Xbox Game Pass has undoubtedly been a massive success story for Microsoft and the Xbox gaming division, and has greatly benefited many developers and publishers in the process.
Indie publishing label No More Robots is a fantastic example - in a recent interview with MSPoweruser, the company's CEO Mike Rose indicated that the success of Descenders on Xbox Game Pass has been "ludicrous" and has the potential to support the team "for the rest of our lives."
But in that same interview, Rose noted that he still has concerns about subscription models, and warned that the immense success of Xbox Game Pass could ultimately lead to poor imitations down the line:
“For me, Game Pass has not quelled my fears about subscription models. I think what Microsoft is doing is fantastic – we keep putting our games in there – my fear is that more people are now going to do it because they’ve seen how well Game Pass has done. Of course they are, that’s how our industry works – everyone just copies everyone else."
Of course, Xbox Game Pass isn't the only subscription service out there - EA Access (recently renamed to EA Play) has been in operation since 2014, and Sony has been doing its own thing with PlayStation Now as well.
Ultimately though, Rose worries that the business side of things could be impacted down the line:
“My fear is that the other ones won’t be as good. That they’ll get big and they’ll give developers crappy deals and then in three, four, five years time we’ll be in a situation where we’ve got the Netflix and Amazon and Hulu of video games, but they’re all giving developers crappy deals because they’ve got a bunch of games now and they don’t really need you as much as you need them.
"Obviously, I’d love it if this didn’t happen. I’d love it if a bunch of subscription models came out that were just as good as Game Pass, but I know how human beings work.”
The No More Robots CEO also went on to mention that unlike Xbox Game Pass, the vast majority of subscription services that he's been approached by don't pay upfront ("they can p*ss off, quite frankly"), and despite there being exceptions to the rule, he's still in the "I think this might end badly" phase for now.
Do you think the success of Xbox Game Pass will lead to poor copycats? Share your thoughts below.
[source mspoweruser.com]
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“There was a graph that I saw… That Xbox was showing around internally. They showed me this graph and they were showing the power of Game Pass and using Descenders as one of the examples,” revealed No More Robots CEO Mike Rose. “The graph that they had done they had to alter the graph, because the spike was so good from when we went into Game Pass that it made it look like we had sold nothing before that point.”
“The vast majority that I’ve been approached by do not pay upfront. It’s the Spotify model and I will categorically, I will pledge it now, I will never put any of our games on one of those,” Rose passionately explained. “They can p*ss off, quite frankly. I’m just not doing that. If you want to pay us for our game up front, like you bloody should do, to have our game for free on your subscription service so that people want to give you money for your subscription service, I think that’s a pretty fair deal.
Imitations is probably the wrong word as, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't Game Pass one of the newest of the lot?
It's definitely interesting to see what happens over the next few years as subscription models really become a major player though.
I see what he's getting at with regards to what kind of deals will they offer developers/publishers when Game Pass is properly established.
Probably the big plus for publishers with game pass is the limited time nature of the game in the service. It's a mutual rental agreement.
But at game pass has more and more games coming and going, it also highlights gamepass is unique and not the subscription service most consumers really desire, either. Consumers want Netflix/Spotify, and publishers don't. Someone's going to offer it. Probably GoogAppAzonBook. Then things get weird.
@roe Imitation is the right term, Game Pass is successful so more subscriptions services are created because of Game Pass success. It's kind of like how BotW's gigantic success set off a wave of BotW clones despite BotW itself not being very unique.
I expect some more subscription offerings to pop up, primarly from publishers with big, prolific catalogs. THQ and UBisoft, IMO, could do very well in the space with their own offerings. EA was the first to try, but IMO one of the largest publishers with the weakest potential in the space. I mean, they basically do yearly refreshes of sports games that make the previous year titles obsolete. They have some good stuff in their very old catalogs, but their recent trends has positioned them in a weak corner right now.
But these, IMO, are publisher-specific and will have next to no chance at getting their competitor titles aboard.
For the bigger offerings, like GamePass and (if they get their act together) PS Now, I expect only large platform holders to have any chance at competing.
Basically, Nintendo, Steam, Apple on mobile phones, maybe Google is on the same space as Apple.
Of all, I think Microsoft is in the strongest position, because they have two platforms they can bundle up on the same service: XBox and Windows PC.
Individual publishers could do similar, but they will never get Nintendo or Sony blessing for their memberships to cross-over with other consoles, maybe not even PC, forcing them to split their services.
If Sony gets over their fear and start adding games into the service faster, hell, at least a month post launch, they could catch some ground.
Steam has famously been terrible at vetting titles, though. When they were closed, you had to be a large publisher for them to give you the time of day. Now they are a pool of garbage you got to spend months digging until you find something worth playing. Doubt they will be able to pull a decent curated experience worth subscribing to, or worth participating into.
I'm sure we will see some attempts from the likes of Humble Bundle and maybe even some new-comers, but dont expect much more than niche market.
The things that makes Game Pass special is that it has new games I’m prepared to pay good money for launch onto the service. It also has a very high turnover with new games arriving and old games leaving.
PlayStation Now also has many brilliant games some of the best on the PlayStation and a far larger catalogue. But they are games I bought years ago. EA access’s vault another collection of old games that people who want would already have bought.
@Ryall
Not to mention that EA Play consists of mainly sports games, with some outliers like Titanfall 2, the Battlefront series and a few others. But mostly sports.
@Grumblevolcano who else is gonna start a similar service though? PlayStation already have one, so do EA, Ubisoft, Google Stadia, and there are a few more smaller ones on PC as well.
@Ryall That is why PSNow is, IMO, a failure.
They dont even want to put their own titles in the service until they have milked as many sales as they can. GamePass is proof that even with the subscription option, tons of people still go buy Microsoft Game Studios games. Some people just like having disks or owning the games for good, others simply dont like the monthly model. At the end, the games sell AND they might even double dip on the sub.
@roe Google Stadia is far from the same. It has more parallels to the first iteration of PSNow (mostly must buy a streaming version of the game you wont ever actually own... weird even for digital standards.)
Ubisoft offering is, so far, stuck on PC. They could expand to consoles similarly to EA, and they might even be more successful at it. For a single-publisher offering, I feel Ubisoft offering is a bit pricey. I feel EA nailed the price for single-publisher offering, and UBisoft nailed the catalog, now they both need to exchange notes and NOT meet in the middle, but at the extremes.
Ubisoft for $5 a month on each console! Still sell the DLC for the games. I would subscribe if available for XBox.
THQ also has enough titles coming out regularly to jump in.
Sega, Square Enix and Bandai also have potential for single-publisher offerings. Once upon a time I would had added Capcom to that list but I feel they have slowed down their game development too much for it to work out for them.
Nintendo could have a wider offering on Switch if they were ever willing to evolve with times.
Poor imitations are unfortunately a possibility for any company, especially when another company gets major positive feedback/success. I will just be sticking with Game Pass though. I may use Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Plus, but I don't need multiple game services. Microsoft updates the Game Pass selection too much for me to need another one.
Yea I’ll just stick with Game Pass.
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