Raphael Colantonio (Arkane Co-Founder) "Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass)"

"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.
MS is the one taking the risks and making the internal calculations of return, not the consumer.

The idea that the player should feel guilty about his consumption habits or for taking advantage of a valid offer is completely disconnected from market logic and makes no sense at all.
 
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.
You are right about this. Which underscores how bad MS/Xbox leadership has been since the second half of the 360. Game Pass for them just makes the overall business of the division even more difficult. But in terms of game development and publishing... There is no hope for them.
 
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.
I'm not sure about any numbers, but the argument that the game was cheap was yours, you should have given an easy-to-check number, but you don't have the numbers and you disagree by a very large difference from the rumored numbers.

And trying to relate quality to budget is also flawed, especially when you look at the budgets of games like Suicide Squad, Redfall or Concord, the finished game doesn't always reflect its budget. I think that given the size of 343i and the production time, a cost of $70 million is unrealistic.

Also: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/8848...osoft-hundreds-of-millions-dollars/index.html
 
And Netflix killed movie production, lol.

Sure bro. Streaming in the film business brought us more content than ever before. But the opposite will happen with games? I don't think so.

I mean... the movie business ain't what it used to be, and streaming and the race to the bottom in terms of quality vs quantity is a big part of it. I can't remember a time there was so much to watch and so little of it actually worth watching.
 
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!
I believe it was. In the case of Turn 10 I'm convinced it was. They were outputing games every 2 years before without fail. Gamepass comes along and they take near 7 years with delays then put out that crud in the end. Why? Because the studio was no longer fending for itself competing to sell games. It was merely getting a cut from gamepass money month after month and delays were just your scheduled quarter to release to prevent churn. all the past quarters paying subscribers were funding them while they released nothing. You could say "oh but that could have been prevented with better management if they pushed them to release games quicker even without this urgency. That's poor management". Possibly, but then why did they go on to promote the leader of Turn 10 as the new head of Xbox Game Studios? Failing upwards seems to have become a thing at xbox. There is no incentive for the studio heads to release faster because it's all months/engagement based. You wait longer, you get more subscription money. Before if you waited longer you get mounting costs with no sales. This affords them the luxury of being lazy as long as there is at least some game coming that prevents a mass exodus from Gamepass by subscribers.
 
GP isn't the problem. Day 1 is the problem.
GP IS day 1.

that's how MS sold the service: shills were beyond thrilled to call it "the future of gaming" and parrot every marketing line like "the best value in gaming" at every turn; some even made songs about it. And because of that, if they try to pull back on this selling point, the service would lose all its perceived value.
 
I'm not sure about any numbers, but the argument that the game was cheap was yours, you should have given an easy-to-check number, but you don't have the numbers and you disagree by a very large difference from the rumored numbers.

And trying to relate quality to budget is also flawed, especially when you look at the budgets of games like Suicide Squad, Redfall or Concord, the finished game doesn't always reflect its budget. I think that given the size of 343i and the production time, a cost of $70 million is unrealistic.

Also: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/8848...osoft-hundreds-of-millions-dollars/index.html
I said that it looks super cheap compared to all previous games, and it's very obvious when you're playing it, and pay attention to detail. I also said that it feels like the game costs significiantly less to develop than something like Halo 4.

Does this look like an expensive game to you? Let me rephrase that. Does this look like a flagship game to you? And this applies to everything, not just important characters.


Now this is Halo 4, a game that wasn't made for Gamepass, created a generation before Halo Infinite, and was released in 2012.

Yea, straight to gamepass ain't destroying the quality of their games. Not at all.🥱
 
When devs get scared, you know you're getting an actual good deal as a consumer. None of these developers have to participate in it. What they're worried about is not being able to compete against it and have people buy their games for $80. Good, I hope they lose sleep over it.
Reality is that unsustainable deals can be great for consumers in the short term but they destroy long term creative viability. It's the exact same logic of cheering on Wal Mart for undercutting local business. You get cheap stuff today at the price of a monopolized hellscape tomorrow. When Microsoft uses its war chest to subsidize below-market rates it creates market distortions. Smaller studios face an impossible choice between accepting unfavorable terms to reach the game pass audience or competing against "free" for mind share. It's a loss leader strategy by MS designed to consolidate power.

