Xbox Game Pass Increase

Recently Xbox increased the Game Pass price by 50% in most regions. There is I am sure an internal reason for this increase but many Game Pass subscribers (of which there are many if you use the $5Billion they made on Game Pass last year) are unsure what their reasoning is. I hold the notion that as business goes, they set the price and we pay it or we don’t. If we don’t pay the price they decide on then they have a choice, they either decrease the price or they don’t. The concept is simple. They need to weigh up the cost of increasing the price against the people that will either newly subscribe, continue to subscribe or who cancel their subscriptions, and we as consumers weigh up the price and see if it is worth our time and or money. There is a balance to be reached where they make the most money and that essentially is their aim.

I feel that something needs to be repeatedly mentioned, and people need to realise that none of these game companies are in the game business to do things with you in mind they think about your money and how much of it they can extract from you. The days of ID Software sitting in a leaky basement with no money grinding out a game for their own and our entertainment is long gone. EA is a massive company that looks to eke out as much profit for their shareholders as they can and couldn’t care if you like the new FIFA (or whatever it is called these days) or Madden Football games but rather whether you buy it. If you continue to buy their games, they will continue to put them out. Bioware isn’t the scrappy group of friends that quit their jobs to randomly make games just because they loved games. Microsoft’s Xbox division is a machine with the sole purpose to make them money. PlayStation is an arm of the Sony corporation that makes consoles and games with the express role of increasing Sony’s profitability from 8% to 10% in line with the company standards and expectations as set out by Lynn Azar and Hermen Hulst in their investors meeting. All these companies are clear in their intentions and messaging but for some unexplainable reason, gamers just seem to refuse to believe it. People argue over who is the more consumer friendly organisation, who has the ‘feeling’ of making games that are fun and for the player, who are gamers at heart, who is the company that has creative vision and direction and, of course, who makes games that people want to play.

These days games that hit are not a indicative of a company making a game because they think it is fun but rather because they have done surveys, interviewed people, recorded data on what people like and don’t like, had meetings about meetings that they had meetings about earlier or had focus groups all to come to the conclusion that people want a free to play looter shooters with microtransactions that are a clone but not too close of a clone to the other hit free to play shooter. This is why Sony released Concord. People rag on Sony’s live service game initiative, but the fact is if they make 10 live service costing $100mil each and 2 or 3 stick making them 100s of millions of dollars each they are ahead. The fact is since PUBG and Fortnite there have been multiple games like this released and quite a few have hit the sweet spot that everyone wants. Valorant, Apex, The Finals, Tarkov, Marvel Rivals and even the old favourites of COD, Battlefield, Counterstrike and Overwatch continue to pull in huge numbers and even more money. Games like Expedition 33, Silksong and Blue Prince are held aloft not because they are the norm but rather because they are the exception.

This is, whether us ‘Real Gamers’ like it or not, is where the money is and in many parts the reason, we get our Indianna Jones or God of War or Last of US or Diablo and games like them. It is ironic for me as an older gamer that the rhetoric has changed from gamers being weirdos in their mom’s basements playing games and unable to speak to girls to us as ‘Real Gamers’ belittling the 100s of millions of people who are almost exclusively online PVP gamers who play Fortnite, COD, Warzone, Apex, FIFA (or EA FC), Helldivers 2, Roblox, and so on and so on. I cannot explain why my son playing Roblox (which he uses as a social game area for him and his friends) irrationally annoys me and I get joyful when he tries Hollow Knight or Split Fiction or any other game I have suggested he plays (as a side note and to make things clear, he doesn’t play these games because good ol’ dad suggested them but rather because someone much cooler than me such as a YouTuber or one of his friends suggests, as was the case with Terraria.)

The point I am making is that every decision they make is connected to money and profit. There is a plethora of information and data they have access to that leads their decision making and forward planning. Now Game Pass is and has always been divisive as is. Some people see it as the best thing in gaming this is the way I am lean towards as a regular Game Pass user. Some see it as the thing that is ruining gaming and of this, I am not so sure I can see the reasoning for but when gaming companies don’t really make games to make us happy and bring ‘Gamers’ joy, then this makes less sense. I do see that Game Pass brings games to gamers that wouldn’t normally play them, but I can see why people would think they it cannibalises sales. From my standpoint I would not have bought many of the games I have played through Game Pass (Blue Prince, The Accent, The Alters, Abiotic Factor, Wuchang, Gears of War, Hades the list goes on) and some I would have (Expedition 33) there are even games I would have bought in a sale but heavily reduced (the Persona games, Darktide, the Wasteland games, The Outer Worlds and Outer Wilds and so on). But overall, the vast majority of games I would have bought is way under the games I played so Game Pass did not cannibalise sales from me and many others as well, at all. In fact, I found I had a horrible habit of buying games just before they were announced for Game Pass but this is why I don’t play the lottery! Game Pass does give developers an added boost to their income from a game. It also puts your game front and centre as people see immediately the new game on Game Pass in a way that Steam’s new game carousel selection does not. I do feel there could be more transparency between Xbox and the public on how much they give to developers and how the scheme works after the game releases and is on Game Pass, but that would quite obviously reduce their bargaining power with future devs. I believe it has been revealed that they pay the developers a cash incentive to come onto Game Pass and then a fee based on installs and playtime. It is vague at best how the system works but from reporting I have seen and interviews with developers who have taken the Game Pass bag they are predominantly happy with the procedure as quite a few come back to do it all over again.

