Summary
- According to Christopher Dring, developers can expect an 80 percent loss in premium sales when using Xbox Game Pass.
- However, Game Pass can boost multi-platform sales due to the boost in players on Xbox.
Former GamesIndustry.biz head Christopher Dring explained in a recent Q&A what launching a title on Game Pass means for potential sales on Xbox, and the impact it can have for developers both big and small.
“Anecdotally, games that are in Game Pass can expect to lose around 80 percent of [their] expected premium sales on Xbox,” Dring explained via Install Base. “That’s the figure that gets thrown around.
“It’s less if it’s a big mainstream release, but generally… look at how low Hellblade 2 charted. Or where Indiana Jones came. Or even Starfield. Game Pass clearly hurt sales of those titles on Xbox.”
However, Game Pass Can Help With Multi-Platform Sales
Missing out on as much as 80 percent of all premium sales sounds like a huge loss on the surface, but Dring clarified that “it can be beneficial” for multi-platform releases. He explained that a game getting a boost in players through the service may “Have a strong impact on sales on PlayStation”.
Dring also explained that “getting people to play your game in 2024/2025 is so, so, so hard”, but Game Pass can introduce an audience who might otherwise not try a certain type of game to entirely new genres and titles.
“There are a lot of people that only play Call of Duty,” Dring said. “And if some of those people decided to get Call of Duty via Game Pass, and those very same people took the opportunity to play some other Game Pass games… it’s hard to argue that’s a bad thing.”
As of February last year, Game Pass had 34 million subscribers, and while Dring says there’s “not been too much growth recently”, director of research & insights at Niko Partners Daniel Ahmad revealed in October that Black Ops 6 launching on Game Pass did introduce “a significant number of players into the ecosystem”.
That means there’s a new audience who might now explore other games to get the most out of their subscription. And as Dring said, “Try being an indie game on Xbox right now that’s not on Game Pass”. Nevertheless, he argued that “services like this make it harder for everyone else”.
Xbox Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass is Microsoft’s subscription service, offering hundreds of games for modern Xbox consoles and PC, all for a regular monthly fee.