Indie Dev Prefers Selling Games Outright Despite 'A Pretty Good Deal' With Xbox Game Pass

Don’t see how you are puzzled, he’s saying people try it for 10minutes on GP and don’t engage further, let’s face it we are ALL guilty of doing that.

He’s saying if people spend £30 or whatever they are more likely to invest more than 10 minutes and play the game.

If he’s selling it you for £30 upfront it has to deliver, not be ‘good enough for gamepass’. But of course the game has to be good and so on.

I tried Outer Worlds for an hour a year ago and it didn't grab me. I returned last week and I have been playing it every day. Sometimes you give games a 2nd chance and it works and sometimes it doesn't.

@Kaloudz He isn't really getting into anything I guess, each model has its advantages, just like theatre vs. streaming in movies. At the end of the day the dev needs to figure these things out and in 2023 we shouldn't still be hung up on if a subscription service is bad. Subscription services are used from Music and movies all the way to Gillette razors. If it was bad for developers/creators not so many people would be doing it.

I agree, I'm quite puzzled cause based on how the game reviewed which was average according to opencritic, I assume he would have made more money out of the game pass deal than outright selling it cause I don't think they would have got the sales volume. Just my guess

"A lot of people just go in and try it and they don't invest."

Yeah, that's what people do when don't like your game but 10 minutes is not what a player invest to know if they like their game. Maybe they are confused because some people launch games just to get the "Play" reward.

@Banjo- I think I get where he's coming from. I think he means that if you download a game on game pass if it doesn't instantly click with you then you're more likely to just give up and delete it. Whereas if you have paid money to buy the game then you're more likely to remain engaged with the game longer and find that you do enjoy it.
Obviously if it's just an outright bad game then you might just give up on it either way but I see where he is coming from

The comments about engagement are true, people on Game pass are less likely to finish the game when compared to purchasing. That's why xbox game Completion rates are much lower when compared to Playstation

Seriously I got backlog man. If your game can’t entice me to play then it isn’t a good fit. It’s not you it’s me…

Those people that ONLY invested 10mins in that game were unlikely to 'buy' it anyway - just trying it because its 'free' to try. Of course there are going to be some that would have purchased but now won't because they can beat the game and everything it offers for 'free' too.

There will be some that try and will buy - just because they 'loved' the game and want to keep it or want to show the devs some 'love' and/or appreciation too.

It seems that he 'prefers' to sell people with Videos etc, get their $30 or so and if they only play 10mins, he's still got $30 from them. It doesn't matter if the first 30mins or so is 'good' or not, he's still go the Money - where as with Game Pass, if the first 30mins isn't great, there is always something else to try.

It perhaps puts additional pressure to release their game in as best a state as possible with the most enticing of set-ups to keep players engaged enough to keep playing because the 'competition' for players time is more fierce. Don't like the first 30mins, definitely not buying and unlikely to play more ether - but with Sales, they still got their money...

Devs get really good money from the gamepass release! if the whole game is bad, if they release outside and the game is bad lot of people refound and dont buy, or already not buy it.

for indies the gamepass is a good start without loosing all the invested money....

btw Sommerville is awesome i sit down and play all the story.. really amaze me.....hope its continued somehow...

only indie games i play are on gamepass, cause in MY opinion most are just crap games to me... very very few i have enoyed.... Firewatch was one i can think of i played and loved....

@WaffleDee Cannibalise game sales can be viewed in two ways - overall game sales on a Platform or individual 'game' sales - especially those releasing into Game Pass. Of course if its in Game Pass, Sales are likely to be hurt - especially if its a 'New' release.

However, that doesn't mean that 'ALL' game Sales are significantly lower as a result. It maybe that other games 'benefit' from 'increased' sales on Xbox than 'expected' due to the fact that gamers aren't spending as much on 'other' games. Didn't buy Redfall, so will buy Diablo instead or buy games in sales, buy more DLC etc - also because they are 'engaged' more on Xbox...

It obviously 'hurts' sales of games in Game Pass day/date, but reach far more players than they would, be much more 'discoverable' too. But that doesn't mean that overall sales are 'hurt' across ALL games and others are 'benefitting' because more people are 'engaged' on Xbox and as they continue to pull in more gamers to their platform, they have a 'higher' user base to sell to than they otherwise would have too. I know PS5 has 'more' users, but Xbox has 'increased' its user base over last gen by the same point in time...

