Will Gamepass lead us to doom?

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sems4arsenal

sems4arsenal

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Microsoft's E3 announcement of Gamepass and its incredible price had most of us (me included) excited for the potential. However, after thinking about it -- I'm kinda worried about the direction this might go.

The sustainability of the model is making me skeptic. The price is in the too good for everyone to benefit bracket. Indie games will have trouble getting the spotlight since well everything costs the same, and hence, they will get a small slice of the pie. I'm also worried about how devs will design their games around it. It's the perfect platform for bad GAAS and MT implementation since devs will now have more reason to grab cash from the usual average joe.

I know this seems like conspiracy theory time, but I do believe the industry might be worse because of such a model. Let's not forget that Netflix isn't exactly making bank now.
 
It's another step towards a digital only future which makes it awful by default. Consumer rights will disappear entirely, all games will have expiration dates and the always online requirement will be that much easier to implement.

As you touched on yourself, it also directly hurts the industry as it effectively cultivates the actual developers and publishers earning less as they'll eventually have no other choice than to use this service for releases on MS products.

It's rubbish.
 
Jawehawk
As you touched on yourself, it also directly hurts the industry as it effectively cultivates the actual developers and publishers earning less as they'll eventually have no other choice than to use this service for releases on MS products.
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We have different sources telling us exactly the opposite. Gamepass increases sales and indie developer specifically can gain new fans they otherwise wouldn't have.

Obviously publishers would love selling millions of an 60€ game. However many casuals only buy a handful of games a year. With subscription services like gamepass casuals play more and it's cheaper for them.

We had the same discussion about the steam summer sales in the past. How can they do this? Is it hurting the developers? Why would you sell a game for 20€, if you can sell it for 60€?

This is rather simple, because many people won't pay 60€ and 0 sales is worse than selling a few copies for 20€.

Edit:



https://twinfinite.net/2019/03/xbox-game-pass-developer/
“When we brought Oxenfree to Game Pass it was really interesting because we initially thought it could cannibalize our other sales or what’s that gonna do, and actually it was just the opposite. It was something that lifted sort of all of our sales because we found that we found a lot of new audiences.
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I was more under impression that gamepass would help small developers get their exposure (I can't cite examples, but I'm pretty sure that's one advantage of Netflix), but then again, as you've said, I can definitely see gamepass indirectly ending up creating more GAAS games. That's all I can say at the moment; I'm not totally sure how subscription services like this will pan out.

I don't think the traditional way of buying games is going anywhere, so impact of gamepass might not be as big as you think.
 
In it's current form I think it can go either way. Games are, for the most part, currently only a part of Gamepass for a limited time. This could lead to developers putting more focus into long term replayability in order to pick up sales post-Gamepass, but on the flip side could result in more micro-transactions if the developer doesn't have the luxury of time.
 
@rhalgr this is because gamepass doesn't have a huge library yet. The bigger it gets, the harder it is for indies to get exposure.
 
sems4arsenal
@rhalgr this is because gamepass doesn't have a huge library yet. The bigger it gets, the harder it is for indies to get exposure.
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The plattform store itself will always have more games than the subscription service like gamepass. So it comes down to price and gamepass wins the value for price 'battle'.

Even before subscription like gamepass we saw how some indies leveraged GwG or PS+ to get basically free marketing. We life in a time with streamer, influencer and someone with thousands or millions of subs streaming a game like rocket League was a win on their part imo.

The game is huge now and obviously indie devs have an very low marketing budget. So word of mouth is their biggest chance and you get that by delivering a fun experience and more importantly get the game in as much hands as you can.

F2P or subscription are basically your choice to achieve this. As a consumer i know my preferred choice is subs.
 
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Mr Fahrenheit
ending up creating more GAAS games
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which is good. Would be much better if we have one Forza Motorsport and one Forza Horizon game this generation and bunch of 20/40$ addons, even if it means that "horrible" practices of Forza Tokens stays in game.
 
Article about gamepass, which highlights the positive effects of it.
https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/17/microsoft-flight-simulator-reveals-game-passs-potential/

These games no longer have to convince players to spend $50-to-$60 in a couple of weeks to end up as successes. Instead, they just need to contribute to the reason a certain group of people continue to subscribe to Game Pass.

That’s why Flight Simulator makes sense again. As a standalone product, the game is a tough sale to that broader audience.
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inCloud
which is good. Would be much better if we have one Forza Motorsport and one Forza Horizon game this generation and bunch of 20/40$ addons, even if it means that "horrible" practices of Forza Tokens stays in game.
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Weren't they not even implemented into the recent iterations? At least I could have sworn it was the case.
 
@ImaRobot
Not really iirc. FM7 had lootboxes, but those were only obtainable via ingame currency. FH4 has only one microtransactions with the hidden stuff unlock item.
 
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rhalgr
@ImaRobot
Not really. FM7 had lootboxes, but those were only obtainable via ingame currency. FH4 has only one microtransactions with the hidden stuff unlock item.
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I know that, but I'm talking about Forza tokens specifically, it was a form of currency that cost real world money in past games. I don't remember it in FM7 or FH4.
 
inCloud
even, IF they stay in. I am not saying that they SHOULD stay or WILL be back, just that I dont care if they do.
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No I get what you said, but that's where it confused me. They can't "stay in" if they aren't there in the first place. I think you mean if they'd re-introduce them.

