Gamepass is just a digital Blockbuster.

You go to rent a game, if it is good then maybe you go buy it. Back in my day, though, before Gamestop. We had Funco Land, a magical place that offered legitimate prices on buying back games. We had to walk 15 miles in the snow to get there, but it was really worth it.

I assume that studios get a kick back percentage of revenue for installs, play hours, etc.

I don’t think so. I bet Microsoft pays publishers/developers a lump sum for a title to appear on their service for a specified period of time, and if the title is popular then they offer the publisher/developer more for the title to appear on Game Pass for longer. The amount they pay probably depends on the popularity of the publisher/developer, the game’s anticipation in the media, and any other metrics they can use to gauge the game’s ability to draw in subscribers.

Having said that, game subscription services will surely influence what kind of games are more likely to be developed, just as platforms like Steam and retailers like Humble Bundle have, but greatness is highly subjective. And as far as Game Pass specifically goes, I think Microsoft’s plan is for Microsoft itself to be the primary source of AAA gaming on the service, with the majority of their third-party games being from indie developers, which could arguably be beneficial for indie developers at least.

In years gone by, the quality and popularity of a game would directly correlate to it’s sales.

Source?

I think Microsoft themselves have less incentive to make great games due to GP since subscribers are getting the game for “free” regardless, which in turn means it’s more cost effective for them to make a lot of cheaper games instead if going all out with bigger budgets.

For other studios, not really. Especially the smaller ones as they would generally try to use GP as a marketing tool to build their brand. They would be likely to try to make the best product possible so future projects can sell better and not need GP.

Here’s the reality of the economics. It’s not free to host a server. it’s not cheap to host a server. the reason why online games in the past were free was because the peers were hosting it. 1 person hosted the lobby, everybody joined it, and they were strained by his connection.

This was why games like World of Warcraft had subscriptions but games like call of duty 1 through 4 didn’t.

Battlepass is just another model of subscription. It runs on the principle that you only need a handful of suckers who will buy the battle pass to make it free for everybody else instead of charging every player 15 dollars a month.

But believe me, if everybody in the world stopped buying fortnite battle passes and skins, epic games would either shut down the game, include adware and datamining and take a facebook/google approach to profiting off your data, or just straight up go to a 15 dollar a month subscription.

Just look at the new games coming to Game Pass. A lot of it is crap. I don’t mean games like GTA V which existed before Game Pass, I mean the newly developed games that have launched directly onto it.

Someone’s getting fucked here. It’s either us, Microsoft or the game developers. We are getting a great deal, for the price of 2 games you get access to hundreds, so it isn’t us. Microsoft is apparently turning a profit so it isn’t them. It’s the developers.

The difference is that there are other 10 games per genre at least, that are fighting for your time so your game still needs to be good.

I will say that only reason I own an XSX over the PS5 is indeed GP, in last 2 years only games I actually bought were Fromsoft titles which I basically buy on every system. I have had more thank 2k hours worth of fun over probably 20+ games on GP and I still haven’t tried all that I want.

If anything, at least for me GP is the polar opposite of you are proposing, what you are talking about is Epic Games Store which is full of shovelware and low effort shit.

Yes the requirements are technically lower for quality, but we live in a world where 70$ “premium price AAA game” like COD is unplayable for weeks, so correlation between quality and price means nothing in this industry in 2023.

I mean Vampire Survivors is literally like less than 5$ and it is more creative and waaaay more polished and well made than like 70% of modern premium price AAA games.

I haven’t had a single game on GP that I haven’t finished or liked so far, also it provides me with like 10+ party games for when my homies come, I dread of thinking how would we have fun on PS5 or a PC without GP for only 15$. I legit cannot go back just for this reason alone.

To answer your question, absolutely not, as a 2 year user of it proposing something like this means you haven’t actually tried the service out. While theoretically it makes sense, in reality and practice its just not true.

Season passes are a double edged sword.

On one hand you are supporting the dev for continued development and new content.

On the other, you give the dev incentive to charge you full price, not complete the game (coming soon! features) and parse it out over a long period of time to give you the false sense of value.

Case in point: Diablo 4 is seriously missing QoL features that were present in previous entries and are doing the ‘ol “we are hearing you guys and improving the game by adding this (not new) feature!”. Features that should have been in the game on Day 1.

Love or hate my comment, blizz fanboys. I don’t give 2 poos anymore. The future is bleak and is filled with nickel and diming you with minimal effort.

Not at all. Game devs still get paid. Microsoft pays a ton of money to get the license for these games on their platform. Game Pass is sold at a loss, but their goal right now is to maximize users on as many platforms as possible, and most definitely raise prices later on once people are hooked. They are eating the losses because Microsoft is rich.

The benefit of GamePass is that you have the chance to try any game you probably wouldn’t have even looked at twice in the past at no extra cost. Game devs get more exposure, and if you like the game, there’s always the option to buy the game and support the devs. Plus, aside from Xbox first party games, third party games aren’t permanently on the platform. Any player that wants to keep playing will have a reason to buy the game.