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[Tiago Rodrigues]

I don't understand...MS says Gamepass boosts game sales...yet when games debut lower or don't debut on the charts the excuse is "it's on Gamepass"?
Which one is the truth? It's hard to keep up.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I don't understand...MS says Gamepass boosts game sales...yet when games debut lower or don't debut on the charts the excuse is "it's on Gamepass"?
Which one is the truth? It's hard to keep up.

That never made sense to me, and regardless of them saying it - I refuse to believe it.

If I’m paying for a subscription every month, why on Earth would I go buy a game that’s already available to me through the subscription? If anything I’m going to buy something else.

The only exception would be if I really liked a game and wanted to have it after it was pulled from the subscription lineup.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

$70, on Game Pass, and terrible reviews. I'm shocked it didn't sell on Steam.

 

[GHG]

Currently top 20 on Xbox Live.
Steam charts are borderline useless for Gamepass games.

People have no problem talking about Steam sales for gamepass games when they sell.

It's far from useless, especially not on PC where the vast majority of gamers prefer to purchase games on Steam rather than battle with the windows store/xbox app.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I don't understand...MS says Gamepass boosts game sales...yet when games debut lower or don't debut on the charts the excuse is "it's on Gamepass"?
Which one is the truth? It's hard to keep up.

They walked that obvious lie back since the CMA submissions.

 

[gothmog]

That never made sense to me, and regardless of them saying it - I refuse to believe it.

If I’m paying for a subscription every month, why on Earth would I go buy a game that’s already available to me through the subscription? If anything I’m going to buy something else.

The only exception would be if I really liked a game and wanted to have it after it was pulled from the subscription lineup.

I think the reasoning is that subscribers would try games they would have never bought before and positive word of mouth would get people that are not subscribers to either subscribe or buy. There's also the weird group that buys a game multiple times to support the devs. Never got that one personally.

 

[ByWatterson]

gooD eNouGh fuR gAmepaSs

 

[Topher]

good eNouGh fuR gAmepaSs

That was literally the title of Engadget's review:

'Redfall' review: Good enough for Game Pass

Redfall is not fit for public consumption. Arkane Austin’s vampire-infused world is unpolished, underpopulated and littered with glitches.

www.engadget.com

 

[EverydayBeast]

Redfall should worry about getting on PlayStation.

 

[Buggy Loop]

 

[DeepEnigma]

That was literally the title of Engadget's review:

'Redfall' review: Good enough for Game Pass

Redfall is not fit for public consumption. Arkane Austin’s vampire-infused world is unpolished, underpopulated and littered with glitches.

www.engadget.com

And many of us called it when we said that phrase and mental conditioning would be normalized eventually with these types of services pushed to the forefront. It's getting there at a rapid pace.

 

[GHG]

And many of us called it when we said that phrase and mental conditioning would be normalized eventually with these types of services pushed to the forefront. It's getting there at a rapid pace.

It's a fucking trip witnessing the people this strategy has taken hold of try to argue otherwise.

 

[gothmog]

It's a fucking trip witnessing the people this strategy has taken hold of try to argue otherwise.

One only has to look at Netflix's struggles with quality vs quantity content to see where it was going.

 

[onQ123]

Jesus Christ

 

[yazenov]

I don't understand...MS says Gamepass boosts game sales...yet when games debut lower or don't debut on the charts the excuse is "it's on Gamepass"?
Which one is the truth? It's hard to keep up.

Same as the claim that console sales don't matter and we are not competing with Sony and Nintendo, but when they are selling more than the competition due to shortages they shout from the rooftop beating their chests.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

But Senjutsu Sage keeps telling me it's #12 on Game Pass, so it must be a riveting financial success!!

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Again, not my point.
Of course they push for quality. They don't want gamepass to become a place for shovelware. What I am saying is gamepass, from time to time, can motivate them to skimp on quality if a game has particularly troublesome development. I can be an easy way out and still extract some value out of the game.

The case with Redfall, the AI is clearly something that could have used more time in the oven. Rather than delay further, they can just toss is on gamepass and call it a day. It just seems to me it's another avenue to cut losses without taking as much of a hit for releasing a half baked game.

There are already memes going around of "good enough for gamepass". Will this eventually lead to the average quality of first party Microsoft games going down? I don't mean they will be outright bad, just that there will be downward pressure on game quality.

I don't think RedFall ever went gold, which would further add to your point. Has any game ever not gone gold but still released anyway? Can't think of any examples.

Sea of thieves as sold well on steam. And Forza. It's just ass.

Selling well on Steam doesn't mean much because usually games on Steam sell several magnitudes less than counterparts on console, outside of very rare exceptions where the splits are more even.

