Developers Claim Game Pass Has Caused A Behavioral Shift That Has Led To Very Few Sales On Xbox

Developers have claimed that Microsoft's Game Pass subscription service has caused a behavioral shift that has led to very few sales on Xbox.

[Einhander1972]

No one could have predicted this would happen.... oh wait...

[Jingsing]

Less sales on Xbox. If the majority of developers want to secure finance for their game they'd best ignore the platform that is going to take it away from them or release on it much later.

[Barlos]

Or release on Xbox but not on GP.

[Einhander1972]

Barlos

That doesn't work anymore, people on xbox only play what is on game pass.

This is why the series s is so much more popular than the x, because people just buy it as a game pass machine.

This is demonstrated by the fact that even when the two consoles were closer to each other in sales multi-platform games sell 80+% of their copies on PlayStation.

[Petebloodyonion]

@Barlos
The complete article touches on this subject "How can the platform improve for developers who don’t have the advantage of a AAA publisher behind them? Proposed solutions were varied, but all came down to one thing: better discoverability and incentives for people to play outside of Game Pass."

@Jingsing and Einhander
If we consider the data of this article as FACTUAL then this should be FACTUAL too right?
"Something that was surprising in the discussions concerning effort versus value, however, was that some developers flagged the same concerns with PlayStation. After all, though it consistently ranked above Xbox in finding sales and players for games, it still trailed significantly behind PC and Switch."

Does this mean that ppl on PlayStation play too much Essential and PS+ extra?

[Einhander1972]

Petebloodyonion

"Does this mean that ppl on PlayStation play too much Essential and PS+ extra?"

Yes, this is what PlayStation has been saying from the beginning, that's why they haven't put their day one games on the service and why they have largely tried to keep the service secondary to sales. Jim Ryan repeatedly stated that putting games on a service like Microsoft is doing wasn't sustainable.

When Insomniac was hacked one of the Sony internal memos showed that after they put Forbidden West on PS Plus sales of the game almost completely stopped, there was even a chart that showed how sales went flat as soon as they put the game on the service, and it's also why they wanted to delay the release of Ratchet and Clank onto the service.

/rolls eyes

[S2Killinit]

@Barlos

From the article:

“Another developer said that if they release a game on Xbox without Game Pass, they miss out on the majority of the player base, which is essentially only playing games via the subscription service.”

Pretty tough spot to be for developers when xbox gamers dont realize that gamepass only offers a small ratio of available games. “Day one first party” translates to a couple of games per year, if that.

[Petebloodyonion]

@ Einhander
Where in the article is it alluded to the day 1 game?

"Something that was surprising in the discussions concerning effort versus value, however, was that some developers flagged the same concerns with PlayStation. After all, though it consistently ranked above Xbox in finding sales and players for games, it still trailed significantly behind PC and Switch."
"Some developers also pointed to the deals regarding the PlayStation Plus Catalog or Free Essential Games as having a similar effect."

Should I remind you that Sony has been offering PS+ games since 2010? Don't recall ever seeing you complaining about how it impacts Indies Dev in the monthly offering articles.

But if you actually took the time to read the whole interview you would have understood that small studios understand that and accept Gamepass and PS+ money because it remove financial stress and they might get lucky with a winner by reaching a wider audience.

And you would have found that
"The bigger issue is that everyone is playing the evergreen games like Call of Duty, Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, etc. Each one is soaking up a small percentage of players who never venture further out," said one developer.

Others were more hopeful and optimistic. Said another: “As long as there are players to reach and deals that offer benefits, I try not to worry too much about what’s looming over the horizon.”

And ultimately – as exemplified by some of 2024’s biggest hits that seemingly came from nowhere – it’s often those untroubled and unaffected attitudes that foster those great ideas for unique games that keep the medium so exciting, even when we think it can't get any better."

[Einhander1972]

Petebloodyonion

Holy crap man, you are constantly missing the big picture so much I can't even believe you say the things you do...

Yea, this one, of the hundreds of indies on the platform might get lucky and make 1,000,000 in revenue from Microsoft, but everyone else including the indies that don't get lucky, Microsoft and the big AAA is losing billions in sales combined...