@WaffleDee if I remember correctly Phil said that Game Pass users tend to spend more on games than non Games Pass users.

I've said many times, again and again, and again, game pass model is simply not sustainable. Microsoft, Phil, cronies at IGN, and the fanboys can say all they want. It's just not. That's why we have vast majority game boy level games being offered consistently.

Only way it can be really successful is tripling the price which no one will go for. Unless in a basement, not paying rent, and have zero real life romantic interests.

Now you finally have indie developers echoing my thoughts.

Game pass really exists, I believe mostly due to nadella. The guy wants to live in cloud if he could. Green lights about everything cloud related.

@Kevw2006 I understand what you mean but 10 minutes? Who spends just 10 minutes playing a game that they might be interested in? Unless you just want the "Play" reward that must shorten the average playing time very much. On the other hand, when I start a complex game like an RPG, I know I have to invest more than 10 minutes in it before giving it up.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I've actually thought about this a lot lately. I don't have time to play every game I already know I WANT to play. So, why am I going to scrounge around Game Pass trying to discover new games? If I wasn't interested enough to buy it, I probably wasn't ever really interested at all. I don't have time to sit around playing random games for the sake of having played them. If I fired it up for ten minutes and turned it off, its because I didn't care about it way before ever hitting the download button.

You are absolutely right, @BAMozzy. The majority of people who try a game for just 10 minutes, were never going to buy the game if that was the only option.

I think the exposure a game gets on Game Pass is often overlooked too. There are games that succeed without the service, obviously, but there are also many that have done far better than they would have if they had not gone on the service, and others that would likely have seen huge success had they gone on Game Pass, but as they didn't their success was modest/poor by comparison.

I get that, as a Developer, the ideal scenario is that you release a game to retail only, and that it is a huge success. Who wouldn't want that? But Game Pass is another avenue to success, and it is entirely possible that Somerville would have sunk without trace had it not gone on the service first...

One thing is certain, if the game is on GP I won’t pay for it on top of my subscription. I mean, I don’t buy the movies I watch on netflix, that would defeat the purpose. BUT If microsoft had a refund policy similar to Steam or if we had more demos I’d buy more indies full price though. My wishlist is full of them but I’ve been burned by bad games more than once so I wait for discounts.

@northofthewall I don’t think it’s just journalists bashing Xbox. It’s a viewpoint of a developer which is perfectly valid and makes sense. For a disruptive service like GP there will always be positives and negatives, it’s not a one size fits all type approach.

For me It’s purely psychological but I am very aware with my own gaming habits that if I purchase a game then I am way more likely to put more time into it because I want to get my moneys worth. The benefit of gamepass is that it gets people to try games that aren’t usually in their wheelhouse and often that will mean less time engaging with it. Pentiment for example I would never have bought but I tried it because it was on gamepass. I can appreciate it is a stellar example of its genre but it’s just not for me so I clocked about 30 mins tops. I guess for the Devs it’s a balancing act of either taking MS money and getting more people to try your game but potentially not spending huge amounts of time on it or going it the traditional sales way and risking it flopping.

@Kaloudz Considering how overrated Limbo was, he obviously recognizes that he won't be much of a success without getting the money upfront. His games make for nice trailers and fancy cutscenes but aren't exactly good in terms of gameplay.

@Banjo- 10 minutes is probably just an exaggeration to make his point. For a slightly different example Wo Long was a game that had a roadblock of a first boss for many people, if you have bought the game at full price then you are more likely to persevere and try and get past the boss.

I read it like "I prefer the old model because people will buy the game not knowing what we will deliver, and if it is bad we still have earned $30". Sign a deal, make money of it, them make public critcism about the service. That's not looking good at all for them.

Gamepass is great as a discovery tool. New studios and little known studios should welcome the opportunity to showcase their games to such a large audience. Then maybe in the future, people will remember them from that gamepass game and purchase their new releases. Similar to how authors release books for free on Amazon hoping that they will retain some of those readers for future books.

@Kaloudz On a side comment, Limbo was OK to me - I played it years ago on the X360. Around the same time, I played *Braid" - man, that was an awesome indie title!

I mean..They're not wrong

Yeesh ease up everone! He is just saying he prefers the other model of game sales as opposed to the subscription model. No need to get defensive about it.

