High On Life Is Now Officially One Of The Biggest Xbox Game Pass Launches Of All Time

But I thought Game Pass was supposed to be bad for the gaming industry?

I would prefer Squanch to stay independent. With their style of humour/game, i would hate someone to buy them and dilute what makes them unique. We need more originality, congratulations to them

@themightyant I could be wrong but I read their comment as being sarcastic rather than genuinely questioning Game Pass.

What a surprise!
Its obviously an idea that's very popular and therefore will do well even if its not brilliant and kinda reminds me of Stray on PS: - a reasonable game which did better than anyone could have expected because the idea resonates with people.

Whilst I don't think this should be up for any awards, I don't begrudge it its success, and I hope they refine the ideas they have expressed in this game to make something even better.

@Solidchief It is, it's conditioning people to not want to buy games.

@Snake_V5 "but it's also been doing really well in terms of actual sales, with the game sitting towards to the top of the paid rankings on both Xbox and Steam right now."

@themightyant that’s fair.

@Snake_V5 why is that a bad thing? And bear um mind I bought 20+ games this year altough only 3/4 day one. There are too many games in the market and most of them are too expensive for what they offer.

i'm so vexed this game hasn't a physical release. not interested in gamepass or digital buys at all.

Probably because there's nothing else particularly exciting

@Balta666 Why is it a bad thing? You're supposed to buy games.

@Snake_V5 When I was younger renting games was normal, and often the only way people could afford to try several different genres and types of games. With rental stores no longer existing GamePass is filling a really important space. A space that traditionally for most of gaming existed.

I still wonder how many people actually love the game and are playing substantially through it of if this is just the accumulation of everybody TRYING the game, regardless of where their opinion lands on it. It's a game I was looking forward to for the concept, and WANTED to love....but the reality of what it is just isn't making me want to spend more time with it when I have a backlog of much better games to spend time with.

@Snake_V5 Inexplicably, this game is sitting near the top of sales despite being on GP. I'm not sure it makes me think highly of the average Xbox consumer if this is what they're spending money on, but, then, most PS consumers are buying CoD, FIFA, and GTAV, so I think gamers in general just have garbage taste.

Less coincidentally, I tried this game on game pass, found it pretty low quality, then (re) bought P5R, then , Elden Ring, the equally divisive Stranger of Paradise, No More Heroes 3...... For enthusiasts getting some games free just means freeing money to spend on other games. We gamers are not very good at SAVING money, we just look to get more for the excessive money we already intend to blow.

But @bobbypaycheque said it best. Excpet in the rental days you could rent all the biggest releases, not just....High on Life... This is cheaper than Blockbuster though.

@Snake_V5 why? There are already a lot of people that buy games at discount either used or because they waited for a sale. Also you're are paying for a service with games... It is not like they are giving games for free

Congratulations to the team on their success with the game. There’s been mixed reviews on it. I personally haven’t played it, but I know those who have and love it.

I’m playing it. I’m enjoying it. And finding myself looking forward to going back to it. Was surprised to see it review so poorly on here…till I read the review of someone clearly offended along the way.

Only complaint I’ve had so far are some of the boss fights are a bit of a chore.

It's not mind blowing or anything that most will probably play more than once. It's just a funny and fun game. Sometimes that's enough.

@Snake_V5 if renting or not buying at full price (also the used game market) was as detrimental as you seem to think then the 80s, 90s, an 2000s would've tanked the entertainment industry into oblivion. it didn't though. it was how most of us, back then, found the games we actually wanted to buy because this is a really expensive hobby an its not getting any cheaper. New things have come to fill the void of rental. Video streaming services an things like redbox filled that niche and has done so for well over a decade now but the gaming rental market has been empty till gamepass came around.

Renting, trying, etc is not and never will be a bad thing.
Companies hated it back then because the ones profiting was the store being rented from.
In streaming services, a revenue flow (yes that includes gamepass) is going back to the developers an that eliminates the main gripe companies had back then but thats all it was. just an annoying thorn, not the death of them all.

Weirdly, High on Life is fulfilling some of the promise of that cancelled Prey 2 game; bounty hunting in outer space. It really does play out like a long episode of Rick & Morty. Got a few laughs out of me in the first hour or so. The knife is annoying and the game is a bit bugged. But it's fun.

@themightyant Engagement still doesn't tell the whole story: 10 million people trying it for an hour, hating, and deleting it has the same engagement as 1 million people playing it for 10 hours and loving it.

But we're talking about a service where Power Washing Simulator was dominant for months.... I said in another thread, Game Pass is the video game equivalent of Tumblr, not the service itself, but it seems to be this weird microcosm of the internet that becomes a collective hive mind when it comes to weird GP trends

Though the success of High on Life does confirm the Xbox 360 fanbase stereotype of cheeto-stained fingers, Mtn Dew Red, and loads of pot remains the core of the platform though Although who're we kidding, it's even SELLING well. It'll sell well on PS and especially Switch, too.