Seeing developers openly trying to push for price collusion shows you how threatened they are.
Equating developers discussing sustainable pricing with "price collusion" is either disingenuous or economically illiterate. These are competing businesses expressing concern about a platform that effectively commoditizes their work. It's like farmers worrying about a grocery monopoly - not collusion, but collective alarm at systemic risk.

They are scared you're getting a good deal, scared that you have a lot to play. They want you to have less options that cost more.

Whats especially hilarious is someone from Larian parroting this bullshit. Reminds me of the complaints about Baldurs Gate offering the consumer too much at too high quality so other developers started complaining about it. Pretty ironic they are just as quick to do that same kind of complaining.
Larian competed on quality within traditional sales models, the exact opposite of a subscription service that trains audiences to value individual games at pennies, if anything at all. Complaining about a competitor making a good game is different from warning about a model that could make premium game development economically unviable.

A lot of developers have this tendency to treat the consumer like trash and like they are owed their money. Make a product we want at a price we want or retire. These complaints are the screeching of someone getting beat on price and selection
This ignores basic realities of production costs and the time required to create quality. By this logic, we should celebrate if Amazon starts selling $5 steaks - who cares if it bankrupts ranchers and replaces beef with lab-grown slurry?


When subscriptions like game pass dominate, Microsoft decides what gets made and that is not a future that anybody wants to be a part of.
 
I believe it was. In the case of Turn 10 I'm convinced it was. They were outputing games every 2 years before without fail. Gamepass comes along and they take near 7 years with delays then put out that crud in the end. Why? Because the studio was no longer fending for itself competing to sell games. It was merely getting a cut from gamepass money month after month and delays were just your scheduled quarter to release to prevent churn. all the past quarters paying subscribers were funding them while they released nothing. You could say "oh but that could have been prevented with better management if they pushed them to release games quicker even without this urgency. That's poor management". Possibly, but then why did they go on to promote the leader of Turn 10 as the new head of Xbox Game Studios? Failing upwards seems to have become a thing at xbox. There is no incentive for the studio heads to release faster because it's all months/engagement based. You wait longer, you get more subscription money. Before if you waited longer you get mounting costs with no sales. This affords them the luxury of being lazy as long as there is at least some game coming that prevents a mass exodus from Gamepass by subscribers.
So Gamepass incentivizes studios to take their time and release later? Driving up costs?

Well, carrot meet stick. The incentive to keep costs down and release in a timely manner now is: "If you don't, you get fired."
 
It's almost as if some of us have been talking about it for years:

People really need to get rid of this cancerous "Game pass" mentality, it's a detriment to the entire industry which is dependent on us *buying games*, especially when it comes to smaller devs like this one who aren't Square, CAPCOM, Ubisoft, Activision etc. Now, if it's not feasible to buy the game at the moment due to economic realities then I completely understand that, just say that or don't say anything at all. This isn't the "perfect Game pass game", it's the perfect game to buy right now and support the devs who put their blood, sweat and tears into it. As a bonus it's only $50 on console, I think it's even cheaper on PC👌

Update, nothing's changed, GamePass is still a detriment to the industry but I guess it takes an IQ above that of an eggplant to understand why.
 
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No one?

We HAVE been talking about it for the past 5 years constantly, but we were labeled as "warriors", "haters", and "fake concerned." It's a value-destructive service and should not exist.
 
Any average sane human with logic functioning brain thats not retarded or in any sort of payroll from MS can see this shit from miles away and have been saying this ever since.
 
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Reality is that unsustainable deals can be great for consumers in the short term but they destroy long term creative viability. It's the exact same logic of cheering on Wal Mart for undercutting local business. You get cheap stuff today at the price of a monopolized hellscape tomorrow. When Microsoft uses its war chest to subsidize below-market rates it creates market distortions. Smaller studios face an impossible choice between accepting unfavorable terms to reach the game pass audience or competing against "free" for mind share. It's a loss leader strategy by MS designed to consolidate power.


Equating developers discussing sustainable pricing with "price collusion" is either disingenuous or economically illiterate. These are competing businesses expressing concern about a platform that effectively commoditizes their work. It's like farmers worrying about a grocery monopoly - not collusion, but collective alarm at systemic risk.


Larian competed on quality within traditional sales models, the exact opposite of a subscription service that trains audiences to value individual games at pennies, if anything at all. Complaining about a competitor making a good game is different from warning about a model that could make premium game development economically unviable.


