Support NeoGAF

[Sintoid]

This would lead to every game to try their absolute darndest to waste as much of your time as possible. Not just with a high amount of cheap repetitive content, but also through tricks like slow menus and unskipables intros/transition for everything. I bet some devs would go as far as making loadings longer on purpose.

It would drive me fucking nuts.

Maybe my first post was easily misunderstandable. I'm not telling that the only measure MUST be the game time. Try to imagine your scenario with an user score implementation. Lot of people that complain about this cheap trick to improve gaming engagement could be an added feedback for Microsoft.

 

[Griffon]

Maybe my first post was easily misunderstandable. I'm not telling that the only measure MUST be the game time. Try to imagine your scenario with an user score implementation. Lot of people that complain about this cheap trick to improve gaming engagement could be an added feedback for Microsoft.

This is too complicated for MS, you're creating a problem that has to be handled through user moderation and a proper technical backbone. MS can barely make the Xbox app download and launch your games.
Revenue determined by time and user reports can only lead to serious exploits and bad faith game design.


I have an even better alternative: what if users directly gave money to the developers? With an optional refund window of, say, two hours? That way we'd know for sure what games deserve to succeed or not, regardless of how much time they manage to waste.
And to sweeten the deal, we could even incentivize devs to release demos (maybe through a demo festival? call it the next fest), that way users can try most of the games even before spending money.

 

[peish]

With all the recent bad news studio closures, layoffs, and underwhelming releases it's becoming clear to me that gamepass might be Xbox's death sentence. Subscription models work for movies and TV because content is cheaper and quicker to produce. Games are a different beast though, they take years and hundreds of millions to develop.

Microsoft's gamepass strategy doesn't seem sustainable long term. We're seeing a constant declining in quality of their releases and unless a miracle happens, this could be the beginning of the end for Xbox as we know it

Lets have a healthy debate papitos

It is not gamepass fault. If anything, Phil did not cut the head counts quicker. It always is the case with acquisitons, roles are duplicated, it took them too long which makes this mass cutting looks massive.

 

[poppabk]

I dont think gamepass was a mistake - but MS have approached it weirdly. So many single player games with no real DLC.
A subscription service makes a whole lot more sense when you are selling add-ons for games - we know that Sony for example makes more money from addon-content than they do selling games. When you didnt have an initial outlay for a game that upgrade or DLC is an even easier sell.

 

[Sintoid]

I have an even better alternative: what if users directly gave money to the developers? With an optional refund window of, say, two hours? That way we'd know for sure what games deserve to succeed or not, regardless of how much time they manage to waste.
And to sweeten the deal, we could even incentivize devs to release demos (maybe through a demo festival? call it the next fest), that way users can try most of the games even before spending money.

That is a great idea, no other words needed

 

[Three]

Some gamers: Games are expensive AF.
Microsoft: Here's an option to play games for cheap is called GP.
Some gamers: GP is renting.
Microsoft: You can buy the game at full price if you want.
Some gamers: Lol, Xbox is going bankrupt.
Microsoft: Don't worry about that, we are a 3B dollar company, just enjoy the games. We are going to be fine.
Some gamers: No, i don't want options. GP is evil.

I don't get that mentality…

Some gamers: games are expensive as fuck
Microsoft: we're making games $80. Please subscribe.
Some gamers: no, get fucked.
Microsoft: fine, we're cancelling games and shutting down studios despite being a 3"B" dollar company.

 

[photogaz]

The industry has been terrible the last few years.

Xbox side it was Gamepass and poor leadership. I also believe the terrible naming of the Xbox consoles caused so much confusion.

Sony had it's fair share of mishaps too. The GAAS was a huge mistake. It's all come out of greed.

I hope the industry can recover.

 

[Gonzito]

I was right

 

[StueyDuck]

Content (quantity) over quality is always a mistake

 

[midnightAI]

I was right

Many knew that loooong before you made this thread, not wrong though

 

[Gilgalaad]

 

[RAIDEN1]

Gamepass I don't think was a mistake, it is as good as an "active" demo scene that you can get these days, try out the game before you consider a purchase, now demos of games are few are far between outside of that service, I'm thankful of the service in being able to check out games like Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon, and Star Wars Outlaws as it gives a better idea if they warrant a purchase

 

[Sintoid]

Gamepass I don't think was a mistake, it is as good as an "active" demo scene that you can get these days, try out the game before you consider a purchase, now demos of games are few are far between outside of that service, I'm thankful of the service in being able to check out games like Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon, and Star Wars Outlaws as it gives a better idea if they warrant a purchase

No one thinks to buy Gamepass sub and after that buying a full game already played on it

 

[dgrdsv]

Gamepass I don't think was a mistake

It absolutely was. MS has cornered themselves with Gamepass in a situation from which there is no graceful exit now.

