Xbox Game Pass, Game Pass Ultimate now Includes EA Play! [XGP, GamePass]

[RobertR1]

Wonder where they sit with most publishers. At some point others (Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda, 2K etc.) will want to introduce their own, just as EA did. At that point, it might as well be a Win10 box (especially with MS shifting to Play Anywhere), and then I'd wonder if Live Gold disappears in favour of GamePass (many years later).

ahem.

At this point, MS would be getting 2x subs from each member (gold and game pass). They will likely not want to take a revenue hit if they can avoid it so part of what they'll have to do is find a way to balance the value of Gold along with game pass. I'm sure it's been talked about internally.

Blending Gold into gamepass and discount Gold would be a smart option. You'd see the sub attach rates go up and there would be a perception of a discount to the consumer which they like. I'd try to steer in that direction but I'm not at M$ (< see how edgy I am!) so let's see what they come up with.

 

[RobertR1]

But he (The Major) didn't say: Once XGP title, permanent XGP title.

There is no logical reason to cycle out original content. You'll just create market confusion and uncertainty which will give you bad PR and a lowered adoption rate.

Seeing that game are generally the most popular around release time and we know already that release games will be part of the Game pass, taking them out of rotation down the road when their popularity has waned just creates really bad PR with little upside.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There is no logical reason to cycle out original content.

there's a business reason. Get them hooked with a free experience, then move it out into a pay-to-continue experience. I agree that's not the best way to go, but twice now Major Nelson has avoided saying these excluives will be available to play forever as part of Game Pass. I think the intention will be to keep them in, buy they're being non-committal just in case.

 

[RobertR1]

there's a business reason. Get them hooked with a free experience, then move it out into a pay-to-continue experience. I agree that's not the best way to go, but twice now Major Nelson has avoided saying these excluives will be available to play forever as part of Game Pass. I think the intention will be to keep them in, buy they're being non-committal just in case.

Anything is possible but I just can't make the case based on a couple of factors:

1. Historical evidence. Netflix and others have paved the way for a subscription model success. Games are just content at the end of the day
2. Common sense. If MS (or others) are going after a sub model, they'll need generate consumer trust and goodwill. Bait n switch does many times over the reputation damage in our new internet outrage culture. Look at the damage and how long it took them to recover from the initial games on demand launch they had planned, rightfully so.

I could be totally wrong and it wouldn't be the first or last time a major corporation has put their foot in their mouth but I *really* can't get there with you based on what we know.

 

[AzBat]

there's a business reason. Get them hooked with a free experience, then move it out into a pay-to-continue experience. I agree that's not the best way to go, but twice now Major Nelson has avoided saying these excluives will be available to play forever as part of Game Pass. I think the intention will be to keep them in, buy they're being non-committal just in case.

It was only one Tweet not two.

If you read the post on Reddit everyone is reading it as once a 1st party game is put on Game Pass it's permanent. He has posted recently & hasn't corrected them. Same with Twitter. I agree there is ambiguity but they have let the discussion continue without correcting it. There will be a shitstorm later if that's not the case. Guess we will see.

Tommy McClain

 

[dobwal]

Wonder where they sit with most publishers. At some point others (Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda, 2K etc.) will want to introduce their own, just as EA did. At that point, it might as well be a Win10 box (especially with MS shifting to Play Anywhere), and then I'd wonder if Live Gold disappears in favour of GamePass (many years later).

ahem.

Pubs don't inherently have the right to release such a service on a console. Hence the lack of EA's service on the PS platform.

Other pubs may bitch about EA being the lone pub who got approval. But MS can contend that there was a policy change and EA's service was grandfathered in because it had already taken the time, made the effort and invested into the service.

 

[AlNom]

Pubs don't inherently have the right to release such a service on a console. Hence the lack of EA service on the PS platform.

I know they don't. EA clearly had a deal with MS for Xbox, which is what I'm referring to. Xbox thread.

 

[AlNom]

There is no logical reason to cycle out original content. You'll just create market confusion and uncertainty which will give you bad PR and a lowered adoption rate.

Seeing that game are generally the most popular around release time and we know already that release games will be part of the Game pass, taking them out of rotation down the road when their popularity has waned just creates really bad PR with little upside.