This ignores basic realities of production costs and the time required to create quality. By this logic, we should celebrate if Amazon starts selling $5 steaks - who cares if it bankrupts ranchers and replaces beef with lab-grown slurry?


When subscriptions like game pass dominate, Microsoft decides what gets made and that is not a future that anybody wants to be a part of.
Your argument overlooks some important nuances:

- Games are fundamentally different from commodities like those sold at Walmart. You don't choose to play one game over another simply because it's cheaper, you play what you're interested in. That's not how people buy rice or toilet paper. Value in games is subjective and deeply personal, not purely transactional.

- Aggressive market practices aren't exclusive to Microsoft. Epic gives away games weekly to pull users into their ecosystem. Steam runs massive sales. Sony gives away titles on PlayStation Plus. Yet somehow, the criticism is always focused on Game Pass, even though all major players engage in similar tactics to gain mindshare.

- The "monopoly" scenario only becomes a real concern if Game Pass becomes so dominant that it eliminates the option to buy and own games outright. But we're far from that. Plenty of options.
 
Any sane average sane human with logic functioning brain thats not retarded or in any sort of payroll from MS can see this shit from miles away and have been saying this ever since.
Y'all are getting one guy'd by a single developer worried about his job. There are a litany of developers and studios who have praised Gamepass and what it does for their games.

Instead of taking accountability for making trash games, let's blame Gamepass. If Marvel's Blade comes out and is amazing and then Arkane Lyon is met with layoffs... alright, I'll eat my words. But for now, you're taking the word of a developer who's last game was mid at best.
 
Just look at how many third-party AAA games have been released on the service... None. All niche, indie, and AA. That was a sign, actually.
Not having third parties on your subscription service is the goal. Renting content for your service is not ideal. Its costly and you can lose access to content has become a key part of your service over night.
 
Gamepass kills game sales for first party studios which in turn means less profit to keep things afloat. So the only way to sustain gamepass is to cut jobs and reduce costs because it's not bringing in enough profit to sustain itself.

There's another answer.

Just stop putting first party games on GP - at least day/date anyway.

That was a problem from the get go, and yet MS rather close studios and cancel games than take that obvious step. 🤷‍♂️
 
Y'all are getting one guy'd by a single developer worried about his job. There are a litany of developers and studios who have praised Gamepass and what it does for their games.

Instead of taking accountability for making trash games, let's blame Gamepass. If Marvel's Blade comes out and is amazing and then Arkane Lyon is met with layoffs... alright, I'll eat my words. But for now, you're taking the word of a developer who's last game was mid at best.
you are doing what i call: "stepping on shit on purpose"

ironically, you are just as fixated by the comment of a dev trying to use another devs to counter argue.... lame.

There have been CEOs talking about the issues with Game Pass. I mean, Bobby Kotick himself spoke about it during the FTC trial, and both Jim Ryan and Strauss Zelnick have commented on it as well, Shawn Layden too.. you know? the money people.

And even days before the layoffs, neurons started firing in Brad Sams... The realization that Game Pass was a mistake is starting to set in for several shills too.

so... random comments from devs are meaningless (especially if the dev is an indie one) when the issues around Game Pass are rooted on economics of the service.

MS killed Tango after Greenberg tweeted that the game was a breakout hit in all key metrics... That should not only have raised a red flag, but also shined a light on MS/Xbox's fuck-up behavior.
 
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.
I think the model itself does encourage a laziness in studios they wouldn't have if their success or failure was more directly connected to their own work, rather than being diluted across the group.

It encounters the usual communist/socialist problem of 'it doesn't matter if I work hard because someone else will work hard for me', which inevitably leads to collective failure once enough people within the group adopt that attitude.

The model being backed by Microsoft in this case turbo-charges the issue because it has allowed an assumption by some that Microsoft would subsidise Game Pass (and Xbox more generally) forever just because it could, and now Microsoft has felt it necessary to give the whole group a wake up call that this assumption is wrong and that they need to buck their ideas up.
 
Y'all are getting one guy'd by a single developer worried about his job. There are a litany of developers and studios who have praised Gamepass and what it does for their games.

Instead of taking accountability for making trash games, let's blame Gamepass. If Marvel's Blade comes out and is amazing and then Arkane Lyon is met with layoffs... alright, I'll eat my words. But for now, you're taking the word of a developer who's last game was mid at best.
Hasn't it already happened?