 

[Gonzito]

Gamepass I don't think was a mistake, it is as good as an "active" demo scene that you can get these days, try out the game before you consider a purchase, now demos of games are few are far between outside of that service, I'm thankful of the service in being able to check out games like Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon, and Star Wars Outlaws as it gives a better idea if they warrant a purchase

Gamepass is shutting down gaming studios left and right due to poor sales. Learn to read the room papito

 

[archangelmorph]

Gamepass was never the fundamental problem, but a desperate attempt of a broken Hail Mary to try to save an already broken business.

The traditional calculus of the games platform business model was the following for many decades:

1. Build and ship a great console (subsidised or even loss leading to embed market penetration & scale)
2. Engender a large corpus of 3rd party publishers to ship content on your platform (you take no risk and earn 30% to recoup HW + operating costs)
3. Your biggest margins are on 1st party content. Grow and ship a stable base of diverse content

Microsoft never quite figured out how to make 2 or 3 work. Their platform's US centricity & US "frat boy" sensibilities persistently made it hard to grow their installed base, especially into asian and emerging markets.

Couple that with poor respect for the divergence of cultural and corporate governance required for a success games business vs their traditional business, meant that through shitty corporate meddling, they never quite achieved real success with their studios, and every new studio they acquired got ground down into mediocrity over the years because of their deeply systemic corporate cultural rot (widely acknowledged across MS as well as about them across a wide spread of sectors they're engaged in).

With the mistakes made with Xbox Series from inception (did anyone need the shitty Series S? no exclusives for at least the first 2 years etc) they reach a point where it became clear to their leadership the business wasn't sustainable against the traditional business model:

1. Their supply chain and manufacturing complexity by having two separate consoles made it more expensive because they lost a lot more economies of scale vs Sony. They still couldn't land the right tone and messaging to get wider market traction, & had not e.g. spent the years prior that Sony did investing in it's China/etc Hero programmes to grow their sales bases in emerging economies
2. With increased gaming budgets there were less 3rd party releases. Lots of GaaS titles pivoting to PC focus, leaving no 30% margins for console. Also fears of Sony moneyhatting exclusives would cut off their 30% from sales from the biggest titles
3. Dysfunctional and broken studio management model, corporate "numbers-&-trends" lead sales and marketing strategy lead by corporate sales staff with no b/g or instincts for the industry, that decided what got greenly and how it was made, plus successively poor studio formation & governance (The Initiative, 343) all ultimately lead to either cancellations or a very poor slate of very poor tentpole releases (Halo Infinite, Perfect Dark etc)

They were desperate and needed revenue growth. So the best way to do that was to strong arm publishers by cannibalising their revenues through the GamePass sub model.

They knew it would mean less aggregate revenue per IP. But what it did was radically increased Microsoft's share of revenue from 3rd party content, as well as driving attention towards legacy 3rd party games to fund subscription uptake and hence more money directly to MS on a recurring basis.

They were happy to fundamentally break the traditional business model, as they'd hoped to see dramatic growth in ARR (essentially new money for old rope).

They ultimately failed.

GamePass never reached the scale they wanted, because it was always ultimately constrained by the visibility & reach of the Xbox brand, which in itself was limiting, despite pushing GamePass on PC too.

It broke their relationships with publishers, who focused more on Steam & PS platforms where they'd see the majority of their revenues.

It broke their relationship with gamers, who were now conditioned to not buy games, collapsing sales across their existing distribution model.

And with no new market push to drive further top line growth, because as a company they'd consistently failed to even bother to do the work, they instead opted to try to increase the value of GP by locking up more content to make it exclusive to it. Hence the 2020s studio + publisher spending spree.

In short, GP is a symptom of a rotten business with long standing rotten leadership that's been asleep at the wheel of the fundamental problems plaguing their business for decades. It's been in slow death decline for a very very long time.

 

[Gonzito]

Gamepass was never the fundamental problem, but a desperate attempt of a broken Hail Mary to try to save an already broken business.

The traditional calculus of the games platform business model was the following for many decades:

1. Build and ship a great console (subsidised or even loss leading to embed market penetration & scale)
2. Engender a large corpus of 3rd party publishers to ship content on your platform (you take no risk and earn 30% to recoup HW + operating costs)
3. Your biggest margins are on 1st party content. Grow and ship a stable base of diverse content

Microsoft never quite figured out how to make 2 or 3 work. Their platform's US centricity & US "frat boy" sensibilities persistently made it hard to grow their installed base, especially into asian and emerging markets.

