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Microsoft ‘paid $5-10 million’ to get Guardians of the Galaxy on Game Pass, analyst claims (VCg)

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kingfey

Banned
Would be nice to include there taxes like VAT plus refunds/chargebacks. Refunds/chargebacks at least in mobile and Steam are pain in the ass, in the case of Steam the refunds eat around 10-15% of the revenue that the dev gets, in mobile at least some years ago was like half of that depending on the game (I have no idea about console).
We get before taxes prices here. So we are the ones who pays these taxes. Unlike other countries, who add the tax to the price.

Those refunds seems like scam charge. Steam is eating money from these people. Guess that is a nice protection we get, if the game is really bad.
 

clintar

Member
Just For Laughs Reaction GIF

Xbox-Game-Pass-Resident-Evil-Village-przeciek-768x372.jpg.webp
Woah! 144 zillion dollars!?
 

Hezekiah

Banned
I don't get his maths. Where the $2 comes from?

If it's 25M subs and they pay let's say $5-10M that would mean Square gets $0.2-0.4 per user. Let's say only half of the subs play it, 12.5M. That would be $0.4-0.8 for Square per user.

Regarding MS paying only $5-10M to put Guardians of the Galaxy on GP, I think this price is too low and that must be way higher. Because as I remember this is what Sony paid RE Village only for having a marketing deal and preference for game subs negotiations plus skipping game subs of the competition during 14 or 15 months startting to count from release. I think MS paid them way more than $5-10M.

If the number is real it would mean that the game absolutely tanked hard in sales and that Square are desperate to get some revenue from some place. Because if not, I don't get why Square would be ok getting $2 (or less) per copy instead of $29.
It's a total guess.
 

yurinka

Member
We get before taxes prices here. So we are the ones who pays these taxes. Unlike other countries, who add the tax to the price.

Those refunds seems like scam charge. Steam is eating money from these people. Guess that is a nice protection we get, if the game is really bad.
Well, some players use refunds to get their money back after buying games and Steam allows it so the dev gets fucked :/

The worst refund policy I remember was with Apple, which was at least years ago: user pays $10, dev gets $7. User asks for refund, the dev pays to the user $10 (meaning the dev loses $3 because Apple doesn't pay back its part). Apple doesn't notify the dev which user made the refund/chargeback, so after the refund the player keeps having the game/dlc/mtx item bought beause the dev can't remove it.
 

BouncyFrag

Member
Had MS paid more, would there have been a chance Rocket would have been less of a whiny trash panda in the game?
 
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kingfey

Banned
Well, some players use refunds to get their money back after buying games and Steam allows it so the dev gets fucked :/

The worst refund policy I remember was with Apple, which was at least years ago: user pays $10, dev gets $7. User asks for refund, the dev pays to the user $10 (meaning the dev loses $3 because Apple doesn't pay back its part). Apple doesn't notify the dev which user made the refund/chargeback, so after the refund the player keeps having the game/dlc/mtx item bought beause the dev can't remove it.
That apple part is scary.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
thats damn cheap. Gamepass now has 20 million subscribers generating $200 million monthly. Must be a big profit machine for MS in months they dont have their big AAA first party exclusives releasing.

i doubt 20million are paying $10. Theres loads of discounts and people claiming they paid like $1 for 3 years lol. I know 2 people who have a years subscription and they arent paying $10 a month
 

LNXD

Neo Member
The game is good, I'm playing now thanks to game pass and when it came out it went under my radar, I didn't even know it was from Square Enix I was surprised when I saw the loading screen. For SE is like sold more copies plus free advertising and for us worth every penny that MS paid.
 
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Wasn't on my radar at all, but actually pretty fun. Already played a few hours and will be playing more. Good deal for all parties.
 

FrankWza

Gold Member
Wait until that algorithm realizes that people love their 3rd person, cinematic, linear action/adventure games….
 

Boss Mog

Member
The game looks good and has decent enough story and presentation, fun banter between the guardians but the gameplay is super repetitive and quite boring. If they had managed to make the gunplay and combat in general a little more exciting (something like Insomniac's Spider-man) it probably would've sold better.
 
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Iced Arcade

Member
Game is beautiful but Holy fuck the repetitive "move to next area clear generic baddies rinse and repeat" kills it for me.
 

Three

Gold Member
thats damn cheap. Gamepass now has 20 million subscribers generating $200 million monthly. Must be a big profit machine for MS in months they dont have their big AAA first party exclusives releasing.
Which is pretty much most months except maybe one at the end of the year. Getting old games where sales may have dried up is cheap though.

That is the real boost for subscription like these.
If you follow social media, you will talk these to games to your friends.
You also have youtubers and twitch users who keep talking about these games.
MS is removing sharing to social media like twitter from their console. They want people to be locked to thier ecosystem and not advertise for sales on other platforms. They did the same with twitch but added it back after Mixer went bust.
 
Game is beautiful but Holy fuck the repetitive "move to next area clear generic baddies rinse and repeat" kills it for me.
The gameplay feels a bit like an afterthought or just not fleshed out enough. Gamepass has been essentially a demo option for me, as I end up significantly playing very few of the downloaded games. Might try this one again later, but probably be the same outcome.
 

