Intrinsic said:
I know thats how business works. But thats not what makes this truly stupid. There are people looking at this as if MS is being pro-consumer. But they aren't, what MS is doing is actually exactly what a company that doesn't really care about games or gamers would do. On the surface, it looks like they are opening up an entire ecosystem library to the consumer for very little money every month, but in truth, in the long term, what they are doing is actually constricting the library. How? I'm glad you asked... Movies have the theatre/cinema, shows have TV and ads. The only truly viable business model for games is direct to consumer sales. A game takes at least 2 years to make, and some an even take 4+ years to make. They cost these companies anywhere from $20M - $200+ to make. Most of these AA games needs to sell like 2-3M copies just to break even. What do you think happens when you give gamers a service that means they never have to spend anything more than $10 on games each month? Yes, they may not get Cyberpunk on launch day, but guess what, it may show up in a year on gamepass so I will wait. And that kinda mindset trickles down. Then next thing you know, making those big $200M+ RPGs/Racers/Adventure...etc games don't make sense anymore. All that starts making sense are more GaaS type games. More games like Fortnite, Rocket League, Mine craft...etc. And trust me, every major publisher will churn out at least tw of those. Generationalgaes, games that release once a gen and milks you on mxt and "season passes" for the rest of the gen. An all that is before the price hikes start coming in. Its a race to the bottom. MS gets a service, ties you into an ecosystem full of games that you don't actually own and can only play as long as you stay subbed. But at the same time,the constrict the gaming output of the industry as a whole over the course of years.It's the ONLY possible outcome from stuff like this. Think about it, if you own an Xbox, you have to be a VERY BIG FOOL to not sub to gamepass. Why in God's name would you pay $60 for halo when you can play it for $10? But thats the thing, you are still playing what is truly a $60 game. In time, all the games you will see on the service would be $10 game equivalents.Or games would start getting broken up into "volumes". Why? Because MS still has to pay for those games to be on gamepass. Take for instance, in one year, AC, COD, Cyberpunk,Tomb Raider, FIFA all release. Each sells r at least has the potential of selling 10M copies across two different platforms. Thats at least $3B in revenue just for those 5 games. MS would have to foot that bill if they want those games to be there on day one. And we aren't even talking about the 50 other smaller games that will also release that year. So what happens when gamers "wisen" up and just wait till the games come to gamepass anyways? Those companies end up selling far fewer games than they would have. Or, they release the game in split up volumes that they can sell individually to MS. Or they dn' release their games on the Xbox platform at all.
In this case, by then the damage would have been done. I am not against a service like game pass, I am just against how MS is trying to implement it. Games should not appear on it day one. Give the games a chance to perform in the open-market. Hell give it 3 months, though I think 8-12 months would be ideal instead. If yu train your userbase to expect everything day one, then they would simply not buy anything and just wait. That kinda mindset is bad for the industry. It's putting too much power in the hands of the person that drives that service. And it's simply not viable. |
"Games should not appear on it day one."
Exactly. The movie industry doesn't put their movies onto Netflix day 1, not even to buy digitally day 1. They survive by having an exclusive period where you can only see it in theaters, then you can buy it digitally or physically, then later it comes to subscription services.
It's the same with ps+, 3+ year old games get added 'free'. Putting a small game once or twice on it day one is a nice incentive but it shouldn't be the norm. Discounts on new games with a subscription service makes sense if that subscription service pays (a large part of) that discount to the publisher. Yet basically, that subscription service should also cough up near full price to day one use of the games released on it day one. How much would that drive up the price...
Timed access would be a good sustainable feature to sample the game, then offer you to buy it for a discount (or wait 2 years for it to be added to the catalog). Yet training your money earning user base, the early adopters with the highest attach ratios, to stop buying games is commercial suicide in the long run.
I could get Microsoft Flight Simulator for CAD 5.99 a month currently (unspecified limited time offer), yet I spend CAD 159 on the premium deluxe version instead. One, Asobo deserves my money for making this game. Two, Microsoft store problems. Three, cheaper in the long run as I'll be playing and coming back to this game for years and years. Game pass will easily be over 20 a month by the time I'm done with Flight Simulator.
The consensus on Steam between the FS enthusiasts seems to be the same. But they all want the premium edition which is not part of game pass. I guess that's also a way to make it possible to add games day one. Still publishers are missing out on a lot of $60 sales.
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