Couple that with poor respect for the divergence of cultural and corporate governance required for a success games business vs their traditional business, meant that through shitty corporate meddling, they never quite achieved real success with their studios, and every new studio they acquired got ground down into mediocrity over the years because of their deeply systemic corporate cultural rot (widely acknowledged across MS as well as about them across a wide spread of sectors they're engaged in).

With the mistakes made with Xbox Series from inception (did anyone need the shitty Series S? no exclusives for at least the first 2 years etc) they reach a point where it became clear to their leadership the business wasn't sustainable against the traditional business model:

1. Their supply chain and manufacturing complexity by having two separate consoles made it more expensive because they lost a lot more economies of scale vs Sony. They still couldn't land the right tone and messaging to get wider market traction, & had not e.g. spent the years prior that Sony did investing in it's China/etc Hero programmes to grow their sales bases in emerging economies
2. With increased gaming budgets there were less 3rd party releases. Lots of GaaS titles pivoting to PC focus, leaving no 30% margins for console. Also fears of Sony moneyhatting exclusives would cut off their 30% from sales from the biggest titles
3. Dysfunctional and broken studio management model, corporate "numbers-&-trends" lead sales and marketing strategy lead by corporate sales staff with no b/g or instincts for the industry, that decided what got greenly and how it was made, plus successively poor studio formation & governance (The Initiative, 343) all ultimately lead to either cancellations or a very poor slate of very poor tentpole releases (Halo Infinite, Perfect Dark etc)

They were desperate and needed revenue growth. So the best way to do that was to strong arm publishers by cannibalising their revenues through the GamePass sub model.

They knew it would mean less aggregate revenue per IP. But what it did was radically increased Microsoft's share of revenue from 3rd party content, as well as driving attention towards legacy 3rd party games to fund subscription uptake and hence more money directly to MS on a recurring basis.

They were happy to fundamentally break the traditional business model, as they'd hoped to see dramatic growth in ARR (essentially new money for old rope).

They ultimately failed.

GamePass never reached the scale they wanted, because it was always ultimately constrained by the visibility & reach of the Xbox brand, which in itself was limiting, despite pushing GamePass on PC too.

It broke their relationships with publishers, who focused more on Steam & PS platforms where they'd see the majority of their revenues.

It broke their relationship with gamers, who were now conditioned to not buy games, collapsing sales across their existing distribution model.

And with no new market push to drive further top line growth, because as a company they'd consistently failed to even bother to do the work, they instead opted to try to increase the value of GP by locking up more content to make it exclusive to it. Hence the 2020s studio + publisher spending spree.

In short, GP is a symptom of a rotten business with long standing rotten leadership that's been asleep at the wheel of the fundamental problems plaguing their business for decades. It's been in slow death decline for a very very long time.

 

[Dyno98]

I''ve been able to play dozens of games on Gamepass for extremely cheap. Even now, it's easy to get a mostly working suscription for little money. So I don't really care about studios closing, that's not my problem.

 

[Luipadre]

There are plenty of examples for a game to do really well even if it was on gamepass, it also helps smaller dev teams. Dont think gamepass is the problem

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

I don't think gamepass was a mistake. I think buying studios and giving them 7 years to fuck around before shipping a product was the mistake.

Phil and Booty bought these studios with no plan at all and they (these studios) committed more or less time embezzlement with a blank check to work on fuck all.

 

[mdkirby]

Yes. Sort of. The main mistake was day1, if they just copied ps+ it wouldn't be quite so damaging to value perception and purchase habits. Not that ps+ isn't damaging too, but it's a different scale of harm, and does bring in sizable revenue.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Gamepass I don't think was a mistake, it is as good as an "active" demo scene that you can get these days, try out the game before you consider a purchase, now demos of games are few are far between outside of that service, I'm thankful of the service in being able to check out games like Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon, and Star Wars Outlaws as it gives a better idea if they warrant a purchase

You say gamepass wasn't a mistake...but the rest of your post is describing a service that's not even gamepass. It was never supposed to be "demo center" where you pick a game to try it out. That's the trials that PS Plus Premium has.

I was reading Resetera earlier because someone also made a topic like this one...and most comments on page one were like "it wasn't a mistake because i paid 1.5$ to play games each month" like...how can't people realize this was never a good model? For a consumer is an amazing price but of course it's going to implode sooner or later.

 

[The_Mike]

Game pass was great when the price was the same as a movie streaming service, but once they started to charge more then it was destined to be doomed.