I can see where he is coming from. It's no secret GP hurts sales. That's just something devs/publishers have to decide on when choosing how to make a profit off of their game. Do I take a risk and try to sell potential customers on my game to make possibly more money? Or do I take an upfront payment to ensure I'm at least somewhat profitable no matter what?

There's no wrong answer here. Both are perfectly valid ways to do business.

After seeing a lot of the trophy percentages on HZD, IIRC less than half of players made it pas the "Proving" (really the end of the tutorial prologue) and into the real game, and less than 1/3 made it past the revealation of the ZD project...less than 1/5 actually beat the game, and that's one of the major tentpoles of the platform, and is also a game that was on Plus/Now, it seems pretty par for the course for people to dip in and out on subscription games. It makes sense. The whole point is no risk to trying things you may not like. Nothing wrong with that. I have plenty of sub games I'm a statistic like that on, too. And some of them are games I plan to finish eventually. Just might make it lower priority.

I'm a little puzzled by the statements about missing the premium model when he can sell you on some video and big images.....so.....basically he misses using bullshots to lure people to being trapped paying $30 for a game they end up forcing themselves through because they paid $30 for it based on marketing alone? I mean of course devs like that....

Let's give it an example:
Netflix vs Blu-rays ( I hardly see any Blu-rays these days)
Spotify and YT music vs CD's ( incredibly rare now )

Many interesting comments on this thread. However, if you only spend 10 minutes playing a Game Pass game, would you have bought it full-priced if it wasn't on Game Pass as some naive developers think? No. I have beaten and even bought games that I wouldn't have bought if they were not on Game Pass so the opposite is true. Other people here say the same and Phil Spencer stated that Game Pass boost sales so it's not just me.

@NEStalgia And if that changed on Xbox, I'm grateful to Game Pass for freeing us from than slavery and for giving us choice.

Put world war z on game pass and tiny Tina wonderland

I admit. I only played this game because it was on Gamepass and I finished it. I’m glad I didn’t buy it because it was disappointing.

Coming after the fantastic 'inside' I was excited to playthrough Somerville, it was rubbish. Got maybe an hour in and had enough of the awful controls.

Gamepass is great. I'm currently playing halo mcc, vampire survivors and persona. Who has time for Somerville which is dipped in s'@#.

@Kaloudz It was an Xbox Live Arcade game (IIRC). Now it can be played on every Xbox, as it is fully BC:

https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/braid/bzgpbrq3lz7g

I returned to Xbox this gen with the Series X (since I skipped the Xbox One era), and the first thing I noticed when I plugged the console was that I had my old games still attached to my account. Limbo and Braid were some of them.

@Kaloudz Yes, it is BC! I downloaded it when I receive my XSX and it worked great

I have tried Somervile for 4 hours, it just isn' t it , it just isn't inside, love indies, play them all buy everything that deserves it, somerville has some great graphical stuff with the angle , but it misses on something .... i cant't tell didn't hit with me

Reading it once again, i think he didn't get a good deal that Dino Patti, there are so much deals to be had with Xbox , cry baby , and it don't say that last sentence often.

Not even close to being accurate. I've spent only 10 minutes in games I've paid for. The difference is when I pay for it I feel ripped off. Which means I'm unlikely to ever buy another game from you.

I think many people buy consoles for the big AAA games and often indie games don't get the love they deserve. However if more indie developers would embrace Game Pass then they would get their titles out in front of millions of eyes.

Because of Game Pass I’ve tried so many games I would have never paid to play. The ones I’ve loved I’ve bought DLC and spread the word to other gamers. Game Pass is awesome.

I have supported alot of indie on Kickstarter. Some have done well others not so much. If they went game pass unfortunately they would end up doing better. Not saying they wouldn't do by themselves but more people would find it and end up getting more out of it.

@Kaloudz Braid is the poster child for indie games. It was the game that kickstarted the trend in Xbox live. Great game, the final level is a masterpiece of story/gameplay fusion. Jonathan Blow created another gem also, The Witness.

I got an XSeX just so i could play GamePass games and Fable.
I'll try out many games because no one does DEMOS anymore.
I've bought two games only.
Elder Scroll 5 - most recent version (anniversary, I believe) for $17.99
Resident Evil 1 for $3.99
There's only two other games I'd like to buy:
The Witcher (hopefully it comes out soon)
Witcher 3

I 'invested' a lot of money into Elden Ring at launch and hated it after 30 minutes. It just wasn't for me, so uninstalled.

