Game Pass’s big growth brings developers some surprises

Game Pass was pretty big last month, but even from that perspective, the past two weeks have been massive. Microsoft and Xbox’s subscription service continues the Katamari-like pull through the gaming industry, creating titles at a pace that’s actually approaching the fantastic “Netflix of Game”, a buzzword that has been bouncing around for at least a decade, but what you hear now not so much anymore, well yes, it could actually be here.

It’s been boiling for a while, but recently it’s been moving fast. First came the Bethesda drop: after Microsoft finalized the acquisition of Zenimax Media, the service received 20 massive games simultaneously, entirely from retro gems such as The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind to current blockbusters such as Doom Eternal and critical sweets like Disgrace 2 and Prey. Then, the announcement that the coming looter Outdoors starts on Game Pass on day one, followed by an announcement of some more beloved games like Undertale, Octopath Traveler and Nier Automata, all surprises in their own right. Finally, for a good mate, we got the long awaited drop EA Play on a computer. In the short term, it is clear that this thing is not getting smaller.

The value of Game Pass for the consumer is pretty simple: don’t pay that much money, get a bunch of games. For those in the industry, things are a little more complicated: subscription services on this scale are still relatively new in the world of games, but other sectors give us some scenarios of how things might turn out. The world of TV and movies seems to be moving fast to dominate subscriptions, and while there are many more prestige TVs and True Crime documentaries available, movie theaters are a little less happy about how it all happens. In the world of music, subscriptions are widely considered catastrophic: you will be hard pressed to find a musician who talks about Spotify, but the most ridiculous terms. A viral tweet from E3 2019 sums up the warning around the idea briefly and concisely:

Nearly four years into the Game Pass experiment, however, things are already shaking things out differently than for other industries. I spoke to UK developer Codemasters, which produces the DiRT series of racing games and has been involved with Game Pass since day 1, before being recently acquired by EA. For the publisher’s vice president, Jonathan Bunney, it must be another sea change in the industry: like so many disruptive developments in the past, it’s just another facet of an ever-growing space that brings new things to the table. without displacing the guy. one. He regards it as an additive experience, ‘one of the many tools in the arsenal of the modern game publisher’, as he puts it.

‘We see it as a way to extend the life of our games and bring in players who would not necessarily buy the game. speak as a consumer. I’ve been discovering games I’ve never heard of, or games I’ve heard of, but are just not willing to spend $ 60. ”

Bunney says that Game Pass was a great way to find new fans and grow games in the US market, where Xbox is stronger, and believes that it generally helps with top-notch sales through Game Pass .

For Microsoft’s Sarah Bond, one of the key distinctions between Game Pass and the subscription services that dominate the video and music industry is that it stays with the Xbox Live Store, and hence the connection between playing on a subscription. and buying games is fluid in a way that is not repeated for those other services.

“Subscribing to a channel that allows you to watch a video, like Netflix,” she says, “is the end of the monetization cycle you have with that content. In the game, it’s the opposite: there are items you can buy in the game, there are expansions you can buy, there is a next franchise you can buy, and there are other genres you can jump to. ‘

According to Bond, subscribers to Game Pass spend 20% more time on games, play 30% more games, play 40% more genres, and generally spend about 20% more on games in general. That could always change as Game Pass and other subscribers become a larger part of the industry, but Bond stresses that there is still room for overall growth, especially as Xbox connects its streaming services to Game Pass.

“There are 200 million people who buy a console, and there are 3 billion people who play games,” she says. ‘Today, many of the people do not have the option to play many of these amazing experiences and iconic games that you see. If you’re really watching what we do with Game Pass, we make it possible by linking it to a subscription and subscribing to our streaming. We can make the economy of all things work ”.

Mike Rose, founder of No More Robots, was cautious when the entry train first started spinning. The company publishes some weird, esoteric titles, the kind that many people who were initially concerned may have mastered through the continued growth of services like Game Pass. Narrative-based game developers in particular were concerned that a benchmark-driven approach to subscription-based titles could begin to favor addictive multiplayer titles over unique single-player titles. With four games in service, however, he was pleasantly surprised by the support for a wide variety of titles.

“It was a concern for me a few years ago, it’s less worrying for me now,” he says. ‘Signed with them Hypnospace Outlaw and No prophet anywhere, games that probably do not fit so well with the gameplay model and are a kind of niche and strange. This eases my worries because it seems like they want their distribution of games. ‘

All the No More Robots games had a different experience when they got Game Pass. Online multiplayer game Descendants, he says, was perfectly tuned to the service, and it exploded as soon as it dropped in terms of overall gameplay and traditional sales, which he said quadrupled.

‘The effect we see is that people are playing on Game Pass, they are saying to their friends,’ hey come play this game with me ‘, they do not want another entry, so they are going to buy the game. Eventually we get a ton of players on Game Pass, and we sell a ton too. ‘

We’ve seen the same effect for titles on Sony’s PlayStation Plus service, which is not nearly as extensive as Game Pass, but still gives away free games. Rocket League is the fundamental story there, where a massive addition of free players during the launch led to a long, successful launch as a premiere multiplayer title, but recently we have seen similar stories with titles like Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout or Bugsnax, both of which were launched for free on PlayStation Plus.

Other No More Robots titles such as a dream image police simulator and an internet ode from the late 90’s Hypnospace Outlaw or card fighter No prophet anywhere was not quite as well geared as not Descendants, but they still saw smaller sales. Kingdom Management RPG Yes your grace started the service around the Xbox Series X launch, and consequently saw a larger increase.

“The most important thing for us is that sales have not decreased,” says Rose. “You’re worried you’re making the thing for free and no one will buy it anymore: it did not happen.”

Game Pass is strong in its growth stage, when it has a great incentive to be generous to players as well as developers, and while players are still adapting to the idea. Asked if he is worried about whether these dynamics will change in the future, Rose adapts a very typical attitude of Indians in any creative space: “I am worried about everything,” he says.

While the past few years seem to have calmed some of the bigger concerns about these services, developers are staying alert and responding to an industry that tends to undergo a few seismic shifts per decade. For Rose’s part, he points out that gamers simply approach their purchasing decisions differently than in other sectors, for whatever reason – the high degree of commitment that can bring people to individual titles as the likely culprit – simply because something is free is, does not mean that gamers will not pay for it.

‘So many people are being told that they bought their games, as well as playing them on Game Pass. Other people say they feel they do not own it if only on Game Pass. So they buy it! It seems crazy to me! ”