Got bored. Scrolled through all 599 games available on GamePass (like half of which were just different versions of the same game on multiple platforms), and here's the list of games I saw they were offering that I don't already have that I would be passably interested in trying out:

A Way Out
Alien Isolation
Battletoads
Call of the Sea
Carrion
CrossCode
Dead Cells
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Gears 5
Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice
Ikenfell
Katana Zero
Minecraft Dungeons
New Super Lucky's Tale
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Sea of Thieves
Spiritfarer
The Surge 2
Yakuza series

Almost every one of those games were ones I saw on sale, thought 'eeeh, still not worth it', and moved on. All but I think Gears of War, Sea of Thieves, and Call of the Sea. The rest are all games that have been in my wishlist for as many as 2-3 years, but I never wanted them enough to actually spend the 10-15 bucks to get them. Given my backlog, I'd never get to them anyway. And if I did want them, I'd want to support the devs by buying the game rather than letting them get some measly 20c of my monthly fee.

Point is, to a collector - someone who just buys all their games and keeps them - Gamepass is just a monthly fee for games to go at the end of one's backlog. I could not buy a single game until the PS6 comes out and still not make it through my backlog between PS4, Switch, and PC. Adding to that for a fee...for what? Convenience? I already don't touch the free games I get with PS+, and I use that for the online play and cloud functionality. (There are a handful of games I got for download on PS+, but I only play the digital versions because I already bought the physical editions and liked the convenience of the digital versions.)

Point is, everyone values things differently. I see absolutely zero value in this given my personal game-collecting and playing habits. To me, it just feels insulting to the devs, and I genuinely have no idea how it's good for devs or for Microsoft, to be honest. The only people I see benefitting from it are folks who buy games, beat them, and move on (sell them) anyway. Of course, that's just how I see it and why I actively dislike stuff like this. I avoid it like the plague. Doesn't feel right to me, and I resent it. Devalues my game collection. All the collector buddies of mine feel the same way (I'm actually shocked by this, to be honest; didn't expect as many people to agree with me, I thought I was like the only one in the world who doesn't like Gamepass/PSNow, etc)

Had to click other, so I thought I'll explain. I like the idea of done right, but I'm worried we are digging our own graves like we did with MTs and loot boxes.

Gamepass is amazing value for money, but we don't know enough about it since the real cost to us and MS isn't known yet. Meaning, right now we get a discounted Gamepass, but one day this will go up and we will have to pay what it really costs to keep gamepass financially sustainable. MS still haven't picked up the actual costs of Gamepass yet since they haven't revealed much in terms of AAA first party. The year they release a Forza, Gears, and one or two other first party games for free and then do something similar in the second year to match Sony's 1st party output, MS will know the actual cost of Gamepass.

This can only lead to one of two things: increased cost to recoup money / downgrade in game development investment. Gamers won't like either unless they keep Xbox as a third party backlog device. At this point, we may even lose day one releases to some of not all 1st party Xbox games.

I know people use Netflix as a comparison, but it's a bad comparison in my eyes. Netflix didn't have to speak to a board and convince them they are making billions each year and to risk losing billions they make, by losing billions every year until they hit larger enough numbers.

Xbox is essentially eating into its own profits. They would have still made money from MTs even without day one and other stuff. They would have made more money from physical sales and gamepass had the game launches on gamepass 3-6 months later.

The more AAA games they release, the more money they need to make back to recoup costs.

Someone looked at Epics costs and thought the games are cheap, not realising those are not all day one games, most are indy and old, and were only free for a very short window. They offer and cost therefore are mostly likely world's apart.

So going back to my answer, I like the Gamepass and PSNow, but I want day one off it and I want it at a cost that helps the service be sustainable. I don't want gaming to go to shit due to the hedonistic times we live in where we only worry about today be forsaking tomorrow.

Are you are aware what you feel about devs is absolutely meaningless? Seems like you are pissed on someone's else behalf who are actually profiting quite a bit with subscription model

If you are butthurt over subscriptions, that's your right, but no point pretending your concern is someone's else concern, let alone devs concern 

This model is good for devs because more people have access to their games. Do you know why mobile gaming is the biggest game industry despite resorting mostly on shovelwhare? Because it's accessible, they are selling for billions rather than millions. Accessibility means more customers and subscription model implies a stable influx of cash, things companies never had. With subscription you know almost exaclty how much money you will make in the next months and then plan accordingly. No more concern predicting sales to estimate your revenues for months to come.

