Former Xbox Executive Says Game Pass "Makes Him Nervous"

In an interview with Seasoned Gaming's Luke Lohr on Xbox Expansion Pass, former Xbox Vice President of Game Publishing, Ed Fries, says Game Pass "makes him nervous" and "scares him."

[Knushwood Butt]

Listened to the whole thing. The interview was really interesting, and that's coming from a Sony fan.

[crazyCoconuts]

Yeah, Ed seems really genuine and thoughtful. Some great backstories in the interview. Reminds me of how awesome that first Xbox launch was and the gamble they took and won.

[darthv72]

i have been watching this making of halo documentary and Fries was pretty pivotal in the decision process of how the game should release and he made the right calls there too.

[lelo2play]

This guy gave the example of Spotify ... yet, musicians are making more money then ever with Spotify.

Nobody was purchasing music CD's any more. Sales decreased drastically. Everybody was downloading MP3's to play on their IPod's. Spotify saved the music industry.

[Welshy]

That's a horrible take and you've misunderstood both his answer and how any of this works. CD's didn't just stop selling for no reason and then Spotify suddenly appeared after the fact like a Knight in shining armour to save the day of a dying industry.

Literally every game released today is available to purchase digitally outright without any subscriptions, it's VERY different to CD's since that was simply an outdated technology with more convenient ones taking its place.

That gulf in convenience isn't there when it comes to buying a game outright digitally vs renting a digital copy via subscription. Your comparison doesn't stand up to any scrutiny and is just objectively wrong.

Gaming subscriptions should 100% be a supplement to full purchases and not a model that becomes the primary way games are purchased and played imo. Ownership of things is already shaky at best, I don't want a future where I'm juiced for months and years by subscriptions only to have nothing to show for it when you inevitably stop paying one day.

[purple101]

Meanwhile vinyl sales are increasing 25% year on year. Convenience is good yes, but vinyl has benefits also. Warmer bass if you have an all analogue amp and speakers. Bigger often more detailed cover art and booklets, sometimes special editions.

Something to hold and collect.
And finally the feeling your supporting (more than the 0.01p Spotify pays them per play) artists, if that's your thing. Not mine but for some.it is.

[gunnerforlife]

That's rubbish! Artists are suffering now more then ever! That's why the uk government is asking the streaming industry many questions! Because a lot of artists are making less and less money from streaming while Spotify and the publishers are milking it!!

[lelo2play]

@Welshy
Nobody is forcing you to have subscription services. In spite of music or games being on subscription services, you are free to purchase music or games if you want.... and listen/play them without subscription services.

@purple101
25% of nothing, is still nothing.
If you expect musicians to make money noways on vinyl sales, you live in fantasy land.

[shinoff2183]

Some do i dont believe most do. Atleast not as much as you think. Its good exposure for underground artist though

[Profchaos]

You're joking right? Tell me that's sarcasm many artists can't make ends meet if they are not a giant name. Artist pretty much universally need to be on a perpetual tour or doing things outside of releasing albums as they are not making any money from Spotify

[lelo2play]

After reading these responses, I just have to... LOL.

Are musicians forced to be on Spotify? If Spotify is so bad for musicians, why the hell are their music on Spotify?
Simple solution. If musicians are better off without Spotify, then, THEY SHOULDN'T LAUNCH THEIR MUSIC ON SPOTIFY (or any other subscription service).

[Godmars290]

@lelo2play:
"Nobody is forcing you to have subscription services."

Not so much force as coerce. Be by day one AAA releases or $1 a month deals till a majority of consumers are on board. Then the deals disappear, titles become exclusive to the service and rates go up.

Of course by then, if you're part of the complaining minority who want to still own games, they just blow you off cause you've got no other option.

[JamiroquaiBocephus]

lelo-you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to music. Musicians are forced to be on Spotify. Why? Because the record labels own almost all of the music, not the artists. If the label wants to be on Spotify, the artists don’t have much say, if any at all. Learn about things before you speak about them.

[WelkinCole]

The problem is while it will be nice in the short term. Long term you will be pay a heck a lot more but with less freedom.

[Rebel_Scum]

Only the top 1% of musicians on spotify make any money on that platform.

As the internet grew musicians went from making (for arguments sake) $5 per album sold to $0.00001 per album sold. I dont know the exact figures but there’s plenty of articles online about how poor the state the music industry is in for artists.

