The Gamepass system may be going down the same path as Spotfif. Ed Fries, the former Xbox executive who served as vice president of Xbox’s Game Publishing division, touched on many topics from the Halo series to the Xbox console’s trouble in Japan and Xbox’s current boss Phill Spencer in an interview. At the end of the interview, he expressed his concern that the Gamepass system encourages people too much to subscribe to a single system instead of buying games.
“The Gamepass system directs people to buy the service, not the product, as on the Spotify platform”
The main reason Fries is skeptical of Gamepass, one of the world’s most popular gaming services, is that he thinks it could put gaming companies in harm’s way in the long run. At a time when average AAA game prices are around $60-70, Gamepass’ ability to offer hundreds of games to players for $10 per month can, according to Ed Fries, distract people from the habit of buying games.
Giving the example of Spotify in this regard, Fries claimed that the popular music platform has distracted people from the habit of buying albums and has almost ended the sector by reducing the income of the music industry by half. That’s why he recommends that the gaming industry be cautious about systems like Xbox Gamepass (or Playstation Plus).
The Game Bakers, an indie game company and producer of the game called Fori, said in a recent interview that they are hesitant to release their games to Xbox. According to the company, not releasing their games to Gamepass is a situation that causes them to fall behind in the industry, but there is no guarantee that they will earn revenue when they place their games in Gamepass.
Xbox Gamepass May 2022 games include games like This War of Mine: Final Cut Sniper Elite 5.
