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David Jaffe Addresses the Concern Over Gaming Subscription Services

It's so different how we consume movies and TV shows from videogames. A gamer can play one to two games a year if he is so addicted to such a game.

Those who think gamepass will grow without the $1 deal are in for a rude awakening. The engagement brought by free-to-play games will eat gamepass for breakfast. And those who buy games at full price for the AAA blockbuster experience will continue to do so.

Gamepass will find its niche among the xbox faithfuls and those who might find value in it because they have too much free time to play games. But at $15/month, that niche has to make money.
 

AphexTwunt

Member
I hope you're not serious. GamePass has 100+ games not one TLOU2 game per month, and PS Now has 850+ games as well. All these games bleed money to keep. If anything this proves that PS Plus makes more sense financially in comparison.

Also most of those 23M are paying $1-3/mo for 3 years.

GamePass on console has 300+ games.

And most paying $1 is tales from your arse, like most of the console warrior bullshit that you spew.
 

Chukhopops

Member
GamePass on console has 300+ games.

And most paying $1 is tales from your arse, like most of the console warrior bullshit that you spew.
360 actually, and 456 unique if you count PC + console, out of which 199 are 80+ Metacritic.

PSNow has more games total but fewer 80+ even in absolute numbers.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
The guy who plays a game a year is in the same category as a "gamer" as those who play mobile games while waiting at the stoplight.

What are you trying to say? That people who keep playing CSGO, LoL, DOTA2, WoW, GTA Online, etc. for years are not "real" gamers?
 

geary

Member
What are you trying to say? That people who keep playing CSGO, LoL, DOTA2, WoW, GTA Online, etc. for years are not "real" gamers?
You know very well what I wanted to say....Trying to spin it, is not worth a detailed response....A game a year is not the same as same game whole year.
 
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bellome

Member
Subscription services are great for publishers on so many levels.

On the other end customers get much less value from their purchases (because of the implied limitations in product disposal and usage) and end up with nothing when their subscription ends.
 

supernova8

Banned
Subscription services are great for publishers on so many levels.

On the other end customers get much less value from their purchases (because of the implied limitations in product disposal and usage) and end up with nothing when their subscription ends.
While I agree with this, I think it only really applies to the subset of people who buy games, complete them/have their fun with them and then trade them in/sell them immediately. Otherwise, with the exception of a few titles like GTA5 and a lot of Nintendo games, the product depreciates in value very quickly due to a combination of them being put on sale for less later on and them being available used anyway so the trade-in price is crap.

The amount of times I've seen people go into GAME shops and trade-in literally a mountain of games for $2 each, it's crazy. If you don't change your habits to squeeze more resale value out of them, there's actually a lot less downside to stuff like Game Pass than people really think.
 

AphexTwunt

Member
For a limited time, get your first 3 months of Ultimate for $1. JOIN ULTIMATE SEE ALL PLANS. Subscription continues automatically at $14.99/mo.


Many have stacked these or use multiple accounts.


You downplayed the number of games and stated that most are using the $1 deal - this doesn't support your FUD.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
You downplayed the number of games and stated that most are using the $1 deal - this doesn't support your FUD.

XGPU_CloudGaming-1.jpg


That's the last ad I remember. Now I won't stop you from crying.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
You downplayed the number of games and stated that most are using the $1 deal - this doesn't support your FUD.

Even if its baseless shit he's throwing around. 1 buck for 22m subscribers is still 22m. I could see it already pay for there entire cataloge on gamepass from 3rd party's.

Not to forget this.

Xbox Game Pass members can save up to 20% off select games in the Xbox Game Pass library, plus up to 10% off related game add-ons.​


Its probably great for devs to have it, they probably get paid a chunk of cash upfront of what they would make anyway on those games much like what epic does and then still reek the sales in that come after that.
 
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Subscription services are great for publishers on so many levels.

