaphor and Wuchang in the next few months, not to mention smaller indie games that I've played like Mullet Madjack.
So I ask you, who exactly are these practices bad for? Because as a consumer I'm loving it. But you can pay 80 dollars when the Blade game comes out, to give the poor developer a helping hand.
AmuroChan
Member
Not only new subscribers, but Netflix has reached a critical mass of subs which gives them the sustained revenue to be profitable. It didn't happen overnight. It took Netflix many years to get to that point and they now have 300m subscribers. XBox wants GP to become the Netflix of games, but they've hit a wall in terms of subs and there's no clear path for them to grow the subscriber base at a fast enough pace to justify the expenses. It's also clear that Satya has no patience to allow XBox to just be a loss leader in this pursuit for years and years, especially after spending nearly $100B to acquire ABK and Bethesda. No doubt the shareholders of MS demand to see a faster ROI from those acquisitions.
playbignbox
Member
It seems like you have no idea about the budget and are assuming a value that fits with your argument that Halo Infinite was a cheap game to fit the GamePass model, when this is completely contrary to the rumors.
TheAmazingSpiderMan
Member
Incompetent management and incompetent studios will do that for you!
POKEYCLYDE
Member
Someone from Arkane is upset that developers are losing their jobs, solely placing the blame on a subscription service that is largely a great value for consumers.
Each game that was cancelled was over 6 years in development with not much to show for it. That is not Gamepass' fault.
So it's no surprise an Arkane developer is scared about losing their job, Deathloop was their last game released in 2021. So their next title Blade has been in development for 4 years with nothing but an announcement trailer shown.
POKEYCLYDE
Member
Hence, these division cuts will "remove layers of management."
MiguelItUp
Member
I couldn't agree more. I'm not defending it either, but there's always been this bizarre hate boner for Game Pass here. I think the issue revolves around Microsoft/Xbox and their management and higher up decision making.
There's "details" online, but nothing that is factual evidence as far as I know. It's basically a lot of "this source" and "that source" but nothing official and/or from the source. But then you also get studios talking GP up. I always thought it was odd that anytime something bad happens at Microsoft/Xbox everyone looks at Game Pass, rather than looking at everything else that could very well be the actual problem.
Knucklepux
Member
Maybe someone said this but the devs aren't scared in the way you're saying
They're worried that subscription services being the main drive will decrease budgets and have publishers totally control what game gets made.
You're accusing the devs of exactly what MS is doing. Trying to out price people and push them into their subscription service that they will continue to increase the cost
Gamepass robs us of creativity and emphasizes quick turnaround and microtransaction loaded games
They've put out some smaller games but they obviously realize it's not worth it for a Hellblade, South of Midnight and even the failed Doom
They don't want games, they want storefronts
ChorizoPicozo
Member
so...you think things are going to get better?
Poppinfresh
Member
Expedition 33 proves that a studio can release a game on Gamepass and still sell millions of copies.
The secret is that the game has to be good.
Gamepass isn't the problem. Studios making sub-par slop and trying to pass it off as the next big AAA game is the problem.
TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Exactly my man. GP might be just one tree, but there's a whole forest behind it made of poor decisions and bad management.
PurePlatinum
Member
It subtly devalues the product in the mind of the consumer...in a way that hurts the business in the long term. That's the biggest un-quantifiable metric in the whole equation.
Nintendo can, and will, get you to pay $60-$80 for their first party software, for the life of the product, with it never going on sale. This imbibes their products with the expectation of quality (and 95% of the time, they live up to this expectation).
MSFT is basically giving their games away, and it's teaching everyone that their games aren't worth buying.
Nintendo can, and will, get you to pay $60-$80 for their first party software, for the life of the product, with it never going on sale. This imbibes their products with the expectation of quality (and 95% of the time, they live up to this expectation).
MSFT is basically giving their games away, and it's teaching everyone that their games aren't worth buying.
MiguelItUp
Member
Exactly! It likely also helped that Expedition 33 wasn't a $70+ title. In a world where a lot of new games have an MSRP of $70, why wouldn't a game that's cheaper and plays better than a lot of AAA titles not knock it out the park?
Yup, or the amount of studios that were/are in development for well over a few years and had nothing to really show. It just really isn't a good look.
Layoffs suck, they always have and they always will. But at some point you have to wonder what the actual problems are. What is the root (or roots) of the problem? Money isn't an issue for Microsoft/Xbox, and Game Pass isn't the sole factor to blame here at all. I mean, look at it this way, if Game Pass didn't exist, I highly doubt they'd be in a better position. Hell, I feel like they'd be in an even worse spot. It was said in another thread, but I honestly think Game Pass has helped their company/brand more than anything else at the moment, which is why they continue to lean into it more and more. Without it, I honestly don't know what Xbox would have going for them. It really feels like they don't have a whole lot these days unfortunately..
Nydius
Member
If you can play, using your numbers, 10 games for the same cost as one game at retail, it hurts the people who are reliant on recovering the costs on their games.
Surely you cannot be that ignorant to understand this. If a game costs several hundred million to produce and everyone pays a fraction of retail for a month to play it, they are losing ridiculous amounts of money.
"It's great for me as a consumer!"
Until you realize your purchasing habits have devalued the fuck out of the entire industry, and Microsoft will no longer take risks on big budget titles because people like you are out here bragging about only spending 1/10th the cost.
POKEYCLYDE
Member
Hopefully. Team sizes are so big that implementing the smallest of things needs 10 layers of approval and 5 meetings, this is why development costs and times are skyrocketing. Bungie had around 120 employees and a 3 year dev time for Halo 3's release. That absolute masterpiece was done with less than half the time and employees than any AAA studio in today's industry.
If Microsoft were to axe Gamepass tomorrow, developers would still have overinflated budgets and development cycles spanning nearly a decade. Trash video games would still be trash. And development studios would still layoff employees or shutter when sales don't net profit.
Klayzer
Member
Truth
SILKYSMOOTH30FPS
Member
Like you have any factual information. Your whole argument is centered around a rumor. Me on the other hand, i can clearly see with a pair of eyes that Infinite is way more cheapo made than previously released titles, and anyone who've played all the Halo titles could easily notice this. The way Infinite was made, is not how you release a flagship game. Do i need to remind you about the first gameplay reveil with a mega backlash it has gotten before MS was forced to delay the game by year? That demo was the way the final product was supposed to look, yes, THAT THING. If it wasn't for the shitstorm, that furgly ass demo is what MS considered as being good enough for the final release.
Radical_3d
Member
Nobody? The industry is way worse since devs don't come over GAF anymore.
playbignbox
Member
But this is Microsoft itself, which owns the studio and is offering its game on the service. The problem is solely theirs, the consumer has absolutely nothing to do with it. Or, as a consumer, when you see a good offer, you go around asking everyone "but are you making money from this?"