 

[thtJhnn]

Microsoft just needs to pull a Dreamcast: kill Xbox hardware, go full third party. (Like Sega did).

 

[owandeseis]

Gamepass is shutting down gaming studios left and right due to poor sales. Learn to read the room papito

But the games from these studio already released on PS5 which has no GP so they should be fine no papito?

Do we have data of Avowed's sales on PS5? In which spot did it debut? Or South of Midnight? Or the day 1 multiplatform games like Doom or The Outer Worlds 2

 

[seb85]

Game pass is not a mistake , Xbox putting their AAA first party games on it is.

 

[Sintoid]

Game pass was great when the price was the same as a movie streaming service, but once they started to charge more then it was destined to be doomed.

At that time it was unprofitable, no matter what Phil the liar said

 

[Gonzito]

But the games from these studio already released on PS5 which has no GP so they should be fine no papito?

Do we have data of Avowed's sales on PS5? In which spot did it debut? Or South of Midnight? Or the day 1 multiplatform games like Doom or The Outer Worlds 2

Its not the same. Not having the ps5 versions ready at launch will hurt enormously any game unfortunately

There are some exceptions like Forza but in general its a bad move business wise

 

[Shifty1897]

Of course Gamepass was a mistake. It was a desperation move that worked out well for consumers at the expense of Xbox and its developers.

 

[PeteBull]

Game pass is not a mistake , Xbox putting their AAA first party games on it is.

Fine, so gamepass got introduced in 2017, but from jan 2018 it added day1 exclusives, so last 9 years, majority of its existence

Microsoft expands Xbox One Game Pass with day one launch titles

Sea of Thieves will be the first title to launch on Xbox's subscription service alongside retail and digital sales

www.wired.com

 

[owandeseis]

Its not the same. Not having the ps5 versions ready at launch will hurt enormously any game unfortunately

There are some exceptions like Forza but in general its a bad move business wise

Luckily Doom Dark Ages or the highly acclaimed The Outer Worlds 2 released on PS5 at launch.

Or the next Hellblade if it ever releases, it'll be multi so no way it'll flop, same for South of Midnight 2 or the sequel from the walking lighthouse game from DF if these studios remain independient, big success expected.

Seriously now, FH6, Expedition 33, Silksong and Oblivion Remaster were big hits recently, some of them were multi and still sold best on a GP platform like PC, then there are others like South of Midnight, The Outer Worlds 2, Avowed or Kiln which flopped hard, some of these were multi day 1, some were exclusive.

Future games like GoW will flop on PC because nobody wanted the samey Gears after 20 years, while Fable will sell a lot because people liked what they saw and it's one of the most wishlisted games on Steam already.

Not saying GP is not a mistake, just that appealing games sell, and games nobody asked for don't sell, happens everywhere.

 

[The_Observer]

We, armchair analysts, knew this from the beginning. If only we got such money for it as these incompetent managers…

 

[The_Mike]

At that time it was unprofitable, no matter what Phil the liar said

I don't doubt that, but it was great for the customer.

 

[calico]

But the games from these studio already released on PS5 which has no GP so they should be fine no papito?

Do we have data of Avowed's sales on PS5? In which spot did it debut? Or South of Midnight? Or the day 1 multiplatform games like Doom or The Outer Worlds 2

I think the flaw with this argument is it does not consider the possibility of the GP model negatively impacting the quality of the game from the outset.

I don't think it's just a matter of 'the games sell less because GP is available' but that the games are worse (or just dumber conceptually) than they would otherwise be, due to MS studios feeling like they have a safety net below them. Now it turns out the safety net wasn't actually that safe after all, but I believe they felt it was and that they were led to believe it was.

SoM for instance I just don't think would have been made at all under a traditional model.

I think it's healthier for GP to exist (if it has to exist at all) as a secondary model for hungry external studios, rather than as the primary model for a bunch of internal studios who will inevitably become fat and lazy.

 

[Sethbacca]

I think the flaw with this argument is it does not consider the possibility of the GP model negatively impacting the quality of the game from the outset.

I don't think it's just a matter of 'the games sell less because GP is available' but that the games are worse (or just dumber conceptually) than they would otherwise be, due to MS studios feeling like they have a safety net below them. Now it turns out the safety net wasn't actually that safe after all, but I believe they felt it was and that they were led to believe it was.

SoM for instance I just don't think would have been made at all under a traditional model.

I think it's healthier for GP to exist (if it has to exist at all) as a secondary model for hungry external studios, rather than as the primary model for a bunch of internal studios who will inevitably become fat and lazy.

