Jim Ryan: Publishers Think Xbox Game Pass is 'Value Destructive' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 July 2023 / 4,448 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan during his pre-recorded deposition video as part of the FTC in the US vs. Microsoft hearing stated publishers believe Xbox Game Pass is "value destructive."
"I talked to all publishers they unanimously do not like Game Pass, because its value destructive," said Ryan. "[This is a] very commonly held view by publishers."
He added he had no reason to believe Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick would put Call of Duty on Xbox Game Pass if Microsoft were not acquiring the company.
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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"I talked to all publishers they unanimously do not like Game Pass," [...] "[This is a] very commonly held view by publishers."
Wait... which is it? Is it unanimous, or is it merely a very commonly held view? He can't keep his story straight even in pre-recorded comments?! Sounds like they should have edited his comments more, or done another take or two.
I'm not entirely disagreeing with him on that front. Take-Two CEO said that none of their games will be on subscription services on day one, and I agree that an independent Activision wouldn't either. Not every single major third-party game has to be on Game Pass. But it does have its uses that publishers may see fit. Capcom put Monster Hunter Rise, Exoprimal, and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess on Game Pass day one. Whether that's because the first two games are multiplayer focused and they want as many players as possible, or it's a new IP that Capcom is testing the waters on.
Sega put almost all their games except SMT and Sonic on Game Pass to build up a playerbase on Xbox and they're now at the point where they can sell brand new games, including major JRPG's, without putting them on GP on day one.
GP has its uses that each publisher may see fit in certain scenarios.
I imagine companies will start studying those profit curves. At which point do the subscription profits beat the profits from regular sales? That's going to be the key.
There also other factor like the exposition GamePass provide to franchises which boost sale onto other platform and increase viability/profitability of another possible future entry.
It's more for games with still good potential to grow their fanbase. A game like CoD on it would not really result in an expansion of the franchise, the game already topped out its exposure to gamers. Games like Plague Tale or anything lesser known, however, would end up in way more hands than without GamePass so it adds to those franchise values in some ways.
What about buying used games? Has he ever made a comment on that? Because I'm under the impression, once a game is sold at retail, that's it. If it's resold as a buy back, then all the proceeds go to the seller, which is more damaging than having a select few titles available under subscription. Or am I wrong?
If they unanimously did not like it, there would be no games on the service, Jim.
Nobody is forced to have games on there.
He supposedly talked to all pubs and claims they all think that gamepass is destructive in value and they don't like it. Hmm, Can't be EA as they're literally apart of Game Pass. Can't be Sega, they're throwing a lot of their content into Game Pass. So we already know he's lying right off the bat with just those two publishers.
EA offers EA Play membership, not the full top price (which I will note is more expensive than GP), that only comes with trials of new games. It would be detrimental for their business if they offered basic EA Play basic to have day 1 releases as part of GP too. It's only £3.99 a month, so £48 a year, a single game release has been £50-60 for years. Older games that have made money makes sense to release on services, as if your product has already made a profit, any extra income from it is always good.
Obviously however, MS monetary compensation helps.
I mean, they are not wrong. For people who don't mind not owning their games, getting a game pass for a month is probably a much better deal than just buying a single game, especially if you can beat it fast.
That's what she said!
Would be nice if MS shared how much money Halo Infinite made/loss so publishers have a better perspective on the impact for a AAA game.
If they made a loss MS doesn't mind since money is no object to them and if it helps gain subscription to GP, but for publishers it's a bigger deal.
(I personally think GP devalued the Halo brand as well)
Depends on the game. Games like GTA will sell millions regardless so it wouldnt work well for that game.
Pretty much. Its more games that have already made its money or games that are more niche that can benefit from it.
Which publishers? Every major publisher except for, rather ironically Activision-Blizzard, have put quite a few games into Gamepass over the years. If they don't like it as Ryan claims, why support it with releases? Square has seemingly pulled Gamepass support, so maybe that is what he is talking about here, but that is just one publisher. EA, Ubisoft, Take-Two/2K, Sega, Namco Bandai, Capcom, Koei-Tecmo, and quite a few of the other mid to small sized publishers have all put multiple games into Gamepass, most of them within the last year. And indies adore gamepass, that is a known fact, indies are singing it's praises constantly.
He was probably referring to the day one GamePass model Microsoft does, because basically every publisher has their games on GamePass/PS+ at some point. Some like Ubi and EA even have their own services.
