Yeah, that was definitely my experience with Games Pass on the PC. Hey, that’s a really good game, there’s another one, there’s another one. Too bad I already bought these all for full price at Steam when they first came out.
It will be interesting to see what sort of delay there is going forward on between when a game releases and when non-Microsoft titles show up on Games Pass. In particular, Paradox seems to have quite a few of their games up there. Is this mostly a home for games that are 5 years old along with any new Microsoft first party games, or is Paradox and other publishers planning to put their new releases on it. I mean CK3 is on there which is really great and rather surprising.
They’ve got a rather impressive Strategy collection with the Paradox History games, Age of Wonders, the Endless Legends/Space games. I already owned all of them, but if we can expect games of this caliber to be constantly showing up on Games Pass when they release, then it’s a pretty good deal.
I did find a lot more games for Console that I hadn’t played and it was enough for me to go from Games Pass for PC (which I had mostly gotten to test fly MS Flight Simulator to see if I wanted to play it before it had VR) and switch to Games Pass Ultimate. I dusted off my OG XBox One (which has mostly been neglected in favor of PS4 and then PS4 Pro) to play Games Pass games and I ended up pre-ordering a Series X. So well played Microsoft.
I am very curious on the economics of this. Do game publishers get paid on the basis of how much their games are played on Game Pass, or is it just a lump fee based on how much Microsoft thinks their games might get played pre-seen before the game is released.
I mean I can see how this could be very lucrative for Microsoft, but not seeing a benefit to Paradox, unless Microsoft is giving them a pretty decent chunk. But at $15/month that’s going to start looking pretty small when it gets divided up by a dozen or more publishers and EA has got to be getting a couple dollars out of it for sure.
Or maybe Paradox views this as just bringing more people in, and then getting them to pay for the endless DLCs, plus anyone stuck in the Microsoft eco-system may end up paying more for DLC unless Microsoft has the equivalent of Steam’s quarterly fire sales.
This is fairly easily rectified by adjusting your purchasing behaviour, particularly since the pattern of which games go on Game Pass when is relatively predictable, even beyond first party (if it’s Paradox, it’s coming quickly, for instance). I’ve definitely stopped buying as many mid-tier games at launch to see if they pop up on Game Pass, and they often do. Now it’s going to be even more predictable with EA Play - just don’t buy EA games at launch. And in the mean time, while you build up an anti-backlog, you can play the day-and-date games.
It’s been stated that Microsoft pays an up front price for games to be on the service for a specific period of time. There’s no revenue share going on (at least as publicly stated), although I imagine the ea play deal is probably rev share.
I can see how Gamepass is going to start changing my buying behavior significantly. I’m intrigued by Rebel Galaxy Outlaw… but what I really want to know is - Is it going to be on Gamepass? And I’m willing to hold off or even forgo a purchase to see how how that shakes out.
There are rumors that Vahala is supposedly going to be on gamepass, which is a huge add.
What I didn’t realize before was that all the first party titles are going to be on gamepass… so all the games from bethesda and its baby companies. I had just assumed that they’d be exclusive titles, but I didn’t realize that they’d be essentially free on XBox if you have a gamepass.
So you’d have games like Deathloop that will be timed exclusives on PS5… but then come to XBox and you get it for free. Not to mention the ES and Fallout games. That’s nuts.
I’m probably the only one in the world who failed to grasp the full magnitude of that purchase.
For this one, I kind of doubt it. The original Rebel Galaxy has never, not once, been on sale on the Xbox store- if it had, I’d probably have bought it for my brother. Yet it was given away on PS+ shortly after release. Travis seems to have no relationship with MS, for whatever reason.
As for Paradox Games, AoW:P was there on release day, too. Stellaris didn’t come until a few months after console release.
Reckon so :) “Free” apart from the subscription cost.
The Valhalla rumour has been clarified to refer to Series X optimised titles rather than Gamepass titles. I’m quite pleased about that. I don’t think I want MS to own the whole damn world.
I did mention it here, which was originally in this thread:
The thing to remember is you get the Xbox and PC versions. Admittedly the PC version is via the Microsoft store, but it’s still available. And Microsoft has slowly been getting their mod story together so the future seem pretty good!
Looks like the Twitter detectives are out in force - Xbox sent out a teaser tweet today, and hid a clue in white text at the bottom, ‘The Slayer is coming’. Since the 2016 Doom has already been on Game Pass, looks like Doom Eternal may show up soon.
Likewise. Gamepass is perfect for stuff I’d like to play but have no interest in replaying ever, or stuff I’m sort of interested in if the price isn’t much and Doom Eternal pretty much fits both those bills.
