Finished the article now. Good to see some actual journalism from EG. It’s not click bait, it’s not a hot take, it’s a decent examination of a very current trend in gaming with well researched and backed up arguments. Not that I completely agree with it but it’s good stuff none the less.
I think the core for me is impact on game design. The quote from Ben Decker, head of gaming services marketing, Xbox sends shivers down the spine…
[GamePass]creates greater opportunity for post-sale monetization
Though the article had plenty of quotes to say it’s not impacting game design they were asking a lot of people who already have a good relationship with MS and games on GP. Even the anonymous developers won’t be changing their approach much because this has been the approach to a lot of games design for the some time. Other services like PS+/GwG and obvious monetisation design formats of the big publishers have helped shape this. GamePass if nothing else is dialling in to that and the more popular it is the more it shapes it.
Which for me in turn has an impact outside of the subscription systems. All games get affected by the game design choices which help make more money. A game design which isn’t intended for a subs service can have design elements that make it a more attractive subscription proposition if selling the more traditional way doesn’t work out as planned.
An interesting point about the shift away from retail was made. How shelf space and what retail wanted to sell shaped what the big publishers concentrated on. Now multiple digital storefronts can offer more variety and options for developer and consumer.
Another interesting point was the recent XBox Studio acquisitions talking about greater freedom to try smaller projects. That’s a good thing, talented developers given time and somewhere to put out passion projects or titles which wouldn’t have see the light of day otherwise.
Couple of side points I disagreed with …
One of the arguments put forward by the author was there isn’t as high a cost per user you get with other disruptive models. This seems to ignore the key area of growth for MS - xCloud - this has server and bandwidth costs which go up per user.
The Netflix-of-games comparison also mentioned the use of data Netflix is well known for, clever algorithms etc. I’d argue Game Devs/Publishers use data just as much if not more than Netflix. They harvest huge amounts from online-enabled games. They can track how far players get, how many complete certain elements, how long they play parts for - game data is huge in influencing big game development (for better or worse).
TL;DR
There are upsides and downsides. The fears most have are largely unfounded or actually well embedded already and not caused or made worse by GP-like services. For me subs services supplement my core gaming nicely. As a service it works really well for some games. It does influence game design and look for opportunities to monetise, but it’s not like games weren’t already well on this path already. I can still buy games and I get to try and play through a huge and varied selection. In many ways it makes the PS5/XSX|S combo a good proposition to fulfil all your gaming needs. Though as GP makes more gains a serious response from Sony is likely.
Gaming as a whole is currently the best it’s been for me.