Why do you think Microsoft is closing studios and putting their games on PlayStation and literally any platform that will have them, and force their way on to the ones that won't? I guess in your mind it's because I am a PlayStation fanboy, right?

I can't even believe I keep having these arguments with you...

[Petebloodyonion]

@Einhander

Most of my answers in this COMPLETE thread come straight from the source interview ( statements from devs or the author).

So with that in mind, I'll point out that:
"the thing said that he can't even believe I could say" is the complete conclusion of this interview.

Now you're free to tell the indie devs in the article that they don't understand the bigger picture about their answers regarding the main question in Edmon Tran's interview:
"Why would you work to bring your game to Xbox, especially if you already have a PC release?"

Source
https://www.patreon.com/pos...

Again all my arguments for your points are statements from THIS article, the same article that you are using as the foundation of your usual anti-Xbrox rant.
And like I said in a previous topic: "You can prove me wrong" by showing me your sources regarding indie dev's feelings about publishing on Xbox.

You do have sources right?

RIGHT?

[Cacabunga]

PlayStation has a chance in gold and I’m glad they didn’t give in to all the pressure from ask parts to release their games day one on PS+ to “country” GP.

At this stage we cannot even dial about market share. All gamers knew this time would come, just not this soon.. this proves that Phil Spencer and co are just non gamer amateur execs

[Einhander1972]

Petebloodyonion

Wow...

You got me, some lucky dev has supposedly made game pass work... it doesn't matter that the whole xbox ecosystem is burning to the ground around them caused by game pass itself killing sales on the platform...

/rolls eyes

[Eonjay]

Yup... I don't think it was something that needed to be predicted because it was very obvious from sales data.

[shinoff2183]

When alot of us tried saying this the fans didn't wanna hear it. Instead spewing on about how gamepass helps with sales and all the bs. It was clear as day what was going to happen.

[JEECE]

Who would have foreseen that the people using basic common sense and understanding incentive structures were right and the people parroting nonsensical PR talking points from the corporation were wrong?

[Chevalier]

Interesting how some of us have mentioned this with Xbox own reports showing this trend, but, Xbox fans kept disagreeing

[Crows90]

To be fair...the outspoken Xbox fans on this site are a minority...many Xbox players actually do have some sense...they're just not on social media to talk about Xbox.

[OlderGamer17]

Ots MS's own fault they where pushing the GamePass PR down Xboxgamers troath like the coming of "Christ" for Xbox, and gaming in general talking about hunderds of million of GamePass users. They had unreal exspectations. They wanted GamePass be the "netflix" of gaming. That has bit them in the ass in a big way. Who burnt his ass is bound to sit on the blisters...

[Aloymetal]

Exactly!
But, but tEh bEsT dEal In gAmInG...
Never understood that mentality when the best deal in gaming would be having all AAA third party games released day one on the service from ALL the big publishers like Rock*, Ubi, EA etc and not just a few so so games and the rinse and repeat MS 1st party games.

[S2Killinit]

Yup, the “best deal” is actually not all that great if you want to play games.

[shinoff2183]

I've played games on both services but I to this day usually just pop a disc in I own. I'd be perfectly fine if they both stopped their services. I feel it'd help the gaming market to.

[Abear21]

It was a great deal when you could get it dirt cheap, at full price all these subs are a straight up rip off.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

They should have seen this coming, I think Game Pass was one of the worst things Xbox could have done as a brand, good for the consumer who want to game on the cheap (although you can also argue that it hurts consumers in the long run, seems to be bad for developers unless you're a small indie game, possibly).

[shinoff2183]

They were desperate when this came out. They then painted themselves into a corner and now they can't get out of it without losing or missing off the base

[ThinkThink]

If your game is good, I'll find it on gamepass. I often buy the smaller games that I discover, which I would have otherwise missed. I buy more games because of gamepass, not the other way around. I have stopped purchasing full price MS 1st party games though.

[S2Killinit]

Lol 😂 yes, don't give up.

[Xeofate]

I see Xbox people say this all the time. But, I have honestly never bought a game I played on a service.

I think this is just something Xbox fans say... I never see people from any other similar subscription say this. And statistical data shows that this is not how consumer behavior works.