I'm over 1000 hours into 'The Long Dark', and still loving it

Horses for courses, I guess....

i don't think i would like to spend a lot of time making a game but then not have people play it. if you start making games just for the money that ms gives you to put it on gamepass but dont care if it gets played then you will start getting shovelware mobile style games all the time.

I’ve played games on Game Pass I never thought I will because they surprised me. Norco for instance. Wouldn’t have bought it, but it clicked instantly.

Then there’s games I try, and definitely see what’s good about them, but stop playing because it isn’t my cup of tea - like Genesis Noir.

Somerville, however, was just too much of the same. I already played Inside and had zero feeling that the new game would do something different. This one is on you, developer…

@Kaloudz Yep, that's the one. Brilliant puzzler if you ask me.

Journey - worth every penny.
And then some.

@hypnotoad I loved Journey & their Abzu game too

What a dumb developer. Somerville was a bad game and he expects to sell for $30. Sure lets dump our frustration out on gamepass, ive already got the cheque after all.

Pathetic.

Maybe he should have tried making something different,considering Limbo & Inside are similar games

Engagement especially if it's not your type of genre (which the average casual player wouldn't know any different and go what sounds good), hear the buzz then maybe.

Getting stuck which the person I knew that tried it and wanted to play it got stuck in the first few minutes and I had to look it up for them. So that can happen. I think they beat it or dropped off I can't remember.

For secondhand games yeah sometimes I look it up, sometimes not. I still get a fair idea if it's a notable IP, if not I'm willing to surprise myself but again I'm paying for it not using Gamepass to rent/lease/access it and whatever the dev deal was that's unique to each one.

To me if I see gameplay first I have a better idea and usually by genre I know what core mechanics besides it's unique ones, art, tone and more that it will be structured around but for most people that's not the case and people can go oh this looks cool, try it, like it, hate it, drop off, delete it as if on their phone when on a console.......

Is it similar to video rental store access that people will say 'hey want to try this out for the weekend and making up their mind from there besides the other differences of deals, a physical building to go to and so on.

Was the game great from what I've heard not really it was a disappointment in how it executed things. Does it have an audience of course.

To me gameplay matters not artstyle but even then while not my type of game it seemed confusing but didn't yeah have that charm the others had so whoever gave that charm in the other games before the people that split off to make Somerville yeah some differences were noticeable.

I got to Limbo/Inside late and only tried them because someone else recommended them to me so much (I play physical only so I got Limbo in the Triple Pack for 360 and a Limbo/Inside PS4 combo and with big Indies they do get physical copies so there is that then replaying it digitally by whatever means myself or others letting me play their save) and while I liked Limbo probably more even if it's not the same scale as Inside at all.

Inside I was like ok..... it's puzzles and controls were an improvement but also annoyed me more as well I got confused at about 2-3 of them in the way I was supposed to do them. The ending though, it made sense but I was like for this build up, hype (which I don't pay attention to and go in blind and of my own opinion and enjoyment. I played Portal blind sure heard about the cake, the company lab, Glados and so on but did I have enough context no) and besides me speculating and getting somewhat close on what the game is aiming for and the metaphor/word play no I'm not giving a reaction impression to that ending is how I'll say it.

I wasn't impressed. It makes sense, it isn't a terrible ending it's not a 'this can't happen' ending it does work but no way was it outstanding compared to other Indies, other 2D platformers or even legacy console gen hidden gems I've played. But do Playdead make great games yes yes they do the rest in their games are great for sure it's just some parts can be annoying and the endings while thematically make sense don't impress me. I don't find Inside's ending clever just oh it ends this way, do this for the ending portion of controls, location, meaning that it ends up with. Ok....... I wasn't expecting a boss battle, but even then I wasn't sure about oh is it leading up to all the things I've learned in the game gameplay wise, I guess it did story somewhat, or was it this meaning and that meaning and you go oh it's this and then it ends at this location in the background.... Ok........ So yeah no oh my reaction from me like most people would I was just like that's it wow it works but I'm not going wow, ew, oh yeah or whatever without spoiling it of course and giving a mixed responses.