Hi-Fi Rush came in, was amazing, and then Tango got shut off.
 
I've been subscribing since the day it launched basically. At first Game Pass was very barebones with some of Xbox games, but it started to take off after some time and just like with Netflix it's hard to imagine my console without it. From a consumer point of view it's very affordable (and I have paid full price). From a business standpoint I have never understood how it could be profitable. All the arguments Phil's made over the years have turned out to be wrong. Maybe apart from gamers trying more games than they would if they had to pay upfront, but that doesn't mean they're making more money. If I play fifteen games or one doesn't matter.

I expect GP to get more expensive and have more tiers in the future. They have to do something.
 
MS is the one taking the risks and making the internal calculations of return, not the consumer.
Those calculations are based on the behaviour of consumers, so consumers have a huge say in how a given market operates, if/when they care enough to do so.

I never subscribed to Game Pass, not because of the value proposition but because I actively want it to fail. There may not be many of us, but every other consumer in the market has the power to look beyond the immediate value proposition and make a decision based on longer term considerations if they choose to.
 
I'll let you in on the two secrets to success in gaming

1) make a good game that… 2) large numbers of people want to play.

Do that and gamepass is an irrelevant factor.
While that helps, if the mass consumer mindset is not about buying games and waiting for games to join subscription service (which kinda makes sense if they are already paying $240 per year), even this strategy will not help.
 
Those calculations are based on the behaviour of consumers, so consumers have a huge say in how a given market operates, if/when they care enough to do so.

I never subscribed to Game Pass, not because of the value proposition but because I actively want it to fail. There may not be many of us, but every other consumer in the market has the power to look beyond the immediate value proposition and make a decision based on longer term considerations if they choose to.
Your point is completely valid and I respect it. But it is a personal principle, not a responsibility.

I don't treat every purchase I make as a referendum on the future of the industry. Certainly most people make decisions based on value, access and convenience, not on abstract long-term hypotheses.

For example, do you research the production chain of all the products you consume? All the corporate policies of these companies? Their labor, environmental, and social relations? The impact they have on the market, in terms of accessibility, monopoly, or pricing?

I can't help but imagine someone holding a smartphone that was probably manufactured under substandard working conditions in China, lecturing everyone on a forum about how bad Game Pass is for the industry and its employees.

So please, let's not turn the Game Pass debate into a moral battleground, as if not subscribing is some noble and romantic act of loyalty to the gaming industry.
 
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GP is Microsofts strategy to Kill Sony , Nintendo, Steam or any other place where You can play videogames.

It could mean 10 years more of bleeding money for Microsft but it seems they won't stop soon. The strategy looks stupid but if they success the rewards wil be so huge that they can get back the money invested on a few years.

Not exactly working is it
 
No, shit.
There's a reason why the latest Doom game sold less. 80$ + Gamepass.
If only it released on a big platform where Gamepass doesnt exist i bet it would have saved the game's sales.

I'll let you in on the two secrets to success in gaming

1) make a good game that… 2) large numbers of people want to play.

Do that and gamepass is an irrelevant factor.
Which is why 2 of the best selling games this year were on GP day 1, and even sold Best on a platform with GP.

But at the same time Doom, avowed or south of midnight were big bombas.

Which also explains why from every game released on Ps5 from MS, only Sea of Thieves and fh sold well, games that were already a huge success despite releasing on GP platforms

Want to see south of midnight, FM, avowed, HB2 etc sales when they come to Ps5 lmao, or just like with Doom, we'll see if ToW2 is saved thanks to it releasing on a non GP platform, or it actually bombs due to being a sequel nobody asked for, at 80 dollars
 
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.
I'm not suggesting it's bad for the consumer. Game pass is an amazing deal for anyone that uses it and if that's your preferred way to play then more power to you. I'm always playing catch up with games so I'm never paying full price. Different strokes and all that. What I was referring to were posters calling sour grapes when industry people question the viability of GP. Implying we should ignore them because the only reason they are saying anything is because they're losing their jobs or they should make better games to avoid closure. I believe tango games were held in high regard, even by Phil and co, but they still got the chop.

Game pass has not exactly been the winning strategy for MS, as can clearly be seen by all the recent events. They brought something to market that only they could support with all of their financial might. Many people have said over the years that gamepass as it stands cannot support the huge infrastructure needed to make the kind of games MS puts day 1 on gamepass. But now the division is held more accountable financially and the result is layoffs and more multi platform releases. If what S SneakersSO has been saying does come to pass, then there are even more cuts on the way.
 