On the other end customers get much less value from their purchases (because of the implied limitations in product disposal and usage) and end up with nothing when their subscription ends.
People wouldn't use subscription services if they were bad value. The market is (almost) always right.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Even if its baseless shit he's throwing around. 1 buck for 22m subscribers is still 22m. I could see it already pay for there entire cataloge on gamepass from 3rd party's.

Currently gamers can pay just $1 for access to hundreds of titles across PC and Xbox via Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service—but don’t activate that insanely cheap one-month trial just yet. You can lock in up to three years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with that same dollar if you play your cards right.

When you activate Microsoft’s promotion, it not only begins the trial, but also converts existing Xbox Live Gold and standard Xbox Game Pass subscriptions on your account to Game Pass Ultimate (normally $15 per month) at a 1:1 rate. Any prepaid time up to the maximum of three years gets the upgrade.

 
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Godot25

Banned
It's so different how we consume movies and TV shows from videogames. A gamer can play one to two games a year if he is so addicted to such a game.

Those who think gamepass will grow without the $1 deal are in for a rude awakening. The engagement brought by free-to-play games will eat gamepass for breakfast. And those who buy games at full price for the AAA blockbuster experience will continue to do so.

Gamepass will find its niche among the xbox faithfuls and those who might find value in it because they have too much free time to play games. But at $15/month, that niche has to make money.
I don't get one thing

If people only subscribing to GP with 1$ deal, how it is possible that number of subs still grows? People should get their 1$ promo, use it and then unsub. So, why is number of subscribers constantly growing?

Isn't it because 1$ promo is acquisition tactic that is common in Netflix/Spotify etc? So people will take a bait, see how much value service is providing and then they are keeping subscription active?

But it's not working if your service is shit. As we can see by Sony's offering PS Now for 1$ but still can't talk about number of subscribers with that service...
 

jigglet

Banned
Say what you will about the final season of Lost, but I feel that was @ around the time when TV started taking on hollywood level production values. That was before streaming became a thing, so I have my doubts about whether streaming was the driver for the boost in quality. That being said it definitely has been the driver for a boost in funding. The sort of budgets TV shows get these days is astonishing.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Currently gamers can pay just $1 for access to hundreds of titles across PC and Xbox via Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service—but don’t activate that insanely cheap one-month trial just yet. You can lock in up to three years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with that same dollar if you play your cards right.

When you activate Microsoft’s promotion, it not only begins the trial, but also converts existing Xbox Live Gold and standard Xbox Game Pass subscriptions on your account to Game Pass Ultimate (normally $15 per month) at a 1:1 rate. Any prepaid time up to the maximum of three years gets the upgrade.


I can play elder scrolls online for free.

I spended this month already 200 euro's on it, my other friend 100, my other friend 300.

U have no clue who made use of it or not. and even then 22m is already a fuck ton of money to fund most of those games on there platform as they would sell for nothing anyway.

I dunno what u are trying to proof here.

Here's a good example

e0fftyxvcaaqzrv.jpg



11m = probably ~40 games. and those are to keep forever. Now imagine a subscription model and 100+ games. doesn't seem like microsoft has to ask much to get there money out of it.

Its also a subscription service, so most people will probably let it run forever and forget about it. And its great for publishers because people that never wanted to touch there games can now do so easily + dlc's / expansions / lootboxes can still be charged for easily, while already getting paid what upfront what they would have made anyway.

Now imagine reserving a budget for gamepass as microsoft that's 200m like a full blown aaa game, yea the sky is the limit here.
 
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Godot25

Banned
Currently gamers can pay just $1 for access to hundreds of titles across PC and Xbox via Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service—but don’t activate that insanely cheap one-month trial just yet. You can lock in up to three years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with that same dollar if you play your cards right.

When you activate Microsoft’s promotion, it not only begins the trial, but also converts existing Xbox Live Gold and standard Xbox Game Pass subscriptions on your account to Game Pass Ultimate (normally $15 per month) at a 1:1 rate. Any prepaid time up to the maximum of three years gets the upgrade.