Mattyp

Gold Member
No it doesn’t. Again where are these assumptions coming from? None of us have any idea what the actual economics of the platform are. I’m a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber through 2025 and I paid 1 dollar to do so. I’m not paying ten dollars a month.

We don’t know how many people pay monthly.

We don’t know how many people converted XBL to a GP sub.

We don’t know how many people in the revealed numbers are using a trial they got over the holidays.

And you don’t know either. It’s all speculation. But given the popularity of the XBL conversion … the real numbers are surely an interesting tidbit. The bottom line though, is that none of us know. So making an assumption of that nature has zero basis in fact or reality.

Hey can you let me know where you prepaid for the 3 years of gold for that $1 also?

Cheers mate, only need a link.
 
I don't get his maths. Where the $2 comes from?

If it's 25M subs and they pay let's say $5-10M that would mean Square gets $0.2-0.4 per user. Let's say only half of the subs play it, 12.5M. That would be $0.4-0.8 for Square per user.

Regarding MS paying only $5-10M to put Guardians of the Galaxy on GP, I think this price is too low and that must be way higher. Because as I remember this is what Sony paid RE Village only for having a marketing deal and preference for game subs negotiations plus skipping game subs of the competition during 14 or 15 months startting to count from release. I think MS paid them way more than $5-10M.

If the number is real it would mean that the game absolutely tanked hard in sales and that Square are desperate to get some revenue from some place. Because if not, I don't get why Square would be ok getting $2 (or less) per copy instead of $29.
You think MS surely paid more because Sony paid a similar amount for a marketing deal along with some extras. So MS surely must've paid more than Sony for completely different things. Is that the logic you're going with?

Of course the only other alternative you give is that the game had to have "absolutely tanked hard" in order for MS to pay so little.

Analysts indeed get things wrong all the time, so it's certainly possible. But his credentials are leagues better than yours, so unless you've got something other than "what Sony did one time", I'm gonna have to pass on putting any weight into your analysis.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
This proves it's unsustainable for GP to constantly get AAA games that cost $100 million to make.

Congrats. It’s taken you years to get why MS keeps acquiring studios, but finally you get it.

Best it can hope for are good games that couldn't find a place on the hype train.

They got Outriders day one. And MLB comes next month. They got the previous ($40) Destiny 2 expansion.

It’s not a simple calculation. Live service games that rely on making money from a large userbase will always be cheaper for them to acquire on Gamepass.

Ironically it will be more difficult for MS to get deals like this if expands it's market share. publishers are losing less than 10% of the market on Gamepass, vs 50% of the market on Playstation store platforms.

Care to elaborate how you came about the 50% and 10% numbers?
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Hey can you let me know where you prepaid for the 3 years of gold for that $1 also?

Cheers mate, only need a link.

It’s a troll post. Everyone knows the $1 for three years makes no sense since he’d have had to line up 3 years of Gold before the conversion.
 

onesvenus

Member
MS is removing sharing to social media like twitter from their console. They want people to be locked to thier ecosystem and not advertise for sales on other platforms.
That doesn't make sense. They surely want people sharing their media to advertise games. Even if some people buy those games in other platforms, that must be better than no advertising at all.

And leaving the door open to share via the phone app means they are not against that, although I don't understand the reasons myself
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Just beat this yesterday. It's my favorite comicbook game. More than Spider-man, more than Batman. Shame it won't get a sequel.

The only hope is that the critical reception moves the needle. They say sequels are often cheaper to make too, since some of the building blocks from the first game can be reused.
 

yurinka

Member
You think MS surely paid more because Sony paid a similar amount for a marketing deal along with some extras. So MS surely must've paid more than Sony for completely different things. Is that the logic you're going with?

Of course the only other alternative you give is that the game had to have "absolutely tanked hard" in order for MS to pay so little.

Analysts indeed get things wrong all the time, so it's certainly possible. But his credentials are leagues better than yours, so unless you've got something other than "what Sony did one time", I'm gonna have to pass on putting any weight into your analysis.

Obviously to pay for dozens millions of copies of a pretty recent well reviewed AAA game, from a well known publisher and dev, that uses a Marvel (meaning that only a portion of the revenue of the game goes to the publisher), is worth way more money than a deal to promote a AAA game using the marketing channels of a 1st party, timed exclusivity for dlc and demos, exclusivity for console bundles, potentital future VR versions of the game if they ever want make it and to avoid having the game in game subscriptions of the competition during 14/15 months and getting preference to negotiate the inclusion on their game subscriptions.

It's worth way more than $5-10M. More than a few cents per copy or than a couple of dollars per copy. Specially considering that a huge chunk of that revenue will go to Disney. I worked in games with top licenses with top IPs and they got like half of the revenue. It's too low. Games like this one normally sell at least around 5-10M copies, $5-10M for them to replace millions of potential sales is not worth, selling the game normally would generate way more.
 

Leyasu

Banned
People have been thinking moneyhat timed exclusive prices, when the reality is totally different.