So Gamepass incentivizes studios to take their time and release later? Driving up costs?
It doesn't really drive up costs because you have that income regardless based on time and not on studio sales to cover costs. So the costs getting out of hand without a release doesn't happen unless gamepass didn't meet numbers as a whole.

Well, carrot meet stick. The incentive to keep costs down and release in a timely manner now is: "If you don't, you get fired."
Yep but what has done this is the overall performance of gamepass not being able to sustain it and not incentivised time constraint on individual studios feeling pressure of needing to cover costs with a release and sales.

The recent layoffs might push those studios out of fear but it's an unknown whether it would even save or break them. Tango got axed with a great timely game release, Fable is taking ages, project Mara is taking ages, state of decay 3 is taking ages, yet they're safe. Layoffs happened in most studios regardless too even those doing well. It's usually just higher ups deciding for them as a whole. The way they decide seems to be "gamepass is making us X amount and we need to make cuts". Then things are on the chopping block and nobody is really safe, not even good performing studios. You might try to curry more favour with higher ups being timely but you never know if that will save you or whether it will be bad even if you don't. The fact that 2 projects that were taking forever got axed will certainly instill some fear but really it seems to be based on somewhat arbitrary decision making of higher ups based on their lineup.
 
And Netflix killed movie production, lol.

Sure bro. Streaming in the film business brought us more content than ever before. But the opposite will happen with games? I don't think so.

Yes, more "content" but less quality because everyone is rushing to pander to lowest common denominator.

I've had Netflix off and on for years, and rarely used it because its 99% shit.
 
Even if they remove Day 1, They're not getting sales from XBOX console.
Pc Users are loyal to steam
PS5 and Switch2 are where sales will occur largely for Mcrosft games anyway
So gamepass is going to be on xbox until the end (which is pretty soon given what they're releasing next gen)
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.
That's a good thing. If you're in Brazil or a third world country, Gamepass allows you to actually afford legally playing games. Otherwise, buying a single game is like 20 percent of the average persons salary.
However, keep in mind that your country is practically irrelevant for any gaming company due to poor currency and since they don't region price properly, they get negligeible sales.

Criticism for Gamepass stems for richer countries where games are priced normally yet their inclusion on GP cuts off their sales. If PS/Nintendo added it llike MCRSFT wants, it'll be a disaster for the industry, not to mention subscription price will naturally increase once subscribers stop increasing. This will cut budgets for the next game, leading to low quality sequels laden with microtransactions. So the criticism comes not from the short term consumer perspective, but long term for both devs and consumers.
And Netflix killed movie production, lol.

Sure bro. Streaming in the film business brought us more content than ever before. But the opposite will happen with games? I don't think so.
Netflix has killed movie production... in the form of DVD sales. Cinema/ Box office is going strong because that experience simply cannot be replicated at home. Hence, why blockbusters are healthy as ever. Games do not have that luxury, their profit comes from disc sales/digital sales which is what Gamepass eats up on the platform it releases.
 
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Yeah, yeah, game pass is the problem.

Not games been full of bloat that nobody asked for.

Not the sheer amount of full price games that still have tons of micro transactions pushed around just like all free to play games.

Not AAA games launching in a broken state that take months to be fixed, if ever.

Not abusive term and conditions that allow companies to remove licensed stuff from your game after you already bought, if not the game entirely from your library.

Not DRM and always online check that redem your purchase useless when server goes down even in your Physical copy.

Not incremental sequels that add next to nothing from the last game while still charging full price.

Game pass allowed me to pay what most games are actually worth. And that scares the AAA industry more than anything.
 
Gamepass kills game sales for first party studios which in turn means less profit to keep things afloat. So the only way to sustain gamepass is to cut jobs and reduce costs because it's not bringing in enough profit to sustain itself.

Everyone is cutting jobs and closing studios. Do they all have their own GamePass?
 
I think the plan was for gamepass to be the entry fee, then most games would be live services or have in-app purchases up the kazoo to their continued development

It's a pretty low risk model as if the game isn't popular and doesn't generate enough income then they don't continue to support it, and the game pass income only needed to fund the initial development.

Sony are doing a similar goal but coming at it from the opposite direction,
 
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