What we might see instead is MS shifting their release schedules to be more predictable. e.g. $60 game releases in March. The next $60 game gets released 6 months later. $30 DLC gets released 3 months in between, which would be discounted for game pass owners.

Consumer does the math on whether to cancel.

Clearly wouldn't work with MS delaying stuff or cancelling projects with droughts in between though.

I do think they should have more cross-IP content even if it's just fluff. Fable 2 had Fable-ized Halo armour - where is any of that in Sea of Thieves? Forza finally got a couple helmets from Gears & Halo I think. There's the Warthog in FH3. Rocket League has warthog & gears APC.

This is something that Blizzard does well between their IPs, and I'm surprised more publishers don't do it as it fosters the identity of their stable of IPs in the consumer eye. We saw some of that with EA titles (Dead Space armour in Dragon Age, Dragon Age armour in Mass Effect, Mass Effect stuff in PvZ. etc.).

Besides, it's fun. Who wouldn't want a Spartan to wear a Pirate hat and sporting a legendary pirate pistol (model replacement). I'd have to imagine Spinal being an easter egg in Sea of Thieves, but maybe that makes too much sense.

 

[RobertR1]

What we might see instead is MS shifting their release schedules to be more predictable. e.g. $60 game releases in March. The next $60 game gets released 6 months later. $30 DLC gets released 3 months in between, which would be discounted for game pass owners.

Consumer does the math on whether to cancel.

Clearly wouldn't work with MS delaying stuff or cancelling projects with droughts in between though.

I do think they should have more cross-IP content even if it's just fluff. Fable 2 had Fable-ized Halo armour - where is any of that in Sea of Thieves? Forza finally got a couple helmets from Gears & Halo I think. There's the Warthog in FH3. Rocket League has warthog & gears APC.

This is something that Blizzard does well between their IPs, and I'm surprised more publishers don't do it as it fosters the identity of their stable of IPs in the consumer eye. We saw some of that with EA titles (Dead Space armour in Dragon Age, Dragon Age armour in Mass Effect, Mass Effect stuff in PvZ. etc.).

Besides, it's fun. Who wouldn't want a Spartan to wear a Pirate hat and sporting a legendary pirate pistol (model replacement). I'd have to imagine Spinal being an easter egg in Sea of Thieves, but maybe that makes too much sense.

All of what you described will be important to maintain confidence with the consumer to retain membership.

MS will absolutely have to get on a steady drip of content. I expect you'll see a combination of large scale games spaced out with XBLA level of content will strikes a good balance. Maintain the drip delivery system will be vital to the success.

As for cross IP content, that is important as well but likely a challenge for MS as Blizzard and Nintendo have multiple well established characters and IP's that keeps it fresh. MS needs to build it's war chest first and gain success with multiple IP on a consistent basis.

 

[iroboto]

I think the intention will be to keep them in, buy they're being non-committal just in case.

This. I think there are probably niche cases were the game must cycle out. Any game that uses content from a provider that they don't own could potentially run into this problem if they cannot renew that license. See all sports games, any game with licensed Music etc.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

To date, Game Pass hasn't had any Day One exclusives so we can't be sure what MS's plans are. I'm referring to AzBat's quote where MS didn't commit to keeping these games in there indefinitely, so they may not even be decided yet. It's an unknown at this point.

As for costs, the lost sales of something like Halo will be millions. Who's going to spend $60 (giving MS $40+) to buy Halo when they can use Game Pass and play it? If those same people were going to buy Crackdown and Sea Of Thieves, that's millions of people not giving MS $120 because they are using the service. That's a lot of wonga! I also don't see why the game being in Game Pass keeps the interest beyond the first two weeks. If the game has longevity, it'll grow and not need a Game Pass incentive to get people to play it (Destiny, Diablo 3). If it's a short lived adventure, it'll peak and fizzle. Those short games make their money by selling at full price.

Definitely an expensive move from MS intended to grow the service. I think it's intended as a loss-leader to try and establish a new business model. If Game Pass includes Play Anywhere on PC for the same games, it's quite obvious what the intention is.

There's something to that, but consider the following.

I don't remember the exact numbers but I've read that something like 90% of game revenue comes from 10% of the user base. Those numbers may not be exactly correct, but it's enough to show the great disparity between your casual gamers (the vast majority of the user base) and your heavy game players (that buy say more than 2-4 games a year).