Microsoft are not locking down games and keeping them off of other systems or not selling them. But that has not sat well with the narratives that people have desperately tried to push. Even if this guys numbers are off, I would bet that they ain’t by much.
 

Leyasu

Banned
Obviously to pay for dozens millions of copies of a pretty recent well reviewed AAA game, from a well known publisher and dev, that uses a Marvel (meaning that only a portion of the revenue of the game goes to the publisher), is worth way more money than a deal to promote a AAA game using the marketing channels of a 1st party, timed exclusivity for dlc and demos, exclusivity for console bundles, potentital future VR versions of the game if they ever want make it and to avoid having the game in game subscriptions of the competition during 14/15 months and getting preference to negotiate the inclusion on their game subscriptions.

It's worth way more than $5-10M. More than a few cents per copy or than a couple of dollars per copy. Specially considering that a huge chunk of that revenue will go to Disney. I worked in games with top licenses with top IPs and they got like half of the revenue. It's too low. Games like this one normally sell at least around 5-10M copies, $5-10M for them to replace millions of potential sales is not worth, selling the game normally would generate way more.
They are not buying dozens of millions of copies, they are licensing it for rental for a fixed period.
 

Belthazar

Member
Kinda cheap, but then again the game was already dead when it entered the service. We stlil have no idea of how much a day one major release costs MS tho.
 

Leyasu

Banned
No it doesn’t. Again where are these assumptions coming from? None of us have any idea what the actual economics of the platform are. I’m a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber through 2025 and I paid 1 dollar to do so. I’m not paying ten dollars a month.

We don’t know how many people pay monthly.

We don’t know how many people converted XBL to a GP sub.

We don’t know how many people in the revealed numbers are using a trial they got over the holidays.

And you don’t know either. It’s all speculation. But given the popularity of the XBL conversion … the real numbers are surely an interesting tidbit. The bottom line though, is that none of us know. So making an assumption of that nature has zero basis in fact or reality.
You didn’t pay 1$, you paid for 3yrs gold plus 1$

So although you didn’t or don’t pay 10$, the money you spent is taken and used as part of the average per month revenue

40 a year plus 1 = 3,34$ per month
50 a year plus 1 = 4.19$ per month
60 a year plus 1 = 5,02 per month

Unless you got 3 yrs for free of course
 
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They own the IP, which means they asked for that absurd amount of money. Not that I care how much MS pays but pretty sure Eidos received nothing out of that deal. One of the worst companies and I wish ppl would stop supporting them. I will never forgive them for ruining the Deus Ex franchise among others.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
They own the IP, which means they asked for that absurd amount of money. Not that I care how much MS pays but pretty sure Eidos received nothing out of that deal. One of the worst companies and I wish ppl would stop supporting them. I will never forgive them for ruining the Deus Ex franchise among others.

I'll be honest, 5 to 10 million for a AAA game being on Game Pass for a year or more seems like chump change to me.
 

Chukhopops

Member
I'll be honest, 5 to 10 million for a AAA game being on Game Pass for a year or more seems like chump change to me.
Yeah it’s really not much, but I guess SE can scramble a few deals like that and recover their investment. It’s kind of a safety net for when a game flops.

Also I’m sure Stranger of Paradise will be added to GP before the end of the year.
 

yurinka

Member
They are not buying dozens of millions of copies, they are licensing it for rental for a fixed period.
Good point. It prevents many games of being made but what you say it's true. In fact, very likely the game will be avaible during a few months on Gamepass and after that will be removed from there.
 
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Swift_Star

Banned
They own the IP, which means they asked for that absurd amount of money. Not that I care how much MS pays but pretty sure Eidos received nothing out of that deal. One of the worst companies and I wish ppl would stop supporting them. I will never forgive them for ruining the Deus Ex franchise among others.
They don’t own the IP. I’m still going to support them. 10 million is nothing to “trillion dollar company MS”. They’re in their right to charge whatever money they find appropriate for a game they funded.
 
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elliot5

Member
It’s not really an absurd amount of money. Square would need to sell like 200k copies digitally to make the same amount of revenue reported here. The likelihood of that is pretty slim given how long it’s been and how GOTG didn’t sell gangbusters.
 

yazenov

Member
I was under the impression that putting your games on Gamepass increases games sales. According to MS.

So why does MS have to pay to put games on Gamepass if there already is financial incentive to put your games on the service? Doesn't make sense to me .
 
That's not a bad price. Don't sleep on this game, it's not GOTY or anything, but it's fun and has its moments. I'd be curious to see what the payout looks like to SquareEnix during its run on GamePass. How does that work again? They base payouts on playtime/install rate I thought.
 

AJUMP23

Gold Member
Great game, and I think MS got value for their money on it. I guess we will see how long it stays on the Gamepass page. I wonder what the engagement is.
 

yazenov

Member
This is surely not a real question lmao

I was just messing with you.

Imagine MS sales pitch to publishers. Guys, put your games on Gamepass . We wont pay you for it because its a privilege to put your games on Gamepass, since it will increase your game sales so the honer is all yours. You can thank us later.

That sounds absurd yes? because most of y'all fell for it when MS said Gamepass increases games sales.
 
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