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Somerville Developer: Xbox Game Pass 'Hurts Sales'

Somerville Developer: Xbox Game Pass 'Hurts Sales' - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 June 2023 / 7,933 Views

Developer Jumpship released its science-fiction adventure game, Somerville, last November on the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC via Steam, as well as Xbox Game Pass.

Dino Patti, Jumpship co-founder, in an interview with VideoGames.si said it had a pretty good deal with Microsoft, however, having the game day one on Xbox Game Pass did hurt its sales.

"We did a pretty good deal," said Patti. "I also think it hurts sales. Because a lot of people just go in and try it and they don't invest. If they don't like the first 10 minutes? That’s it. Also, if you don't make the first 10 minutes amazing, maybe it's also a problem.

"I think [Game Pass] is okay. It's not my favorite. My favorite is the old premium model where I sell you on some video, on big images, and earn your $30. And then after that, I have to deliver. I don’t need to get money out of you later."

Somerville Developer: Xbox Game Pass 'Hurts Sales'

Our own Lee Mehr in his review of Somerville stated, "If I had one all-encompassing diagnosis of Somerville it would be termed 'plagued by detail.' When storytelling, atmosphere, and albeit rudimentary gameplay complement each other it can lead to some fascinating moments. But then, you see the cracks begin to form outside of those: under-polished instances when odd bugs occur, the way some puzzles are clumsily handled, the overly-vague story taking confusing creative turns, not being able to pet the dog (currently as the dad), and so on.

Those foundational fissures kept propagating the further I went into this 5-hour journey.  The fault isn't with Jumpship utilizing Playdead’s successful template, but in forgetting to incorporate the pedigree alongside it."


A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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29 Comments
Libara (on 12 May 2023)

Bad reviews, performance and word of mouth didn't help either.

  • +21
VersusEvil (on 12 May 2023)

The game was utter garbage and easily the worst game I’ve played this gen. GP saved people wasting money on this mess.

  • +14
LudicrousSpeed (on 12 May 2023)

Well duh. That’s why you sign the deal and get money. He seems to be making the mistake of assuming anyone who downloads and tries the game is a lost sale.

He seems to think the deal was still good.

  • +7
The Fury LudicrousSpeed (on 12 May 2023)

You are perfectly right on the idea of signing the deal and taking the money, it can be appealing for smaller devs to get guaranteed income, then, I'd presume, many see the amount of people playing and think "Wow. If all those people bought the game I could have made XX more." So presume it's lost sales.

It's hard to really know sometimes, for smaller indie devs, take the money, get that income and then boost income with sales and hearsay if you game does that and shows it's worth a play. But at least you had that income to try another game if not.

  • +4
VAMatt (on 12 May 2023)

This guy just cited common sense, so he's probably right. I don't think anybody has argued that being on Game Pass is definitively going to lead to higher sales. For many games, it will lead to lower sales. But, the question is do you make more money overall. And that's more complicated to answer, cuz you can't know how a game would have done in circumstances that don't exist.

I think what we can say pretty definitively is that game pass is a reasonable option for many games.

  • +6
scrapking VAMatt (on 17 May 2023)

Yeah, that's like saying being on Netflix reduces DVD sales. Or that being on Spotify reduces album sales. Well, yes, of course it does. So the question is the total value to the developer, and the total value to the customer.

The total value to the customer is absolutely and inarguably better (especially since you can subscribe to Game Pass and renew your subscription for free, if you live in a country with Microsoft Rewards).

As for the value to the developer, that depends on the structure of the deal I suppose, and how well the game is received.

  • +1
rapsuperstar31 (on 12 May 2023)

Never heard of it, gamepass will work great for some games, and not great for others. That's not really surprising news.

  • +5
Mr Puggsly (on 13 May 2023)

"Gamepass hurt sales, but MS gave us a good deal." Yeah, no shit. That's the trade of bringing content to Gamepass.

  • +3
chakkra (on 12 May 2023)

I guess this just highlights how much of a juggernaut FH5, Sea of Thieves and Flight Simulator are. After being available for years on a service that hurts its sales, they still very rarely get out of the top 100 best selling games on Steam.

