Cerebralbore101 said:
It's easy to pump up monthly active player numbers when a game is free or tied to a subscription service. Just look at Poke'mon Go, with its 1 billion downloads. Now, does that suddenly mean that Poke'mon Go is the best Poke'mon game? Hell no! In fact, Poke'mon Go is a barebones shell of the original games. You'd have a hard time finding anybody listing Poke'mon Go as their favorite Poke'mon game. Also, keep in mind that how long people play a game is in no way tied to its greatness. A game can sell 10+ million copies and be just a 10 hour single player game. Using monthly active player lists you'd think a game like that isn't very good. On the flipside a game that is manipulative, grindy, and addictive can have a massive playerbase despite being an awful game. All fun games are addictive, but not all addictive games are fun. |
I disagree with this. Most people are not smart, most are completely ignorant and that goes for shareholders. If MS announced their games sales were low and justified it with Gamepass subscription, I highly doubt there wouldn't be a legion of angry shareholders who couldn't be bothered to do their research on the matter. People are not smart at all by and large. If we were, our forefathers would have founded direct democracies everywhere instead of the representative governments we have all over the planet, relying on smarter officials to make decisions than the masses.
It is in MS's best interest to not reveal these sales figures and instead focus on subscriber updates regularly.