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Does the prevalence of Game Passes disincentivise game studios to make great games? (alien.top)

submitted 9 months ago by fresh2112@alien.top to c/gaming@level-up.zone

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I'm interested in the economics of it, and I'm no expert so would be great for some insight.

In years gone by, the quality and popularity of a game would directly correlate to it's sales. Whereas for gamepass games, I assume that studios get a kick back percentage of revenue for installs, play hours, etc.

As the investment needed by a player to install is zero (barring a download and install, it's all sunk cost from already having a gamepass), their threshold to try a game is a lot lower, therefore the requirements for the studio to ensure high quality is much lower for a similar return on investment. (I.e. more speculative downloads with lower return than lower hard sales with higher return).

What do you think?

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[–] Alexandurrrrr@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

Season passes are a double edged sword.

On one hand you are supporting the dev for continued development and new content.

On the other, you give the dev incentive to charge you full price, not complete the game (coming soon! features) and parse it out over a long period of time to give you the false sense of value.

Case in point: Diablo 4 is seriously missing QoL features that were present in previous entries and are doing the ‘ol “we are hearing you guys and improving the game by adding this (not new) feature!”. Features that should have been in the game on Day 1.

Love or hate my comment, blizz fanboys. I don’t give 2 poos anymore. The future is bleak and is filled with nickel and diming you with minimal effort.