Microsoft's games are not part of those rare exceptions from what I can tell.

 

[Shubh_C63]

Skillup vid showed Steam page where Redfall was the 17th most negative reviewed game in the steam library given number of reviews.

What exactly was Microsoft's internal quality dept doing. Quarterly reports and hand-on demos for your billion dollar acquisitions are not happening ?

 

[nush]

Phil Spencer seems to enjoy it. He's always playing it. Maybe the only person in the world playing this game.

That's just some intern he's got sitting in the corner of his office playing on his Gamertag.

 

[ahtlas7]

We all lose in this situation. Such a shame.

 

[Kacho]

 

[gothmog]

We all lose in this situation. Such a shame.

Agreed. Making excuses for it also gives Xbox license to do this often as people are literally begging for more games launched like Redfall was.

 

[Jooxed]

I tried this on game pass on release, and it was just ..off. I really liked the art style.. to me it just felt pretty clunky

 

[Jimmyisback]

Redfall is the second most played game on game pass. 12th most popular on Xbox at this current moment.

 

[demigod]

The announcement a few days ago was that Redfall made $3 million on Steam in three days. If that's true and the Steam price is $70, that means 3,000,000x.70.

That means that in three days just on Steam and nowhere else, Redfall sold 2.1 million copies, pretty good.

Not even in top 100 yet gamesensor said it sold 50k copies, sounded bs to me.

 

[Three]

Redfall is the second most played game on game pass. 12th most popular on Xbox at this current moment.

Congrats

 

[JackSparr0w]

I don't understand...MS says Gamepass boosts game sales...yet when games debut lower or don't debut on the charts the excuse is "it's on Gamepass"?
Which one is the truth? It's hard to keep up.

Gamepass can boost sales of relative unknown games that had zero marketing.

On anything with a decent advertising budget it'll have the opposite effect.

 

[Esca]

Go go go age of wonders 4 wooohoooo

 

[Sweden85]

Gamepass is the future of gaming...

 

[Heisenberg007]

why should it? its free on gamepass, it cracked #1 there with millions of happy gamers unlike the review industry

Meanwhile, "happy gamers":

 

[systemr123]

It's a gamepass game, reviewed poorly that can be played on PC without the need to buy it on Steam (because of gamepass). yeah, not surprising at all.

But uncle Phil said in the beginning of the Gamepass era that Gamepass actually will rise individual game sales (really wonder how anyone could think that that could even be remotely true).

 

[yazenov]

Meanwhile, "happy gamers":

Gamers have "reached" happiness.

 

[systemr123]

That never made sense to me, and regardless of them saying it - I refuse to believe it.

If I’m paying for a subscription every month, why on Earth would I go buy a game that’s already available to me through the subscription? If anything I’m going to buy something else.

The only exception would be if I really liked a game and wanted to have it after it was pulled from the subscription lineup.

Which you would/might do if they didn’t release almost exclusively indie games on the service nowadays.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Redfall is the second most played game on game pass. 12th most popular on Xbox at this current moment.

REDFALL was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Arkane Studios delivered with this surprise release state.

 

[rodrigolfp]

I don't understand...MS says Gamepass boosts game sales...yet when games debut lower or don't debut on the charts the excuse is "it's on Gamepass"?
Which one is the truth? It's hard to keep up.

He didn't say when sales will be boosted and for what games.

 

[Heisenberg007]

REDFALL was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Arkane Studios delivered with this surprise release state.

 

[DeepEnigma]

He didn't say when sales will be boosted and for what games.

Yep, good ole ambiguous Spencer. His specialty.

MS, however, did tell the CMA knowingly that Game Pass does indeed cannibalize game sales when submitting internal documents to them trying to get ABK.

 

[DenchDeckard]

This is a case where I genuinely feel anyone that bought it was completely ripped off, so I hope sales were as miniscule as possible and they all got a steam refund.

 

[StereoVsn]

Deserved, but still...

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I will say that something really positive is coming out of this and I've confirmed this.

Due to this game's failures, measures will be taken internally to ensure that I will play Age Of Wonders 4 all thanks to this thread.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

But uncle Phil said in the beginning of the Gamepass era that Gamepass actually will rise individual game sales (really wonder how anyone could think that that could even be remotely true).

Seems like it does for certain games. Especially good indie games and stuff like Sea of Thieves.

 

[xiskza]

 

[systemr123]

Seems like it does for certain games. Especially good indie games and stuff like Sea of Thieves.

Would like to see some numbers and proof of that because I think it’s not. No one is buying Sea of Thieves since everyone who wants it is playing on gamepass e.g.

 

[fermcr]

Is it surprising?...
Bad games normally have poor sales.
Forspoken wasn't on Gamepass, also had bad sales.