You know that people are not paying 1$, right?
They are paying 181$ for three years of GPU. That's 3x60$ for 36 months of Gold and then 1$ trial to convert all of it to GPU.

And I can tell you right now that Microsoft does not care. Because it is highly unlikely, that person who will sub to GPU for 3 years will go away from ecosystem after their subscription will ran out. So, yeah. They are paying less now, but after 3 years they will pay standard 14,99$ monthly fee. That's smart acquisition strategy. Get people to your ecosystem cheaply and then provide them with a reasons not to leave. If they cared, the would changed conversion ratio already.

GPU is right now best deal even when you are paying 14,99$. If you are paying less it's literally nobranier.
 
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Currently gamers can pay just $1 for access to hundreds of titles across PC and Xbox via Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service—but don’t activate that insanely cheap one-month trial just yet. You can lock in up to three years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with that same dollar if you play your cards right.

When you activate Microsoft’s promotion, it not only begins the trial, but also converts existing Xbox Live Gold and standard Xbox Game Pass subscriptions on your account to Game Pass Ultimate (normally $15 per month) at a 1:1 rate. Any prepaid time up to the maximum of three years gets the upgrade.

Existing subscriptions cost money too. You're not getting 3 years of gamepass for a dollar lmao
 
And I can tell you right now that Microsoft does not care. Because it is highly unlikely, that person who will sub to GPU for 3 years will go away from ecosystem after their subscription will ran out. So, yeah. They are paying less now, but after 3 years they will pay standard 14,99$ monthly fee. That's smart acquisition strategy. Get people to your ecosystem cheaply and then provide them with a reasons not to leave.
And they will spend more money inside the ecosystem while they're subscribed. Microsoft indeed doesn't care, otherwise they would've changed the deal (like they did with the EA card conversions).
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I can play elder scrolls online for free.

I spended this month already 200 euro's on it, my other friend 100, my other friend 300.

U have no clue who made use of it or not. and even then 22m is already a fuck ton of money to fund most of those games on there platform as they would sell for nothing anyway.

I dunno what u are trying to proof here.

Trying to proof that guy was lying and throwing base-less accusations, not really you.

Anyway, cheers.
 

Godot25

Banned
And they will spend more money inside the ecosystem while they're subscribed. Microsoft indeed doesn't care, otherwise they would've changed the deal (like they did with the EA card conversions).
Yup. They changed EA stuff, because you get great monthly price, but money was going to EA, so Microsoft didn't saw the benefit in providing players with this method. But Gold conversion? It's still money for Microsoft...
 

martino

Member
The shift is huge.
Actually publisher are ruining game design because they need to maximize profit on a one game basis . This approach has a tendency to create trends and globalization/standardization of content at expanse of art and diversity in the media especially in games pushing lot of money at production value.
When the objective is put at service level ,the way to retain user becomes more diverse and can allow diversity to exist a lot more.
And i'm not saying MS will see it's how to do it with a right balance between profit and feeding the user in a good way btw. but if it's not MS maybe someone else will understand how to use this shift at full potential.
 
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Leyasu

Banned
It's still a tiny service with only 23M. It needs that 10x and at full price than being mostly $1-3/mo for 3 years to have good quality and be sustainable. MTX could shortcut that as well, and we know what that means.

In the age of F2P, Gamepass sounds like LTTP.
Show us the source of this “majority” paying 1 dollar please.

If we are talking about sub revenue being used purely to fund the studios, then perhaps we could do some quick and dirty maths.

Let’s say that the average MS studio has 300 staff and the average salary is 10k a month. The salary bill is 3M per month per studio. Times that by 23 and you have 69M per month wage bill. Add 50% for running costs you get 103M per month. Which then equates to 10M full paying subs needed to pay for it.

Obviously, some studios are bigger, some are smaller, and I doubt that the average wage is 10k a month even with bonuses, employer taxes and benefits etc. But I used some easily rounded figures to visualise expenditure.