[a7madRyan]

You know games dont cost like songs do, games need alot of people to work on and years to make, a song can be made in a week and you can make money from it in youtube alone

[DarXyde]

Spotify gives fractions of a penny per stream. An artist's music would need to be streamed one million times to break close to $4,000.

I don't think your math adds up, mate.

[MrBaskerville]

Except, few musicians actually make money with Spotify. They get like 1 doller every time an album is streamed front to back 30+ times (or one song 300 times). Albeit better than the 0 dollars gained from piracy.

Tidal and some other services pay a bit better, not great but better.

[1Victor]

Interview starts at 35:00 in case anyone wants to hear the interview only.
Wow direct X box was the internal name

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Interesting interview

[annoyedgamer]

He is right about subscription services killing the industry, but all consumers see is a low upfront cost of entry.

[Magog]

This. Damage has already started IMO but by the time it's irreversible it will be too late.

[TiredGamer]

It reminds me a bit of the early days of mobile app store gaming. The first couple of years we had premium titles that were one-time purchases and could range anywhere from a few bucks to almost full-priced ($30-50). And then there was this race to the bottom mentality, where the thought process was that the volume would make up for the lack of revenue per copy sold. That's when prices dropped to $1.99 or 99 cents USD. And of course, once the smartphone honeymoon period ended and the volume of purchases didn't compensate for the development costs, publishers and developers started to look for other means of revenue. Which we all know has led to the current smartphone environment of F2P drivel, in-app purchases, and in-game advertising. While some bigger games do occasionally release, the mobile game environment has settled into a rather sad state of affairs. This is the only place that it can exist given the revenue model.

I feel that Gamepass and the growth of subscription models for home consoles is turning that first scary corner down the path that mobile took many years ago. Once consumers are used to lower price points, it's almost impossible to reverse course, even if it's not sustainable in the long-term. Scary indeed. How the game industry approaches the next few years will seal the fate of the industry one way or another. I can understand how Sony is hesitant to go all-in, and I know why Microsoft shot for the moon. Sony has everything to lose, while MS can walk away from the games industry without a major shot to its business model.

[lelo2play]

Take a look at the music industry before Spotify and after Spotify ... then claim that subscription services killed the industry.

[TiredGamer]

Definitely not apples-to-apples. The music industry audience encompasses just about every living person in the developed world, so the potential volume is enormous. Also, the price point of music has generally been around $1 per song ($10-15 per album), so $10/month subscriptions actually work out pretty well for the music industry.

[crazyCoconuts]

The claim Ed F. made is that the amount of $ in the industry is halved, not that it's dead. The important difference in games is that while you can make a good song without spending a lot of $, for AAA games, the same is not true. So reducing the $ in the industry would definitely mean reducing the quality of games. Also, now the conventional wisdom is an artist makes money from touring vs. streaming/albums. Game companies don't have other revenue sources to milk other than DLCs and micro transactions, which are also not great...

[Profchaos]

Yes that's easy pretty much all artists detest Spotify

[annoyedgamer]

Take a look at PC, nothing is available on disk anymore. Consoles are pushing to be all digital too, and alot of dumb consumers jump on board even though the digital price is the same as physical (or more).

Soon you will be paying for nothing but rights to access a file and those rights can be revoked at any time and any reason.

[HyperMoused]

People dont seem to see they are continually paying, over time they will pay way more and own nothing, not to mention you lose games when they leave game pass, so if you are playing that Phhttt to you, and yes ive heard the argument, but, but, you get deals on games, yeah and paying again. There is a reason MS has gamepass and ultimately it isnt for the consumers convenience, its because the gravy train now doesnt stop once they convince you to buy a game, it stops every month now.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

This is the sad reality we need to fight against this in my opinion.

[-Hermit-]

Who is this "we" ? You people couldn't even fight against microtransactions. You aren't the majority.

[gangsta_red]

Used games was going to kill the industry

Micro transactions was going to kill the industry

F2P mobile games was going to kill the industry

Seems every few years something is going to kill the industry. And yet the industry just keeps on living.

[ChasterMies]

I see GamePass ending up more like Netflix then Spotify. Lots of low quality, garbage titles.Competition is good, though, and that means competition not only for consumers but also game providers, What should really worry us is consolidation of game publishers, led by Microsoft.

[porkChop]

The thing about Netflix is they don't have a way to monetize outside of the subscription. With Xbox they still sell games a la carte, and they still sell DLC and expansions. All of which they do on multiple platforms including Steam. Xbox still makes money off of every sale of 3rd party games and content on their store. They have a lot of revenue coming in outside of just GP, so Netflix isn't an accurate comparison.