The devs who are negatively affected by this are the ones who makes niche games for a loyal fanbase who buys everything of a specific franchise right on its release at full price, but never truly break a "main audience" and ends having abysmal legs, seems the case for many Japanese games. Good thing is subscriptions are not stopping sellers anytime soon, those games will still be sold as long makes sense for companies to sell them, so even those devs can rest knowing their digital ventures will still be perfectly viable 

And how many AAA games and innovative games has mobile gaming produced? That's a really bad comparison unless you want console gaming to end up as shovelware focused on wasting your time or paying to keep playing.

How will subscription models distribute the income? Time played? That would be a terrible metric steering games to the f2p mobile model where you either grind or pay. As well as how many games played from a publishers, which would promote chopping up games, smaller games, saturating the market with what mobile has become. A rating system might work a bit better, however I doubt any 'niche' games will be better off with a subscription model than they are currently.

DP

Most likely the same way as movies, contract distribution fees for some months/years. I get your concern, but the unspoken truth is: If we only had traditional sales to back up AAA blockbusters current games having smaller budgets, smaller content and smaller scope would have been already the standard.

Instead games are becoming bigger and more expensive probably due to companies making up the loses with services, DLC and in games purchases. You can easily grab a The Sims 4 for what now? 5 USD? It's almost symbolic fee at this point

A game being "free" in Game Pass allow those kind of games to sells DLC and MTX to an even more extensive crowd, I doubt they will really bother. First they will have a fixed income from a contract, their game will be aviable to millions right after its release and they will be able make the hell out DLC and in-game purchases, absolutely dream coming true for AAA studios if you ask me 

That's another concern: The expansion of games as a service, but games as a service is not really something that seems to bother devs, it's something that bothers people who mostly like game as finished products. But I guess if you like the concept of game as products you should avoid even buying DLCs and in game purchases, regardless of subscription services or not 

I've seen a lot of people who are skeptical of Game Pass say, "It's a great deal now, but what about in in the next 3-4 years?" Why not just enjoy the service now while Xbox is still in it's building userbase phase lol. So many are worried the future, but fail to realize anyone can unsubscribe anytime they want. I have no issues to dropping something if I don't find it worth my money or time. In the mean time, I'm going to enjoy the great service Game Pass is.

Well. imo movies have declined in quality, I hardly watch new movies anymore.

The games that are getting bigger are the AAA blockbusters that are in no danger, they'll find a way to recoup costs, more dlc and mtx. The concern is for the more niche games, like the A game developers that all but disappeared with the advance of digital distribution. Smaller budgets, content, scope for more nice games are already more standard as people aren't willing to pay full price for those anymore.

And indeed, I don't buy DLC nor any other in game purchases, the only exception being a couple music packs for Beat Saber. For anything with a story, beginning, middle, end day one, finished story.

Anyway yep, it's fine for AAA studios, they have to do less work to keep getting paid regularly.

Can you list these A game developers which were killed by digital distribution?

For many indie and A developers digital distribution was a godsend. For retail games they needed a publisher (to get their games on the limited shelves of retailers) who took most of the profits and often claimed the IPs.

Digital distribution allowed them to self-publish and cut out the middleman.

It also was quite hard to estimate how many reatil copies they should produce. If they manufactured much more than the demand, the production costs of the unsold games (cd/dvd, booklet, package, distribution costs to retailers and back...) cut severely into the profits they had from the sold games.

If they manufactured not enough, a second or third edition took much time... would the demand still be there when the new edition arrives at the retailers?

With digital distribution and theoretically unlimited licenses  they were much more flexibel.

Precisely 

I actually think smaller games with 20-25 hours will be the norm for the standard story of AAA games. They can finish the core of the main story with shorter development cycles and then allocate their teams to create downloadable content to finally make some profit over the base game

I don't think that's really good a thing as most of DLCs are totally not worth it

I mostly play japanese games, indie games, Nintendo games and simulators, I'm rarely interested in current story based western AAA games. Simulators and management games have a very good synergy with game as service concept so they are fine, but I'm really curious to see how japanese games will develop in this new gaming world