Obviously nobody knows for sure how they are using their revenue or how many full paying subs they have.

Paying people fixed salaries that work on games, is not the same as making a tv series or film where you have actors, producers/directors all asking for high salaries, sets and everything associated with it.

I could be way off of the mark, so if anyone else wants to add some precision to my numbers then feel free
 
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geary

Member
I was always wondering how many people are willing to pay 180$ in advance for Gold and the converted to GP with 1$. Most people are trying to squeeze value out of their money, but they easily pay 180 bucks in advance...
 
Show us the source of this “majority” paying 1 dollar please.

If we are talking about sub revenue being used purely to fund the studios, then perhaps we could do some quick and dirty maths.

Let’s say that the average MS studio has 300 staff and the average salary is 10k a month. The salary bill is 3M per month per studio. Times that by 23 and you have 69M per month wage bill. Add 50% for running costs you get 103M per month. Which then equates to 10M full paying subs needed to pay for it.

Obviously, some studios are bigger, some are smaller, and I doubt that the average wage is 10k a month even with bonuses, employer taxes and benefits etc. But I used some easily rounded figures to visualise expenditure.

Obviously nobody knows for sure how they are using their revenue or how many full paying subs they have.

Paying people fixed salaries that work on games, is not the same as making a tv series or film where you have actors, producers/directors all asking for high salaries, sets and everything associated with it.

I could be way off of the mark, so if anyone else wants to add some precision to my numbers then feel free
I don't have concrete numbers, but your numbers feel like the worst case scenario for Microsoft. Average staff is probably much lower, as is the salary.

We also know that Xbox was profitable in 2019. They gonna be fine.
 

Alex Scott

Member
Currently gamers can pay just $1 for access to hundreds of titles across PC and Xbox via Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service—but don’t activate that insanely cheap one-month trial just yet. You can lock in up to three years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with that same dollar if you play your cards right.

When you activate Microsoft’s promotion, it not only begins the trial, but also converts existing Xbox Live Gold and standard Xbox Game Pass subscriptions on your account to Game Pass Ultimate (normally $15 per month) at a 1:1 rate. Any prepaid time up to the maximum of three years gets the upgrade.

That can't be true.
So if i were to buy Xbox live gold for 3 years and then i can convert Xbox live gold to GPU for 3 years? Is this what you are applying?

Edit: Grammar
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
That can't be true.
So if i were to buy xbox live gold for 3 years and then that convert to GPU for 3 years. Is this what you are applying?

That's one of many guides and articles about the matter. Seen gaffers here brag about it as well, hardcore xboxers, that it's dirt cheap and the best deal.
 

arvfab

Banned
It has ZERO to do with Gamepass. It has to do with the business model. I don't care if it's Gamepass, an improved PSNow, Amazon Luna, etc. And I sub to ALL of those, by the way. I'm no console fan boy (#1- cause I'm not a moron and #2- cause I'm 50 fucking years old).

That's exactly my fear: A future where I have to pay different subscription services.

Imagine a future where each publisher decides to not share the cake, but offer an own service with exclusive content. That's a future a lot more expensive than the present.
 

UnNamed

Banned
Some people just don't want to change. Change is difficult, change is bad.

Like people used to eat pasta don't want to eat sushi, their excuse is sushi is tasteless.
 

martino

Member
I don't care how people are going to play their games, as long as we have the option to buy games.
you only see worst fanboi of brand not pushing atm this specific stream of revenue to be delusionnal to say corporation want only this one to exist.
when in fact the more the better it is for them.
 
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Some people just don't want to change. Change is difficult, change is bad.

Like people used to eat pasta don't want to eat sushi, their excuse is sushi is tasteless.
Jaffe is the age of my parents, so it kinda checks out. My dad would never even touch sushi, he thinks it's disgusting because it's "raw fish". Boomers man :messenger_beaming:
 

Leyasu

Banned
I don't have concrete numbers, but your numbers feel like the worst case scenario for Microsoft. Average staff is probably much lower, as is the salary.