[S2Killinit]

LOL Well, too bad for xbox, its not like people didn’t warn them.

[neutralgamer1992]

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick made a significant point when he stated that Game Pass is a great service for classic catalogs but is not sustainable for AAA blockbusters releasing on day one.

This is also acknowledged by Microsoft, as they are seeking to bring their games to PlayStation and Nintendo platforms due to insufficient sales on their own platform, Xbox. Comments from Xbox fans often reflect a mindset of waiting for new releases to appear on Game Pass rather than purchasing them outright, indicating a reluctance to buy games immediately.

As a result, many publishers are internally debating whether it makes sense to release their games on Xbox at all, considering the potential inability to cover porting or development costs. Typically, in AAA blockbuster game sales, $10 goes to retail, $10 to developers, and the rest to the publisher for advertising and profit. Once a game reaches a certain sales threshold, royalties are shared over the game's lifetime. Game Pass has altered this financial structure.

Xbox fans often cite smaller developers who have benefited from Game Pass, as their games received more exposure. However, AAA blockbusters do not face the same visibility challenges due to their extensive advertising.

It is unclear how long Microsoft will continue to avoid addressing these facts. They should transparently announce that their games will be available on PlayStation, despite potential backlash from some Xbox fans. This approach is essential for recouping the substantial investment made in recent acquisitions.

[Chevalier]

"I can't even believe I keep having these arguments with you..."

Believe it. This vegetable is an idiot

[ravens52]

Oh really 😯. Can't say I'm surprised.

[VenomUK]

The Brits have a well-worn idiom: ‘Everything will come out in the wash.’

[Barlos]

Wow, really? Never saw that coming...

[RaiderNation]

In other news, water is wet!

[meganick]

Water itself isn’t actually wet. Water makes things wet when it comes into contact with a solid object.

[Abnor_Mal]

Thaaaank yooou, I tell people this all the time. You can not pour water onto water and get the first set of water wet. Water saturates things, or covers things with small particles of itself, and we refer to that as being wet.

[RaiderNation]

Oh FFS, it's just an expression. Relax your brain, Poindexter!

[jwillj2k4]

“They have an uncanny ability to state the obvious”

[lodossrage]

Well, that's common sense. You can't condition people to play things on gamepass for pennies on the dollar and then turn around and expect them to buy it at full price. And when anyone brings it up, they're labeled jealous, fanboys, haters, etc.

But hey, the same devs that are talking about this "behavioral shift" are probably the same ones that were praising game pass 3 or 4 years ago.

[JEECE]

Yep. These devs who blindly accepted Gamepass checks in the early days have only themselves to blame for the fact that people now expect to get their games as part of Gamepass. And of course, now that fans are conditioned to expect their games on GP, these devs can't sell them on Xbox a la carte, so they have to be willing to accept much smaller payments to be on GP than they got a few years ago.

[lodossrage]

I'm glad you mentioned that last part.

We've already seen devs talk about how those once big checks that platform holders gave devs for putting their products on subscription services get smaller. Which is something I spoke about repeatedly. Of course they were going to get smaller as the sub services became more common.

It's as if some of these devs don't know the basics of economy. Either that or they're too greedy to care and the fast money blinds them from the long term reality.

[shinoff2183]

It'll be remembered as the literal move that sent Ms into being a 3rd party. Maybe with a little skin in the game with a streaming/cloud box of some sort but it's killed them console wise imo. Just give it a little more time. My guess is Amazon steps up. If they do I still hope they sell ps and Nintendo games off their site

[NotoriousWhiz]

Indies are in a bit of rough spot right now. They definitely do much better on Steam or Switch than any of the big boy consoles.

Also from the article:
"When it comes to indie titles, things aren’t a whole lot better on the Sony side of things either. While PlayStation ports led to better sales than Xbox, some still trailed significantly behind PC and Switch."

However I suspect if the PS6 truly has a handheld option that can natively run PS6 games, then indies might start doing a lot of better on the PS6 as well. Indies just make sense on a handheld platform.