[crazyCoconuts]

I think the comparison is Netflix is to movies as GamePass is to games. Not trying to figure out if Xbox can still make money even if GamePass isn't profitable. What does GamePass and potentially other game sub services do to the game industry over time is the question

[Chevalier]

Absolutely awful comparison. Xbox has a lot of money behind them. What other service has a trillion dollars behind them making $70 billion purchases? Oh right none. If it weren't for MS deep pockets let's be honest Gamepass would not be a thing.

[porkChop]

@crazy
If we look at it from that perspective, Netflix, Prime Video, etc., have actually had a positive impact on the TV and film industry. We've seen directors with risky films and TV shows that production companies refused to make, and they were able to make those films with Netflix, Amazon, or whoever else. Just look at Adam Sandler. He struggled for many years because while he has his own production company, he still needs partners to fund his films. Those production companies, such as Columbia or Revolution, would limit Sandler's scripts and what he was allowed to joke about. So the resulting movies sucked. He signed a deal with Netflix where they gave him complete creative freedom, and he was able to revamp his whole career with the movies they made together. Netflix may be struggling currently because of some poor decisions in recent years, but that doesn't negate any positive impact they've had.

I do understand the argument about industry impact or quality of games. There absolutely is the possibility for a negative impact in both cases. But we have existing examples of streaming services having a positive impact. So the issue isn't as cut and dry as "streaming = bad quality/dead industry", even though some people seem to think that. If the industry stops selling games and goes exclusively subscription-based, then maybe we could see an issue. But as of right now there is zero indication of that ever happening.

@Chevalier
"What other service has a trillion dollars behind them making $70 billion purchases? Oh right none."

Amazon hasn't made a $70B purchase yet, no. But they make $5B-$10B+ purchases pretty regularly buying companies and services that bolster Amazon Prime and their other services. Every massive corporation got to where they are by bolstering their existing products and services with major acquisitions. That's how business works. There have been far bigger acquisitions in other industries compared to the MS/Activision deal.

[onisama]

I always prefer whatever benefit the community more so a sub is really good certainly for players in africa and asia where people was pirating game anyway as they dont have money to buy games but now they pay for the sub and that push them into buying dlcs... But yeah i would like the industry to keep making money too so quality wont decrease

[derek]

Games cost money to make full stop. Pay now or pay later but you will pay one way or another. "The best deal in gaming" is a mirage, Microsoft knows this that's why they never give the raw data when it comes to game pass in terms of profitability. They'll give you percentages without context but never the actual numbers. Only companies wishing to lie and spread false information do that. It's hard to sell the fantasy when people can look at your numbers.

[KingofBandits]

As well it should imo. I find GamePass to be a great value for Xbox owners but very dangerous for the industry and the future of creative expression and smaller expansions in controls and game play ideas. If MS makes this the norm all we will end up with is safe AAA games that are all cut to fit a generic mold. Gaming is so big right now, I almost feel a crash is necessary in order to purge some of the bean counters. Gaming needs more Elden Ring, less Last of Us. More 90's era story telling and creative art design and less Fortnite.

[gangsta_red]

"If MS makes this the norm all we will end up with is safe AAA games that are all cut to fit a generic mold."

In case you haven't noticed, it's been like this for the last few generations. I doubt MS has anything to do with it.

Big developers are not taking a lot of chances with new IPs and basically turning out sequel after sequel. If they aren't doing this then they're going the popular multiplayer, battle royal or similar route.

This is one of the reasons we are seeing companies being bought up. They can't afford to do anything different and also can't afford to do the same thing as others. It's a catch 22 in today's market with very few catching that lightning in a bottle.

As much as I love Elden Ring, if we're to be honest... it's no different than the past Souls games, just bigger. It's a safe formula that works and there's nothing wrong with that. But I wouldn't consider it something new.

[anubusgold]

His face makes me nervous its like hes done something in his past thats bad like making a ex wife disappear lol. His whole face says guilt lol.

[philm87]

I don't think gamepass needs to add so many day 1 games, especially exclusives, it's great value as it is. It must destroy the budgets they have for exclusives to be able to put them on day 1.

[ShadowWolf712]

Gosh, lotta comments getting marked as spam. What happened in here?

[aarallen1]

He came and spoke at my college. He actually has a really good sense of humor.