We also know that Xbox was profitable in 2019. They gonna be fine.
They are probably are on the high side, but there’s nothing for taxes and stuff either.

Microsoft are obviously propping up gp, just not as badly as some are hoping for I feel
 
Some people just don't want to change. Change is difficult, change is bad.

Like people used to eat pasta don't want to eat sushi, their excuse is sushi is tasteless.

Why do you think people don't want to change?

Once PlayStation equivalent of gamepass will launch, naysayers would be lining up to subscribe to the service.
 

Alex Scott

Member
That's one of many guides and articles about the matter. Seen gaffers here brag about it as well, hardcore xboxers, that it's dirt cheap and the best deal.
Alright i got it now. But you still need to buy Xbox gold for three years which is 150-180 dollars and then you can convert it to GPU. I guess this is the way they will kill Xbox gold. This is definitely tempting. I might do this. Thanks for sharing this.
 
the fuck is this ..some of you need a reality check. The games that are on gamepass are mostly the games that end on PlayStation lol
Initially, games on consoles acted like arcade games. They have limited lives, kill you easily, force you to restart from the beginning. These are all elements of Arcade gaming. But slowly they went away in consoles. Now lives are barely there, most games just give you unlimited respawns. And just have game that kill you evey 5 seconds is not made anymore except for indie games.

it didn't happen overnight; but it did, and now HAD happened. Games changed to suit the console market.

It is inevitable. How you pay for games affect how the game is funded, and thus how the game is designed. This is a fact. If you like the kinds of games that a subscription service would spawn, then good on you. But if you like console gaming the way it had been in the last 3 generations, then you are not going to like where it is going on Gamepass.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
You know very well what I wanted to say....Trying to spin it, is not worth a detailed response....A game a year is not the same as same game whole year.

OK I get it now. But still, 3-5 games with 50-150h of gameplay is not the same as 3-5 games you're done with after just 10-20h. And again, many many people have their go-to MP title which they play the whole time, on a daily basis, and only occasionally play some SP titles. Bare also in mind that adult gamers have a very limited time to play video games, often being able to put in just 1-2h into one sitting, and that's not even ever day, not ever other day, sometimes even just during the weekends, so they won't be blasting through 20-30 titles a year, which is actually the number that's realistic to how many titles most people play during entire generation. Not many people play a new game every month, or every other month, there aren't even that many interesting titles to begin with, so I think your expectations of how much people spend on video games are "a bit" overblown.
 
Fixed it for you.
The same people you describe would still shit on it as long as Microsoft was behind the service.
We don't shit on PSNow because Sony treat it like an optional part of Playstation. So you are wrong because Sony already has their version of Gamepass, they just don't try to make it grow larger than it could be sustained.
 

Godot25

Banned
Initially, games on consoles acted like arcade games. They have limited lives, kill you easily, force you to restart from the beginning. These are all elements of Arcade gaming. But slowly they went away in consoles. Now lives are barely there, most games just give you unlimited respawns. And just have game that kill you evey 5 seconds is not made anymore except for indie games.

it didn't happen overnight; but it did, and now HAD happened. Games changed to suit the console market.

It is inevitable. How you pay for games affect how the game is funded, and thus how the game is designed. This is a fact. If you like the kinds of games that a subscription service would spawn, then good on you. But if you like console gaming the way it had been in the last 3 generations, then you are not going to like where it is going on Gamepass.
And proof for your claim is...where?

Without Game Pass, The Coalition probably would not have started to develop small projects, because Microsoft would want them to churn Gears games like they used to. Obsidian is currently making it's biggest game with Avowed. Ninja Theory have 3x more devs on Hellblade 2, than on first game. State of Decay is supposed to have way higher budget then SoD 2. And higher budget will allow inXile to go first-person and not having to develop inexpensive top-down RPG games.