[Hereandthere]

The cope is strong here, 3rd party games on PlayStation are selling significantly better than xbox or pc, so i don't get what you are saying. It's just an xbox players cope to try to lump in PlayStation with the failed xbox to feel better about themselves when the numbers prove otherwise. There's no threat of 3rd party games skipping PlayStation like there is for xbox.

[shinoff2183]

The same thing they do about physical disc. It's always Ms and Sony. No no it's just Ms. Sony is still allowing s.all publishers to have print runs as low as 1k they were also the first console maker to let this happen. Then Nintendo jumped on. Ms has allowed a handful about 6 7 years to late.

[NotoriousWhiz]

I never said 3rd party games weren't selling well on PS. So I'm not sure what your rant is about. I was specifically referring to indies. The same as from the article.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Super cope bro I'm sorry you can't accept reality

[NotoriousWhiz]

Lol. I literally quoted the article. No cope here.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Again sounds copish because you're not explaining why you quoted the article so.. I'm not sure what's your point?

[Tankbusta40]

Don't take the money from Microsoft then...its simple.

[anast]

Imagine that, but they took the money. What did they think was going to happen?

[JEECE]

It's honestly pretty sad to find out that devs--whose livelihood depends on selling games--didn't have the foresight to see what Gamepass was going to do to their ability to sell games on Xbox. Like, I get that the hardcore Xbox fans had to parrot the MS propaganda about how "Gamepass increased sales," but devs themselves should have had a much more pragmatic view. Every disinterested person with common sense could see how GP was going to affect purchasing habits; why couldn't the devs themselves?

Just to clarify, I'm not blaming any devs who had a publisher go over their head and make the choice to go on GP. Obviously that's on the publisher. I'm referring to indie devs who made the choice themselves.

[Petebloodyonion]

They are not saying they are surprised or baffled and they are explaining why they are accepting Gamepass money actually why it's usually the reason why they port their game

Here

"Now, all eyes were squarely focused on Xbox Game Pass deals – which were also not as lucrative as they were just a few years ago, but still enough to consider putting the work in for.

One developer, who had received funding numerous times from Microsoft through Game Pass and Games With Gold deals, said, “It’s not integral in the decision, but it’s a massive help. It means we can be less stressed over whether we’ll make our money back.”

Another developer, who had also benefited from multiple Game Pass deals, echoed the sentiment: “As an indie, you have to weigh up every tiny expenditure against its potential impact on your vision, but knowing your minimum gains a year on from launch in advance makes that a lot less stressful.”

A mid-sized developer was eager to caution other developers, however. “If [you don’t have] a big game, and they know how much money you currently earn on the platform, they can really give you a lowball offer, saying, ‘Well, this is 18-24 months of your current revenue upfront.’”

But beyond development funding and financial compensation, the common sentiment was that simply having your game be part of the Xbox Game Pass subscription service was the best incentive to bring your game to Xbox at all, because of the better potential audience."

[anast]

Low sales mean less money. They took the early money and lost the late money. What were people thinking was going to happen?

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Yeah so Microsoft is losing money and no one is gaining any long-term attraction?

[Elda]

Developers that want to make money need to stop putting their games on sub services unless they have no faith that their game is going to sell.

[Petebloodyonion]

I publish the source material here since it's the complete article on the subject and offers a lot more details about the story.
https://n4g.com/news/260097...

Some key points not mentioned in this article:

- The purpose of the article.
- Who did they survey.
- Why they are porting on Xbox and accepting Gamepass money.
- Solutions that could help get more sales outside of Gamepass.

[jznrpg]

No way!

[MetroidFREAK21]

No shit

[Rikimaru-00]

didn't someone from said that GP is not good for the gaming business and he got blasted for mentioned it

[LostPotato]

Wow it's surprising when people state the obvious. That was the whole point of GamePass.

The market evolves and changes all the time, Time to adapt once again gamers.

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

Same way people buy less and less albums because they're used to having one subscription that allows listen to any album as soon it comes out. Gamepass players have been desensitized from the act buying a game.