Plus, I'd never heard of Rick & Morty at all before this other than hearing the name in passing. Researching it led me to see that for whatever reason, McDonalds actually brought back a sauce for a limited time due to demand from Rick & Morty fans. I have no idea why, and after my encounter with this game I don't want to know. But if there's enough fans to make McDonalds introduce a limited time menu item for them, I guess t here's just a lot of fans for Roiland's content. Somewhere. Near the cheetos.

It probably indicates a demand for a light, colorful game in a world where everything is set to high contrast and lamenting the apocalypse and tragedy. But I suspect, like with myself, there's a lot of people that were excited for it for that reason, then tried it and found out it's not quite what we were looking for.

My opinions are pretty much identical to yours on this game. I figured I'd probably push my way through it regardless, but after loading up on stuff on the sale, I'm just running around trying 30 min here and there of Elden Ring, Stranger of Paradise, NMH3. Heck I have to get back to Pentiment which took me away from Soul Hackers 2 and Diofield.... and I'll probably start P5R soon. Or finish HzD. OR re-start FF7R. Screw it, too many choices, back for more Splatoon.

" It would be akin to removing music from JRPGS or guns from Halo. "

Do you really want to go and give 343i that idea?

You're supposed to buy games.

One of the most ridiculous statements I have ever read. It's as ridiculous as telling people they are supposed to buy movies, not go to the theater, not rent them, not watch them on streaming, not watch them on TV, they are only supposed to buy them or else, they are killing the industry!!!

@NEStalgia

Engagement still doesn't tell the whole story: 10 million people trying it for an hour, hating, and deleting it has the same engagement as 1 million people playing it for 10 hours and loving it.

You can continue to check XBox's own store page for most played games. It updates regularly, at least daily. If this was people trying the game for an hour and uninstalling, the game would not be ranking as high as it is still. its on 3rd place right now, ahead of GTA V and Roblox, and its still 5th best selling game.

This is not people just downloading it and dissing it aside. People genuinely like the game. Hell, I myself am enjoying it after the day one patch and opening more of the game, although have not been able to sit down to play it through due to work and real life.

Big point on the game, humor aside, is the game was never meant to be seen as a first person shooter and instead they aimed to make a 3D metroidvania in line with Metroid Prime. Exploration, backtracking and unlocking more upgrades is one of the main points of the game, not the shooting.

@Tharsman IDK about that. There's a lot of people that are going to try something to see what it's all about, it's only a week or so old, there's still plenty of reason people will keep trying even if it's not all that big a deal in terms of dedicated play. It's controversial. That gets a lot of attention and trials. And there's a lot of people, again, like myself, that thought this was going to be a total hit for me based on the information before launch, and it turned into a fizzle. "Engagement" is really a hard to tell metric at launch like this on something controversial.

Yes, R&M itself has a sizable fanbase that will make it popular. And yes, Xbox has a lot of annoying 13 year old "call of duty kids" that would just love this because it's "edgy", it's not that it has no natural market, but I think the crazy engagement numbers are still filled in by a lot of gapers, including myself.

Let's see where engagement sits in a month.

@NEStalgia honestly think your personal dislike of the game is clouding your judgement a bit here. Its not just XBox Game Pass engagement figures, or XBox sale charts, the same stuff is also reflected in steam metrics, both sales and concurrent players.

Love it or hate it, the game audience is big, and honestly don't think its all about Cheetos fingered players. BTW thank you for that, now I want to eat a huge bag of Cheetos...

@Tharsman I don't explicitly dislike the game, I just think it's remarkably mediocre to the point that I haven't convinced myself to uninstall it in case I want to try it more, but also can't get myself to play it instead of the dozen other things I also installed. I don't dislike it, I'm just highly disappointed by it. It was a game I expected to like quite a lot. And again, for sales, if Game Pass weren't a thing, I very likely would have preordered it in a different timeline based on the pre-release info, so I still don't think the initial sales means as much. It means there was demand for the game, based on it's concept, absolutely. I'm part of that demand. I just don't know that the game can be said to have delivered on expectations just because early sales reflect early demand. I know you say it's not intended as a a shooter, but it's both poor as a shooter and poor as a metroidvania IMO. The shooting is just bland, and the exploration/navigation is very poor. It's been a long time since I've stumbled around empty levels trying to find the right path forever until this game

LOL, don't forget the Mtn Dew Red! .

I wish I could've enjoyed this game, but it gave me a headache after an hour of playing it.

@themightyant Yep, we have pretty identical opinions on it, right down to having been looking forward since the announcement, and then it ending up being just kinda...meh. That doesn't happen super often haha!

Merry Christmas to you, too!

@NEStalgia sorry for resurrecting an oldish topic but just stopped playing the game aiming for 1000 gamer score when I realized I could just look at the “finished playing the game” rate to get an estimate of how many drop the game after an hour of play.

Turns out the game has. 17.2% story completion rate, that’s a good number for a Game Pass game.

For comparison, Plague Tale Requiem has a 17.04% rate, Persona 5 had a 6.47% and TMNT Shredders Revenge has a 15.05% story completion rate.

Again sorry for the necrotagging (is that a thing?) just thought it was an interesting bit of data.

Side note: did not manage to get the full 1k GS because of a bugged achievement 😅