Either way, I wouldn't mind it either if someone wanted to speed up how they got things. It doesn't affect me, and it only creates revenue for future updates to a game if they do a Game as a Service.
 
ImaRobot
They can't "stay in" if they aren't there in the first place
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Nah, I mean if there weren't FH3 and FH4, only Forza Horizon 2 and addons for it with Australia and Britain. Same with Motorsport.
 
I'm personally not interested in the game pass, I only regularly play a few games these days anyway, Forza Horizon (series), Elite Dangerous and Crew 2 occasionally RDR2. Sometimes MC and Crew 2.
 
Not at all. A lot of cash nowadays comes from post-purchase gaming in the form of DLC and microtransactions anyway. So your big AAA devs and publishers won’t lose out on much at all. For smaller devs like indies, it gets the game a lot of exposure and downloads once initial hype on release dies down.

Realistically - how many downloads do you really think happen for indie games 1/2 years old? Plus the 20% off all Game Pass games means that if someone really wants to own a title before it disappears then purchases more likely. Not everything on GP will stay there forever and if MS is smart they’ll ploy on this. Seeing a game in your library tease that it leaves the store in X days and it may never come back is a popular business model now. Would work wonders for devs putting their games on GP.

Rocket League took the risk of going F2P on PlayStation Plus on release and that worked perfectly.
 
Gaming is soon to be renting experience. I know the PS5 and Xbox Whatever will be released but I'd put money on them being the last consoles with physical product you buy in the shops. It's really crap as some people actually like to collect physical product.

I was born in the 70s so collecting physical things and browsing shops is ingrained in me but maybe the younger generation aren't that bothered in physical ownership, but I see a point where there's not even digital ownership, only leasing.

There's no anticipation in the modern world, no hunt for resoures as such. I remember going shop to shop to shop looking for a certain imported game and it was fun as well as frustrating. Now everything is just 'there'.
 
@mekonrider I agree, it sounds like I'm as old as you ! I like physical games as well although I will admit that with the recent offer of £1 to join GP with my remaining Gold upgraded to UGP I couldn't resist and to be honest I'm already playing games that I'd had previously never considered. I think it's good and bad, although I will always prefer physical games. I know I won't resubscribe when my deals up.
 
mekonrider
I see a point where there's not even digital ownership, only leasing.
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Its already here, at least on PC. You dont own games distributed by Steam or other digital distribution services, for example. As long as retail copies linked with digital distribution services you cant own any game on PC. An exception is GoG, AFAIK.
 
SlipZtrEm
I think we've approached peak "if Microsoft does something it's bad".
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Hardly. They have the best deal and are the most likely to succeed, hence the choice.

Brend
Not at all. A lot of cash nowadays comes from post-purchase gaming in the form of DLC and microtransactions anyway. So your big AAA devs and publishers won’t lose out on much at all. For smaller devs like indies, it gets the game a lot of exposure and downloads once initial hype on release dies down.

Realistically - how many downloads do you really think happen for indie games 1/2 years old? Plus the 20% off all Game Pass games means that if someone really wants to own a title before it disappears then purchases more likely. Not everything on GP will stay there forever and if MS is smart they’ll ploy on this. Seeing a game in your library tease that it leaves the store in X days and it may never come back is a popular business model now. Would work wonders for devs putting their games on GP.

Rocket League took the risk of going F2P on PlayStation Plus on release and that worked perfectly.
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That's one of the issues. Publishers are greedy, and they'll do whatever they can to exploit this even more. Third party games will be released in complete, and will "evolve" over time. So yes, although I won't be paying $60 for a game, but I have a feeling we're all becoming beta testers for games.

Rocket league had the advantage of being one of two PS plus free games. That's huge exposure that others won't get. I get your points, but I have to presume that the greedy publishers will just keep on making unfinished, broken, MTs riddled games from now on.
 
sems4arsenal
That's one of the issues. Publishers are greedy, and they'll do whatever they can to exploit this even more. Third party games will be released in complete, and will "evolve" over time. So yes, although I won't be paying $60 for a game, but I have a feeling we're all becoming beta testers for games.
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And this is something that hasn't changed even with the existence of the Gamepass. What you're describing sounds more akin to Games as a Service than it does for the Gamepass.

sems4arsenal
Rocket league had the advantage of being one of two PS plus free games. That's huge exposure that others won't get. I get your points, but I have to presume that the greedy publishers will just keep on making unfinished, broken, MTs riddled games from now on.
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Like a good amount of games already do, that aren't even part of any pass subscriptions? However, you don't make money by making unfinished, broken games, that are riddled with Microtransactions. That's practically asking for your game to sink, not the other way around.

Anthem, while not littered with MT's, had released in what seemed an unfinished state with a ton of bugs, and now they're trying to salvage any little thing they can by fixing that mess. That game is going completely down the drain because of that.
 
It will probably lead to more mediocre exclusive games like crackdown being released. Not a good thing.
 
MikeV27
It will probably lead to more mediocre exclusive games like crackdown being released. Not a good thing.
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Crackdown was a mess and gamepass wasn't the reason for this. Gamepass didn't even exist back when crackdown was started being developed.
 

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