This is what drives my view of the increase to Game Pass. There is no infinite money pot. Microsoft didn’t become one of the top 5 companies in the world by being loose and free with money. They are not Epic Games. They seem happy to spend money on an idea and or a concept but there needs to be returns or proof of a long-term gain. There are many corpses of failed Microsoft excursions into software and hardware to prove this point take Skype, Zune, Kinect, their drive towards Xbox being the everything console in our living rooms and so on but even though Microsoft is lambasted for failed products, there are actually not that many. They are not scared to drop a product if it isn’t working and doesn’t make Microsoft money. It really is that simple.

The increase in Game Pass price is a perfect example of Microsoft’s view of its business interests. They streamline the money-making process and fix the price where they feel they are best positioned to make the most money. I don’t doubt that Phil is a gamer and wants to bring as many games to as many people as possible and to ensure that developers get the chance to bring their vision and concepts to life, but (and this is a big But with a capital B) he is a CEO of a division of Microsoft one of the biggest and most successful companies in the world. This is where I feel Phil shines. He is very good at walking that thin line between doing what ‘Gamers’ want and pleasing people above in order to make sure that he can keep doing it. May people disagree including PlayStation and Xbox gamers, but I do fell it is unwarranted. There is a vital point that is missed when speaking about Phil, he is different from say Jim Ryan who ran PlayStation, in that he does push to ensure there are games he would like to play included in their roster, either from their own studios or from 3rd party studios. But make no mistake, he is a CEO first and foremost, and he will side with Microsoft and Satya Nadella if they come knocking. His job is not to appease us but to make them money, as long as Phil does that, he can continue to do the things he would like to do. I would be interested to see how much rope Phil is given and how much freedom and leeway he has to do things.

The increase is not what we would like to see happen, especially in the current climate. It seems non-sensical of Xbox in the position they are in within the market in second place (Nintendo is in my opinion not to be included here as they are their own thing and are neither competing against nor are they in any form of competition with Xbox and PlayStation) or with the fact that the consoles didn’t sell as well as they may have hoped, but again Microsoft must be happy as there is still an Xbox division and Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond still have jobs. Do I think the price is excessive? Yes, I think personally they have gone too far. My Game Pass sub is a bonus on my mobile phone contract (yeah I am not sure either why this is a thing but hey ho) but I would have to think if I would continue the sub if it wasn’t. I would have to decide if the games I would buy over the year, would outweigh the cost of Game Pass sub. Game Pass Ultimate is in the UK is £23 a month or £276 a year, Game Pass Premium (which is console only??) is £11 or £132 a year and Game Pass PC is £13.49 a month or £161.88 a year. The £276 for Ultimate is between 4-7 games a year (based on the £40-£70 price tag on most games). If you take the games I have played so far this year you get the following:

Game Price Sale Price (Steam) Online Price (PC)

Expedition 33 £42 £37.79 (10% off) £23

Blue Prince £25 £18.74 (25% off) £17

Silk Song £16.75 £16.75 (no sale) £16

Gears of War £40 £40 £28

Persona 3 Reload £60 £23.99 (60% off) £21.99

The Alters £29.50 £23.60 £15 

Although I have played more games than this via Game Pass (Wuchang, Abiotic Factor, Rematch, Rogue Trader, etc.), this highlights that I would have spent around £209 on day of release purely on the games listed above, £160 if I were to buy it now taking into account Steam sales and £120 if was to buy them online. So, for me the £276 for a years’ worth of Game Pass Ultimate is coming close to what I would spend. From January if I stuck the £23 a month that Game Pass would cost in an account I would have around £230. I am happy to wait for games to drop in value (as is the case with every PC gamer I have a disgusting backlog of games to play) but with Game Pass I don’t need to.

Ultimately (no pun intended!) I feel people need to make a decision based on their own circumstances. This could be monetary as £276 a year is not to be sneezed at. This could purely be time related as in order to make Game Pass viable I feel you need to play a at least 7 games a year to make this viable. This again this is a personal assessment others may need more game or less based on their preference. The games available are also a factor. So far the last few years Game Pass has had some of the best games being released on it and it seems to be getting better year on year, but I am aware that this can change at any point.

I feel this story has once again highlighted the issue I have with journalism in the fact that a story needs to create drama. My YouTube algorithm has been inundated with videos saying how this is the end of Xbox and that the increase is ridiculous and it is no longer the ‘Best Deal in Gaming’ if it ever was. To my surprise this has also included people I did not expect to be adding to the drama. Gone are the days when people who speak about gaming news and are the arbiters of information just pass over the information. Now there needs to be a clickbait style headline and an article that incites rage in the comments section. The information is there for everyone to make up their own minds and it should be disseminated as such. I have no interest in telling anyone they should cancel their subscription or continue their subscription. I cannot tell anyone if Game Pass, or by proxy PlayStation Plus, is worth their money. I cannot tell anyone if they should buy a PlayStation or an Xbox or a PC (but buy a PC by the way you get the best of both worlds!). People should be handed the information necessary to make an informed decision and no more. Your opinion may be worth something to add to the decision, but really the data and information should be the deciding factor.