We've never really been privy to the kind of money Microsoft spends on Xbox Game Pass titles, generally because it's seen as confidential information, although we may have received a peek behind the curtain for the new addition of Cooking Simulator.
As discovered by Twisted Voxel, a recent financial report relating to developer Big Cheese Studio appears to suggest that the figure might have been around the $600,000 mark, which seems a big deal for a game like Cooking Simulator!
It's worth mentioning the report comes from the Warsaw Stock Exchange website, so some details might be lost in (Google) translation. It seems to indicate that the 600k figure is "approximately 22% of the net profit and approximately 17% of the company's net revenue from the sale of products, goods and materials for the last financial year".
The only other time we've heard about a figure for a Game Pass game was back in March, when it was reported that Microsoft paid around 5-10 million US dollars to get Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy on the service.
Here's a look at how Cooking Simulator has reportedly grown its player base since joining Game Pass:
So, what do you think? Does this sound realistic to you? Let us know down in the comments below.
[source gpw.pl, via twistedvoxel.com]
Comments 9
Damn that's good money. I wonder how much those single developer games get. Like I wonder how much they paid for Midnight Fight Express. This could be lucrative for single developers, go to game pass via the Xbox ID program.
When you hear stories like this, how many millions they're paying for 3rd party, you really do start to see just how Sony is going to struggle to compete with their subscription services. Can't blame Sony for spending money on marketing rights that end up blocking or delaying gamepass releases...they have to compete. Be frustrated at MS, who have a bottomless well of money, for not being on the ball and getting those marketing rights first.
They used to be a lot more aggressive with marketing back in the 360 days. Hopefully PlayStations blocking attempt of the acquisition, and MS perceived frustration of not being able to get certain games on gamepass, will have Xbox more aggressive again when it comes to striking marketing deals.
Don't know if 600k is a lot or not for this sort of game to be on gamepass and in all honesty I don't really care.
I think folks get too hung up on how much or not something costs Microsoft or Sony or whoever.
To me as an end user gamer it's just useless information that has no bearing on the quality or fun of the game in question.
@SplooshDmg Yeah. 600k seems cheap to me too. 25 million subscribers at $10 per month is 250 million per month. They can add 400 cooking simulators and one month's revenue would cover it.
@Kaloudz I’d imagine it’s at least 200,000,000 a month. They say they have close to 30,000,000 subscribers by now. Not all are paying 15 bucks for gpu. And some are taking that 1 dollar deal (but since that can only be used once per account those situations are much less now than a few years ago). Assuming they’re making an average of 7 bucks per subscription (not unreasonable) that’d be 200,000,000.
Doesn't seem like that much to me. Maybe for that game in particular as it's a couple of years old but they've got to make it worth the developers while to make their game free across multiple platforms (assuming it's on pc pass too) world wide.
MS is no doubt making money hand over fist from Gamepass too. $600k would be a tiny fraction of their monthly turnover from the service.
Either way it's safe to assume that the bean counters at MS know what they're doing.
@Kaloudz If they can increase their subscriber count, they won't need to raise prices since they'll be bringing in more money from volume.
@Kaloudz that is very true. Realistically, with the sheer amount of value we will be getting after the AB purchase and when the new games start getting released (Hellblade 2, Starfield, Avowed, the whole list), I wouldn’t be terribly mad at a price increase. I’d imagine maybe 20 for GPU? Everything is a value proposition so a price increase is probable, but not terrible unless it soars too high too fast, or price goes up before we get the increased volume of AAA games.
@Kaloudz agreed!!
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