So, just for the sake of argument, let's say that ~50% of the user base on any given console buys ~2 games a year. Now out of those 2 games, they may or may not buy any Microsoft Studios productions.

The question then becomes, how many of those casual owners can be enticed into subscribing to the service for a at least a year at a time? And will that generate more revenue than potential revenue lost from the 10% (or whatever) of heavy game buyers that buy at least 2 of Microsoft Studio's products each year?

Subscription services generally are far more attractive to casual purchasers than heavy purchasers due to the fact that it allows them access to more content than they would normally budget for. Subscription services basically rely on getting enough casual consumers of X product segment to subscribe that it more than offsets the potential loss from heavy purchasers switching to subscribing rather than purchasing.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Later posts of mine have already conceded those observations. The current attach ratio is something like 6? 8 is fairly normal for a 4 year old platform. So 2 games a year is actually about average, meaning $120 a year is probably more for MS than what they'd get from two game sales.

However, where do other publishers fit in with that? Netflix may well have exclusives day and date, but they aren't putting the latest DVD/BRD releases on there, and these movie companies don't want Netflix cannabilising their sales. The returns from these library services must be way less per title than direct sales and rentals. Netflix must have negotiated a price to get Ghostbusters 2 onto Netflix for however long they have it, but those negotiations didn't include GB1. If it wasn't for their crazy investment in first-party content (8 billion earmarked for content creation this year to constitute 50% original content), they wouldn't be seeing the growth they're seeing. In essence, Netflix is becoming more of a TV channel and producer than a library service with a handful of first-party titles. To replicate Netflix's model, MS would need to start producing crazy amounts of first party content, and selling to PC where the install base is enough to justify it. Netflix wouldn't get anywhere if it was limited to 30-40 million players worldwide. Of course, it's taken Netflix 20 years to get here...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Later posts of mine have already conceded those observations. The current attach ratio is something like 6? 8 is fairly normal for a 4 year old platform. So 2 games a year is actually about average, meaning $120 a year is probably more for MS than what they'd get from two game sales.

However, where do other publishers fit in with that? Netflix may well have exclusives day and date, but they aren't putting the latest DVD/BRD releases on there, and these movie companies don't want Netflix cannabilising their sales. The returns from these library services must be way less per title than direct sales and rentals. Netflix must have negotiated a price to get Ghostbusters 2 onto Netflix for however long they have it, but those negotiations didn't include GB1. If it wasn't for their crazy investment in first-party content (8 billion earmarked for content creation this year to constitute 50% original content), they wouldn't be seeing the growth they're seeing. In essence, Netflix is becoming more of a TV channel and producer than a library service with a handful of first-party titles. To replicate Netflix's model, MS would need to start producing crazy amounts of first party content, and selling to PC where the install base is enough to justify it. Netflix wouldn't get anywhere if it was limited to 30-40 million players worldwide. Of course, it's taken Netflix 20 years to get here...

As long as it isn't put up in the first month of sales the majority of titles would probably be fine with going onto a subscription service. There are, of course, always exceptions. Something like the COD series that generally continues to land in Top 10 sales charts for multiple months (sometimes for a year or more) aren't good candidates for something like this.

Something like the Dark Souls series might be appropriate after X months. Less popular titles might be appropriate after 1-2 months.

Another consideration is that you can still monetize titles that are put into a subscription service with games that you cannot do with other forms of Media.

For example, games that are in the subscription service do not need to have DLC included with them. Whether that be additional mission content, cosmetics, loot boxes, whatever. EA's game service, AFAICR, do no include any DLC for games in their vault unless the DLC is party of the game release (Compete Edition, Game of the Year Edition, Golden Edition, etc.). However, you can still purchase DLC for those games.

The only thing exceptional that MS are doing is making the base version of their first party titles available in the service day and date with the retail version. There's obviously a cost associated with that, but they've obviously determined that the cost is potentially less than the increased revenue from more subscribers (assuming subscriptions take off after this). As well, they still retain the ability to sell DLC and micro-transactions to people on the subscription service.

Something else to consider is putting in the base version of a game before a Remastered version of a game comes out. The base version can serve as advertisement for the Remastered version. Microsoft's efforts in BC make this more compelling if a previous gen title might get a Remaster that is more than just a token effort. Granted, that might also cannibalize sales of a Remastered version, so it'd be something a publisher would have to consider on a case by case basis.