You're not wrong. "Good enough for Gamepass" has been a saying for a while now.

 

[Sintoid]

I don't doubt that, but it was great for the customer.

Are you one of those who cry for the industry status after what you said here?

 

[The_Mike]

Are you one of those who cry for the industry status after what you said here?

I wouldn't weep any tears for losing the output of the industry for the last five + years.

 

[Sintoid]

I wouldn't weep any tears for losing the output of the industry for the last five + years.

But you played them for cheap Gamepass right?

 

[The_Mike]

But you played them for cheap Gamepass right?

It's been a very long time since I had game pass.

No game is worth 70 bucks (was 60 back in the day when I subbed).

Since my Xbox One broke and I bought a new PC I've mainly been playing old games with the exception of wow and Diablo 4.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

Agreed. The day one with Game Pass has always seemed odd, especially for games with huge budgets. Playstation Plus seems a bit more realistic in the sense that it doesn't really get day one games.

 

[owandeseis]

I think the flaw with this argument is it does not consider the possibility of the GP model negatively impacting the quality of the game from the outset.

I don't think it's just a matter of 'the games sell less because GP is available' but that the games are worse (or just dumber conceptually) than they would otherwise be, due to MS studios feeling like they have a safety net below them. Now it turns out the safety net wasn't actually that safe after all, but I believe they felt it was and that they were led to believe it was.

SoM for instance I just don't think would have been made at all under a traditional model.

I think it's healthier for GP to exist (if it has to exist at all) as a secondary model for hungry external studios, rather than as the primary model for a bunch of internal studios who will inevitably become fat and lazy.

You've got a point, but it's not like Xbox's output last gen was more special either, latest GoW wasn't designed around GP yet it flopped, same for Halo 5 or Halo Infinite, most of their dev time was when GP didn't exist.

At the same time games like Expedition 33 which were announced as day 1 GP games around a year before their release (and had the deal done earlier probably) ended up being great.

In any case, if games like SoM or the walking lighthouse were made because of GP, it's not the service's fault but MS's, and it's easily fixeable.

Everybody in the industry need to know and study the market to have an idea if their product will be appealing enough or not.

 

[PeteBull]

Agreed. The day one with Game Pass has always seemed odd, especially for games with huge budgets. Playstation Plus seems a bit more realistic in the sense that it doesn't really get day one games.

Day1 on gamepass meant they are training their own customers to not buy games at launch, hell if it would be year and day1 i would understand, some1 is hyped and wants to play that game at launch- they gotta fork up back then 60 and now 70$, or wait one full year for "free" access, but actual day1 meant crippled sales + almost no incentive to make high quality product for the devstudio...

With this participation trophy aproach there was no other way but quality and sales of all their games to fall on their faces.

 

[archangelmorph]

Agreed. The day one with Game Pass has always seemed odd, especially for games with huge budgets. Playstation Plus seems a bit more realistic in the sense that it doesn't really get day one games.

GamePass should have been about building out the long tail.

Basically it should be to games sales, as what television distribution was to cinema in the 90s right up until Covid + digital streaming broke the traditional film distribution model.

 

[Zacfoldor]

 

[AGRacing]

They devalued their first party lineup as well as games in general and incentivized a less dense release calendar once the subscriber base plateaued.

We could have looked at movies in general since the streaming platform model and seen all the same patterns.

 

[Kusarigama]

Gamepass is an amazing deal for customers. It also forced Sony to launch PS+ extra, it is not as good as gamepass but good nonetheless.

 

[Biff]

Imagine being acquired by Microsoft, thinking "wow we made it to the big leagues, now we can develop games forever" only to then have some millennial CEO come in and shut down your studio 2 years later because management got cold feet on spending 1 quintillion dollars on subscription gaming with no feasible business model.

Here's hoping all the affected employees land on their feet. The few who were lucky enough to make bank on stock options during the acquisition will hopefully be in a position to spin up new studios and absorb some of this talent.

 

[[Tact]]

Gamepass could work if you had monthly tokens like Audible does, like maybe 5, and you could redeem a game for the duration of the month. So if you wanted to play a game for more than a month you had to use your limited resource to keep it. You could make the tiers give different numbers of tokens, and allow people to buy more if they really wanted to. They should probably let them roll over each month with some kind of cap. This would make people actually invest attention and engagement in the games they play, while also letting them have the pick of the litter if they really wanted to.

Maybe give them a window to refund their token if they truly hate a game. Or since you have multiple, at least you didn't have to pay for it.

 

[Moondoggy]