How Gears of War changed to become Xbox Game Pass’ biggest launch

Once upon a time, Rod Fergusson knew that if players would hurdle a $60 barrier to a triple-A game, there would be some breathing room for the developers on the other side. Every design choice they made wouldn’t be the one to make or break the game. They could count on new players hanging in as the story caught them up on a canon sprawling over a decade or more.

Gears 5, launching on Xbox Games Pass at the beginning of the month, inverted Fergusson’s concerns somewhat. The Coalition, the studio Fergusson leads, wasn’t going to want for an audience; they’d probably get the biggest one any Gears of War game has ever seen. The game is, effectively speaking, free with a Game Pass subscription. So how would Fergusson’s team keep huge tranches of Game Pass players engaged, especially when they could tap out and play any of a number of other practically free games without considering Gears 5 a pile-of-shame sacrifice.

[crazyCoconuts]

I would have paid $60 for it on PC but paid the $2 game pass deal instead and cancelled it after completing campaign. Don't know if others are cheap like me but MS lost some $ from me on this deal.

[Jin_Sakai]

All the hard work that went into making Gears 5 such a great game just to be handed away for $2 on Gamepass. I’m positive that’s how the mass majority played the game.

[Profchaos]

Got 3 months of PC for $4.95 found an additional two month promo code for free for of again bringing me to 5 months and converted it all to ultimate to bring me to 6 months for $5.95 in total for both PC and Xbox.

But after playing gears on my 2070 and then going back to play it on my og X1 I can't the PC version is so dammn pretty

[Stanjara]

This game is made to suck you in Gamepass. Developers got their millions from Microsoft Enterprise Azure money. It is also multiplayer based where micro transactions are. It's like saying it is a bad move for movies because Netflix gives one month for free.
Msft is playing a long run game where 30 million subscribers will pay for future content.
Go and buy a phone on subscription, you will get it for free.
Do I support that model? No.

[bishup25]

@ both crazyCoconuts and Jin_Sakai

that is kinda a dumb assumption. you could play 30 games on psnow and then cancel your subscription and ask yourself the same question. did they lose money on each of those 30 games? no. because the service makes up for not producing physical copies. the costs of licencing you a digital copy of a game is way cheaper.

[rdgneoz3]

"lol.

What's next? "I'm positive the mass majority got it on PC" ? :)"

Gearbox released their sales for Borderlands 3 by stating units sold, to the tune of 5 million in 5 days as a starter. If MS had balls, they'd release their units sold through to customers and not the BS figures of people playing gears for free on trial or for under $5 on gamepass... Then again, gone are the days (just last gen...) of MS announcing console (even if they just did sold to stores, not through to customers) or game sales...

[Unspoken]

Lol seriously, Fortnight is free, did you know that?

Ever rent a movie or pay for a music/movie subscription. All that work put into a movie for someone to just rent it. The travesty!!!!

[Rachel_Alucard]

@rdg

That 5 million sold figure is a twist of the words. Their statement used the word "sold-in" which means sold to retailers. Doesn't mean sold though and their stock just dipped because of it.

[alb1899]

First you fanboys said that the games on gamepass won't have the effort and know you sound sad because of the hard work.
If the game is expensive or has micro transactions it is bad and if is good and cheap then it is wrong too. There s nothing MS can do that can make this guys just recognize what is good when it comes from MS. The good thing is that a lot of players are trying gamepass and MS exclusives and that can't be wrong and MS knows it.
How much did fortnite cost to play and is one of the game that make most money off all....things are changing.
A lots of people will try the mp and coop with their friends and will stay on gamepass to keep playing it.......is it so difficult to see or you just don't want to see because we are talking about MS?

[NarutoFox]

I've done that on a few games before. Most of the time when I want to play a game that I'm interested in, I reactivate my game pass subscription on PC just to complete the campaign and then cancel it. But the last couple of weeks I kept game pass active and I don't even know why tbh

[Spurg]

June-Metro Exodus
July- Metal gear solid 5, Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition
August-Devil may cry 5
September-Gears 5, Blair witch, Bloodstained
October-The Outer worlds
November-December- Expect Code vein, Control, Mortal Combat 11, Borderlands 3, Greedfall, Sinking city

Unsubing is straight-up dumb.

[crazyCoconuts]

@spurg, I don't expect the new just released AAA game additions to last anymore than I expect Epic to continue giving awesome games away for free every week. Eventually the division has to start making money with the service and stop giving stuff away for practically free

[Notellin]

@crazycoconuts Have you ever heard of Netflix? If they get enough subscribers this could be the exact same idea.

[alb1899]

Maybe because you don't know all the content that the game has and the good multiplayer that it has.
If you just play the campaign you just play 20 or 30% of the game.

[rainslacker]

I dont think it's cheap. I believe in supporting the devs, but I will always take a deal, and in this case, its MS decision to release it this way. They've made the game as a marketing tool for game pass, so they don't care about the sales of the game, but how many subs it brings in for them. MS has made it abundantly clear they care more about having you in their ecosystem than making revenue right now. That's what I'd expect from a company who has a long term plan to move almost all their products over to the service model.

[Cmoney007]

I will be doing that soon as well. The multiplayer isn’t worth my time.

[MagUk]

If the majority of people did this there wouldn’t be to many gears 5 games sold on the second hand market where they’d make no money from the sales of gears 5.

[Profchaos]

They threw everything out past the first act which was surprisingly traditional gears and made the game semi open like tomb raider or God of war which I can tell they took lots of inspiration from. And it's not a bad thing before the trolls get up in arms about it.

It was way past overdue for a series shake up

[Father__Merrin]

you can play the game but its not yours. its a good idea to join for a month to get to play a new game

[yomfweeee]

This was their first big established IP game released on GamePass... is it that hard to understand?

[Poopmist]

Forza Horizon 4 tho

[milliniumstylz]

People are acting like the coalition are indie devs hey are owned by Microsoft I’m sure they are being compensated not by sales but by downloads or another way.

[Zombieburger638]

Predatory mxt in the mp is how they plan to make money.

[AK91]

That's not saying much

[Elda]

Smh.

[chaos999]

How many times you will touch the game in the coming years if you're not interested in MP?
What they did is absolutely crazy. You play it fully for 2 bucks.

[waverider]

This game should never be on gamepass. The impact in sales of setember was terrible. Never a Gears launch didnt had impact on the sales of consoles like Gear 5. It just the worst in history of the franchise...