IE - an original Xbox or PS1/PS2 game is unlikely to cannibalize a significantly graphically updated version of said game as a remaster. But a X360 or PS3 game might have a good chance to cannibalize a remaster.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't remember the exact numbers but I've read that something like 90% of game revenue comes from 10% of the user base. Those numbers may not be exactly correct, but it's enough to show the great disparity between your casual gamers (the vast majority of the user base) and your heavy game players (that buy say more than 2-4 games a year).

I think this is the case for most ecosystems. It's probably a combination of certain things having wider mainstream appeal and partly about discoverability - or lack of it.

 

[dobwal]

With a healthy subscription based service, you stop caring about selling $60 dollars games to those subscribers.

A large subscription base paying in the neighborhood of $5-$10 a month will lead to a ton of revenue. Enough revenue to change the dynamics of how first party games are sold on a platform and can influence things like game design.

If I have a 10 million subscriber base paying $10 a month and maintaining their subs for long period of times, I'm generating around $1.2 billion in revenue yearly.

I'm not trying to get these guys to buy my $60 Halo or GeOW. I will be busy trying to keep these guys hooked on the service. So if I notice a ton are playing Halo not only am I going to be encouraged to put future iterations on the service, I am going to be incentivized to keep adding content to current iteration to keep these guys happy and paying.

If the current means of selling games is synonymous with selling movies in movie theaters than sub based service is more like cable television where the content comes in a variety of formats. All in an effort to keep you as a subscriber.

Game Pass can literally become like a cable operator. Selling you a basic package of first party titles and older titles. While selling tiered subs that have additional content like a EA or Ubisoft exclusive channel. MS taking a cut from the higher tier services while licensing games from those pubs for the basic sub.

$60 sales become a way to initially pay for development and marketing while a ton of profits are extracted from the subscription services.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

With a healthy subscription based service, you stop caring about selling $60 dollars games to those subscribers.

That depends which side of the economic equation you sit. If I'm a subscription service operator then I want those subs and game costs be damned but if I'm a game publisher then the subs services are the least desirable monetisation option. Better than nothing, but nowhere near as good as a customer paying $60 plus extra for DLC.

 

[RobertR1]

Publishers can cut all types of deals with MS if want to participate in the program or they can make their own versions such as EA access. Although the key here will be day and date for new releases on the sub.

I'm more curious how MS will handle DLC and micro transactions. Ideally, DLC will simply be a stick and part of the package and use in game micro transactions as a supplement which if well developed is a fair proposition for all sides.

 

[mrcorbo]

Publishers can cut all types of deals with MS if want to participate in the program or they can make their own versions such as EA access. Although the key here will be day and date for new releases on the sub.

I'm more curious how MS will handle DLC and micro transactions. Ideally, DLC will simply be a stick and part of the package and use in game micro transactions as a supplement which if well developed is a fair proposition for all sides.

Yeah, EA access is an example of how, with a subscription service, you can monetize your back-catalog. You can make a direct correlation between the possibilities for what MS is doing here and what Netflix has been doing most recently. MS generates their own content for their service with that content's primary goal being to get people to subscribe to the service as opposed to being independently successful as an investment. Then MS goes to other publishers and tries to secure deals to being their content to the service to fill out the library even more.

In theory, this could completely change their content investment strategy so I'm very curious to see whether that manifests in an obvious way over the next few years.

 

[zed]

I'm more curious how MS will handle DLC and micro transactions.

Yes this is a good move on MS's part (though not sure how profitable it will be as it stands but if they go the freemium mode (but charging $10 a month) and just have a lot of paid DLC alongside it they perhaps could turn a profit

 

[iroboto]

(though not sure how profitable it will be as it stands

Part of the problem of being part of this forum, and some others, is that quite a few of us have disposable income for our hobbies and it's difficult to get a grasp of how much less folks might spend on their gaming. But each year millions of consoles are sold, the question really is, what percentage of platform users are spending less than $120 US per year on their platform; if this number is astronomically high, then any subscription service that moves them into the $120 spending bracket is immediate growth. More so if they add an XBLG subscription and continue to purchase into DLC or other media, or view ads on the console.