It's funny how every "Game Pass hater" is using same arguments how it will make games worse without single proof. Quite the opposite. Microsoft have 23 first-party studios and without Game Pass they would be stucked with 5. Devs have more freedom (for example The Coalition), more time (Without GP, Microsoft would force Halo Infinite to release alongside Series X/S), and more money (Obsidian an inXile). If they want to create small game because they want to, they can (Obsidian with Grounded). But nothing is forced upon them which is best case scenario. And they can experiment without the fear of going under like Japan Studio.

So again. Where is proof that GP will make games worse?
 
And proof for your claim is...where?

Without Game Pass, The Coalition probably would not have started to develop small projects, because Microsoft would want them to churn Gears games like they used to. Obsidian is currently making it's biggest game with Avowed. Ninja Theory have 3x more devs on Hellblade 2, than on first game. State of Decay is supposed to have way higher budget then SoD 2. And higher budget will allow inXile to go first-person and not having to develop inexpensive top-down RPG games.

It's funny how every "Game Pass hater" is using same arguments how it will make games worse without single proof. Quite the opposite. Microsoft have 23 first-party studios and without Game Pass they would be stucked with 5. Devs have more freedom (for example The Coalition), more time (Without GP, Microsoft would force Halo Infinite to release alongside Series X/S), and more money (Obsidian an inXile). If they want to create small game because they want to, they can (Obsidian with Grounded). But nothing is forced upon them which is best case scenario. And they can experiment without the fear of going under like Japan Studio.

So again. Where is proof that GP will make games worse?
i didn't say it would make games worse; i said it would change the way the game is designed.

Arcade games still exist but they are a niche in gaming now. Game elements that made Arcades games profitable, went away. For people who suck at arcade games like me, that is technically a good thing.

But that don't change the fact that Arcade games are almost erased.

i just gave you proof; that a game has to make money, and how that money is obtained will affect how a game is designed. This is how game studios make a living. And if you deny this then you should try to bring all the dead arcades back to life.

There will no doubt be fans of Gamepass games. Just as right now millions are enjoying phone games that are ripping them off with lootboxes. There will be fans. But don't expect consoles games to stay console games, if they are no longer inside a console. The shape of the hardware affect the games that come out of them.
 
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GuinGuin

Banned
I mean. Didn't Scorsese had basically unlimited budget to make Irishman? Fact that movie didn't live up to the hype of Godfellas is certainly not Netflix's fault.

It is in that they chose a big name in the twilight of their career and threw money at them. It was a safe move. Same as their Adam Sandler Contract and all the super hero garbage they pump out. Subscriptions can easily encourage safe bets.
 

Godot25

Banned
i didn't say it would make games worse; i said it would change the way the game is designed.

Arcade games still exist but they are a niche in gaming now. Game elements that made Arcades games profitable, went away. For people who suck at arcade games like me, that is technically a good thing.

But that don't change the fact that Arcade games are almost erased.

i just gave you proof; that a game has to make money, and how that money is obtained will affect how a game is designed. This is how game studios make a living. And if you deny this then you should try to bring all the dead arcades back to life.

There will no doubt be fans of Gamepass games. Just as right now millions are enjoying phone games that are ripping them off with lootboxes. There will be fans. But don't expect consoles games to stay console games, if they are no longer inside a console. The shape of the hardware affect the games that come out of them.
So you are saying, that somehow every GP game will have microtransactions? Again without proof?
Gears and Halo games had microtransactions without Game Pass. Uncharted 4 have them and Sony don't have a Game Pass style service.

Also, if it will change "how games are designed" please provide an example. Because to me, "live service" games are not suitable for GP. Because when you are playing a "live service" game like Destiny 2 what is a point of paying a sub, when you can buy a game and not pay it at all? Game Pass is more suitable for "I played it once and I'm moving on" style of gaming. Which is exactly what Microsoft is currently lacking and what studios like inXile, Obsidian, Ninja Theory, The Initiative, id Soft, Tango, Arkane etc. will provide...

Or do you expect Arkane to stop making immersive sims and start making Battle Royale games?
 
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