[JEECE]

Yes it was funny to see the quote from the dev comparing trying to sell games on Xbox to Gamepass users to trying to sell a DVD to Netflix users, as if that's some insightful analogy that you could only come up with after Gamepass had been around for a few years and your sales had gone down. People with common sense were saying from the start of Gamepass that it would affect game sales in a similar way to how streaming services have affected music and movie sales (music is a more extreme obviously since basically all music is on Spotify, but the principle is the same).

[ActualWhiteMan]

Less sales sure but they’re being compensated by Microsoft… very misleading garbage. 🙄

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

You misunderstand. Even if they're compensated by MS, they still lose a lot of revenue because Gamepass users gradually buy less and less games. So games that come out on Xbox (even of they're NOT on Gamepass) end up selling less because, unless you're a AAA game, the average Xbox players doesn't buy games anymore so your game won't sell on that platform.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

This was inevitable ngl

[Hofstaderman]

No and shit. Did anybody really expect anything else. Rockstar CEO said no at the outset and spelt out what anybody with common sense would surmise; it would only kneecap developers and XBOX itself.

[OlderGamer17]

The developersvdont have to claim it its the truth, nothing more nothing less

[S2Killinit]

Another point from article that I’ve been mentioning:

“ Meanwhile, one developer pointed towards the large number of Xbox configurations to tackle, namely Xbox One, Xbox One X, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and Windows PC. According to them, it isn’t healthy for small indie game developers to port to five different hardware platforms.”

[NotoriousWhiz]

True, but for any dev already targeting Switch or low end PCs running Steam, it isn't a huge lift to add in those xbox consoles. But those extra xbox configurations definitely make it harder to develop an xbox game than a PS5 game.

[GamingSinceForever]

You don’t say.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Captain hindsight never has down time with team Xbox.

[ocelot07]

Microsoft ever since GP released. Has made about £35 from me. I got 23 months of it for a £1 a month due to the offers every month. You then had the real winners off gamepass. Who did the Xbox live to gamepass conversion for years on end. Microsoft haven't made any money on them for years yet a lot are still getting the benefits of gamepass.

Since 2017 Microsoft have gotten £35 from me. In the same time frame Steam/Playstation/Nintendo have gotten thousands out of me. Microsoft would of had a fair bit out of me if it wasn't for their genius idea of gamepass.

Edit: Probably about £60 now for Microsoft as I bought sea of thieves on playstation.

[Leemundo]

I’m an Xbox fan, and I’m a GamePass fan.

I can tell you, the amount of garbage that is released every week on the normal store, never mind GamePass, is the real issue.

The games market is saturated, and there is so much copy-cat shovel ware it’s unbelievable. Games will live and die on their own merit, that is a fact.
Release quality, get sales. It doesn’t work the other way whether it’s on GamePass or not.

[InUrFoxHole]

Duh. That's the whole point of securing a good deal for your game.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Someone that obviously isn't paying attention.

We told you guys again and again that game pass hurts sales.

"I'll just play it on game pass. I'll just wait for when it releases on game pass to try it."

"No! No! I buy my games after playing them in game pass. It lets me try games before I buy."

Bullshit. The numbers don't lie. Microsoft themselves have stated that game sales are reduced. Only a few developers have benefited from it because Microsoft was willing to spend the money in hopes of increasing their subscriptions.

But, when there's too many developers hoping to get on game pass and get that hand out, some of these developers are going to get a reduced offer. It was a given. Popular games get more money. Less popular games and developers will get less. Which is why we have said that these developers need to rely on sales like before. Like how the industry has worked for decades. Which works for Sony and Nintendo.

Microsoft trying to give them away when it was only going to hurt developers and gamers in the long run, is why we have been against game pass from the start. Why Microsoft needs to release games on their competitors platforms. Why some developers are being closed. Game pass is not sustainable. Developers would find it biting them in the ass later.

We knew this already.

[InUrFoxHole]

I honestly don't care.

[Petebloodyonion]

Have you bothered to read the article Shadow?
Like when devs mention that Playstations sales for indie titles are also lagging versus Switch and PC?

"Something that was surprising in the discussions concerning effort versus value, however, was that some developers flagged the same concerns with PlayStation. After all, though it consistently ranked above Xbox in finding sales and players for games, it still trailed significantly behind PC and Switch."

or that Big games like COD that keep players glued to one game for countless hours is a bigger problems
""The bigger issue is that everyone is playing the evergreen games like Call of Duty, Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, etc. Each one is soaking up a small percentage of players who never venture further out," said one developer."