  • +3
dane007 (on 12 May 2023)

If the game is bad then why would you expect people to pay full price for it

  • +3
Brimac19 dane007 (on 12 May 2023)

Like Redfall right???

  • 0
y2jarmyofficial (on 12 May 2023)

yet ravenlok did preety well on gamepass, devs talked about 250000 players on it or something like that. gamepass is not a magic survives where it guarantee to make your game a hit .it can help sure

  • +2
AJNShelton (on 12 May 2023)

Did he really said "I missed the old days when people would pay you 30 bucks before finding out how the game is" ?

  • +2
Ka-pi96 (on 14 May 2023)

No shit. That's why Microsoft pay to put games on gamepass. You're gambling on either a guaranteed immediate payout or higher theoretical sales that may or may not happen.

  • +1
LivncA_Dis3 (on 13 May 2023)

Game wasn't as good as inside or limbo so saying gamepass hurt sales is an understatement

  • +1
Dino (on 12 May 2023)

Only 64% thumbs up on Steam. 4.8/10 user score on Metacritic. I played about 2 hours of the game and it is poor.

Headline should read: "The poor game design hurt sales"

  • +1
tslog (on 13 May 2023)

Game was bad, and they probably knew it, which is why they realeased in Game Pass ( including the “‘good deal “).
Far less people would have played the game if it wasn’t on game pass. Which is the only reason I touched the game in the 1st place.
Have to question Xbox again with their bad judgement, by making good deals for bad games.

  • 0
smroadkill15 tslog (on 13 May 2023)

Xbox likely expected a better game. I imagine most thought the same. I certainly did, and maybe yourself as well. The previews and trailers seemed promising, especially coming from well-known talent.
From my time using the service, I've noticed way more games with favorable reviews come to the service than the other way around.

  • 0
Helloplite (on 13 May 2023)

The truly scary thing about this developer's comments is that (1) they think it is right that people have to buy a game that they will find out within 10 minutes that they do not like, and (2) that they consider the solution to be making these first ten minutes unrepresentative of the game so that they can get a quick sale. Ironically, they end up proving why game pass is so important for the customer.

  • 0
shikamaru317 (on 12 May 2023)

Goes against what many other Gamepass partners have said. The developer of Descenders said sales increased 4x due to Gamepass. Meanwhile Xbox claims indie devs on average see a 300% increase in revenue by partnering for a Gamepass release, split 190% for payments from Xbox in exchange for the Gamepass deal, and 110% from people using their gamepass discount to buy the game or DLC for the game. Xbox also claimed that Gamepass subscribers spend 50% more money on games than non-Gamepass subscribers on Xbox spend.

Maybe the problem is your game just wasn't very good?

  • 0
Doctor_MG shikamaru317 (on 12 May 2023)

MS themselves confirmed that game sales decline after a game goes onto gamepass. Maybe a handful of games don't, but the majority do.

  • +2
shikamaru317 Doctor_MG (on 12 May 2023)

They were referring to their own 1st party games there. They have stated that indie devs, on average, see increased revenue thanks to Gamepass. https://twitter.com/BenjiSales/status/1506676620509290498

  • +2
Doctor_MG shikamaru317 (on 13 May 2023)

Revenue doesn't equal sales. Revenue could be other things like mtx.

The most recent data from MS stated that their own games have suffered, and this developer is stating that there game has suffered sales wise. Maybe this is just coincidence, but given that information I wouldn't pull out what a developer was saying three years ago about gamepass and act as if this is the norm anymore.

I mean, it makes sense that game sales would decrease if a game is on a sub service anyway, so it's not exactly a crazy conclusion.

As for revenue increases, what worries me is that we are seeing the effect of whales that are bringing up the average.

  • +1
LudicrousSpeed Doctor_MG (on 14 May 2023)

This developer doesn’t even say it hurt sales. He’s making the assumption that someone trying it for ten minutes on GamePass represents a missed sale, which is a flawed way of looking at things.

  • +1
Doctor_MG LudicrousSpeed (on 15 May 2023)

Yeah, I suppose that is true. It's hard to gauge what would and would not be a missed sale.

  • 0
ClassicGamingWizzz (on 12 May 2023)
  • -14