But it’s understandable that publishers would not agree with the day one on services model. Even if they get compensated for it, they probably never think the money is enough or that they got a raw deal.
Genuine question: If publishers unanimously feel like it's not good enough, why do so many of them keep doing it? Sega, Atlus, Capcom, Ubisoft, etc. It has to be financially worthwhile or they wouldn't do it, right? I can't imagine major publishers just joining in on Gamepass to throw Microsoft a bone.
I think the context of this is day one games in the service. Ryan was asked about day one games and then he discussed this. I think most publishers don’t want their games day one on these services, but they’re fine with releasing them months after release. Typically the exceptions we’re seeing are risky new IPs that might want a guaranteed safety net, or old ports like Persona etc.
You are right on the day 1 part and I legit thought that was kinda obvious and understood, reading over the posts, it seems not. Day 1 is not beneficial financially for many games on a service as it allows people to essentially try a game instead of paying the full £60-70. But games that have made their money and made a profit already, many companies are happy to put on services as it not only helps exposure to also help for future releases (as people will then try the game and really like it) or encourage sales of DLC (something unlikely to be added to sub services).
Of the games that do appear day 1 on GP from 3rd party publishers, they are obviously have monetary compensation from MS. MS on the other hand seem happy to take the hit to entice people to sign up to their service.
Well that's what I mean, Day 1 releases. A lot do fall into the new IPs/remasters or remakes of older games category, but there's also plenty that are decently well established brands, like Yakuza/Like a Dragon or Prince of Persia.
Not that everyone does, of course, but it seems like some major brands have to see some value in it (or, at least, enough value in the paycheck MS gives them to exchange future sales).
Translation: How can I make obscene profits by ripping off our most loyal customers, when there’s a far better deal on Xbox.
Calling the best deal in gaming “value destruction” is so ludicrous it’s unbelievable. .
It's the best deal in gaming for the consumer. With "value destructive" he means it damages or destroys the IPs value. Consumers might not want to pay full price for a sequel when they played the first game for really cheap on Gamepass.
Look at what happened to Crash Bandicoot 4, which was sold for $60 after the trilogy went for $40 from day one. It underperformed despite being received very well. People would rather wait for a sale or not buy it at all when they can get three games for cheaper than one.
Same thing happened with Mario + Rabbids. They constantly put the first game on sale for excessively cheap which lead to many people just waiting for the same to happen to the sequel instead of buying at launch.
Yep that's why so many of them are so keen to sign deals to get their content in there. That's why MLB added MLB the Show 23 on there.
That's why EA and Ubisoft have similar offering.
How do you know that they are keen on it? Maybe MS just pays well enough for a game were publishers take the deal because they dont think the game will sell that well on Xbox. I mean where are the big AAA third party games? Seems like only smaller games, ports and indie games are on Game Pass day 1.
https://www.thegamer.com/sega-really-happy-with-performance-game-pass/
"Sega is reported to be "really happy" with Game Pass, with a number of the publisher's titles seeing a dramatic increase in player numbers."
There are other similar opinions we've seen with many devs and Many publishers have been supporting GamePass for many years with different projects. This would have ended long ago if they thought GamePass to be value destructive.
And I would not consider games like Plague Tale indies or smaller.
EA, Ubisoft, Sega, Bandi Namco, Capcom, WB, and several others releases games on Game Pass. NFS Unbound was just added via Game Pass Ultimate.
With that said, there are less AAA publisher games than 2-3 years ago, but it doesn't help that Sony has been making deals with publishers to not release certain games on Game Pass. RE8 should be on the service by now but we already know Sony included a clause to keep it from coming to Game Pass for however long. No big deal, but let's not pretend Sony isn't trying to harm Game Pass. So it's easier for MS to make deals with independent studios because of this.
I would say it's the opposite, why pay 60/70 dollar for a game when you could wait till it hits gamepass on Xbox. GamePass reduces the value of the product the dev makes. Even on here some people already speculate the next Yakuza will soon after release appear on gamepass. Those people won't buy the next Yakuza game. Which makes the product have less value. It only increases the value of gamepass.
Yes but, you either found publishers really bad at math if that's the case but still proceed to release games on it or the reality is that they manage to grow their titles' revenue and/or reach on it.
I don't believe publishers to be that bad at simple math and the latter means they view Gamepass has value constructive.
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