[Miacosa]

It was an obvious result. It's what happens on any platform that basically gives away the content for cheap or free. You can't blame the customer for waiting for a game to be placed behind the subscription service or wait for the deep discount weeks later because it failed to track.

[Relientk77]

Imagine my shock

[Knightofelemia]

Well duh! Why would I pay full price for a game day one? When I can save money and just pay for it on Gamepass day one. And nobody saw this coming wow.

[Valkyrye]

just end GamePass already, basically killing the gaming industry

[Hofstaderman]

Not actually. Playstation and Nintendo game sales are doing quite well. Its killed XBOX. Ironic, no?
XBOX should definitely not be used at the litmus for the health of the entire industry.

[OlderGamer17]

No the,gaming industry is doing fine GamePass is killing of the Xbox...

[Rockstar]

you don't say...

[rlow1]

Very vague on who exactly these developers are. How many? Is it a just a few or a lot? How large of a developer? People on here read it like it’s the whole industry. For all we know it’s the ne or two and do these people represent their whole organization……..Lazy Journalism…..not surprised by today’s standards.

[RhinoGamer88]

Phil and his lackeys laugh at this article!

[dveio]

Frequently, I spot this calculation by people:

"30 million subscriptions x $10 per month = 300 million a month, that's huge money every month for Xbox."

And I always wonder:

Even if these numbers are true: Who is gonna tell them there are over 400 games getting paid every month just for being on GP? That's less than $1 million bucks for each game on average. So what's left?

There's simply no way GP is profitable right now. Not for Xbox, and most certainly not compared to retail for many of the games in it.

[Abear21]

Millions of subscribers stacked Gamepass back when it was a deal or $1 for month, can’t remember exact the loophole, but I’m sure there are millions of accounts that spent less than $10 a month for their sub

[ocelot07]

Their was a few ways. You had Xbox live to gamepass conversion. It was like 3 years of Xbox live gold for 2 years of gamepass ultimate. So people kept doing it on 3 year chunks. This actually only just recently got stopped by Microsoft I believe.

Then one I personally kept doing was. When I first subbed to gamepass it was a offer for like 3 months of pc gamepass got £1. Once this expired I then had another offer for like 1 month of intimate for £1. Once that was done another offer was available pc or ultimate for a quid. I did this for a total of 24 months. They stopped this before Starfield released. Then after Starfield released they started offering 2 weeks for £1.

Then you can also get 1 month ultimate codes for about £5 via sites like cd keys.

[Toecutter00]

This is why xbox is going to get out of the console business and into the streaming business. They've stated from the start that they want to be the Netflix of gaming. I doubt they were aware of the consequences, but it's too late now after their $70 billion dollar acquisition of Activision. Get ready for Microsoft Game Pass available on your smart TV, PC, Playstation, and Switch.

[Chocoburger]

Sony and Nintendo won't allow GamePass on their systems. Perhaps its part of the reason why both companies removed their web browsers (well to prevent piracy as well, too).

[Abear21]

Wait, the developers thought M$ cares about making them money? Hah, that’s hilarious

[gold_drake]

noooo waaat get outta here haha

[ChiefofLoliPolice]

Wow really?!...you don't say...

[shaenoide]

No sh*t. Who would have known... I've never spent so little since the advent of the Game pass

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

It's like restaurants placing vouchers with your meal when your order through Uber Eats. They want to entice you to order through them directly because it's more profitable for them than Uber Eats.

Even though Uber Eats helps with discoverability, it's still preferable for many restaurants to handle the orders themselves.

The thing is once someone uses Uber Eats or the likes regularly, they forget than they can order from restaurants directly and they don't even go get their food themselves anymore.

[PiNkFaIrYbOi]

Gamepass never made sense to me as I don't see how anyone that is involved in it will make a significant profit from being involved with it.

[Abear21]

It’s a privilege for these devs to have their peasant games on the holy service

[Ninver]

Oh wow how could we possibly have not seen this coming? /s