GamePass and how Dev makes money ?

[Athmet]

This was a recurring subject between the "trust me bros" expert on this forum. I was looking for a clear answer and get something like this:

Game developers are supported if they put their game in the Xbox game pass via a commission fee. They pay companies to provide games for it, and when they release their game, for every person that subscribes to the service, they will receive royalties for it. They also get paid every time someone plays their game.

Link[www.quora.com]

Has anyone more details on this ?

[Mountain Man]

Anybody who thinks developers lose money by putting their game on GamePass is an idiot.

[Martin]

Over 10 million in sales.. i don't think they need gamepass at this point.

[Stone]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Anybody who thinks developers lose money by putting their game on GamePass is an idiot.

Exactly. Game developers aren't entering into a contract to put their game on GamePass if it wasn't going to make them money.

From what I read, it looks like the deal GamePass makes with developers is dependent on the developer and what they want or need.

"Phil Spencer has been doing the rounds during the launch of Xbox Series S/X, and speaking to the Verge he addressed the question of how developers get paid. "Our deals are, I’ll say, all over the place. That sounds unmanaged, but it’s really based on the developer’s need. One of the things that’s been cool to see is a developer, usually a smaller to mid-sized developer, might be starting a game and say, 'Hey, we’re willing to put this in Game Pass on our launch day if you guys will give us X dollars now'," he said.

"[In] certain cases, we’ll pay for the full production cost of the game. Then they get all the retail opportunity on top of Game Pass. They can go sell it on PlayStation, on Steam, and on Xbox, and on Switch. [...] Sometimes the developer’s more done with the game and it’s more just a transaction of, 'Hey, we’ll put it in Game Pass if you’ll pay us this amount of money.'"
"Others want [agreements] more based on usage and monetization in whether it’s a store monetization that gets created through transactions, or usage. We’re open [to] experimenting with many different partners, because we don’t think we have it figured out. When we started, we had a model that was all based on usage. Most of the partners said, 'Yeah, yeah, we understand that, but we don’t believe it, so just give us the money upfront.'"

[eMYNOCK]

please, someone explain to OP how a monthly subscription works.

[Kriya Takagi]

It depends there some studios who deny having their game on game pass as it could also hurt them in the case people aren't playing it. What I do know micro does pay upfront but it depends which is more likely to make those studios more money. Selling the game via a store platform or though game pass. But it really depends on the negotiations on price. The game pass offer might be too low that a studio feels they could make more off the product by just selling it instead

[Athmet]

Now I also wonder about Studios which are actually owned by Microsoft.

[Kriya Takagi]

Originally posted by Athmet:

Now I also wonder about Studios which are actually owned by Microsoft.

They still get paid too. They just have less steps in the process to go through compared to non in house studios

[Dootslayer]

Originally posted by Martin:

Over 10 million in sales.. i don't think they need gamepass at this point.

There were never 10 million sales read your articles again this time really carefully

[Athmet]

Originally posted by Dootslayer:

Originally posted by Martin:

Over 10 million in sales.. i don't think they need gamepass at this point.

There were never 10 million sales read your articles again this time really carefully

Indeed, not sure why people confuse both 10 million players and 10 millions sales.

With that being said, since Studios get paid per player playing the game on Gamepass, one has to wonder: how much do they get on daily basis with that deal ? But I guess we will never know since they would not share something that sensitive.

I do expect our fellows "trust me bros" on this forums to let us know though.

[Scyris]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

please, someone explain to OP how a monthly subscription works.

I think OP was more asking how the dev of the game makes money from this. But as its already been said usually its a upfront fee, with royalties each time the game is installed etc. I doubt its each time the game is played, its prob per install.

[RiChuF]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Anybody who thinks developers lose money by putting their game on GamePass is an idiot.

same with those that use quora

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by Athmet:

This was a recurring subject between the "trust me bros" expert on this forum. I was looking for a clear answer and get something like this:

Game developers are supported if they put their game in the Xbox game pass via a commission fee. They pay companies to provide games for it, and when they release their game, for every person that subscribes to the service, they will receive royalties for it. They also get paid every time someone plays their game.

Link[www.quora.com]

Has anyone more details on this ?

From my understanding, Microsoft pays the developers upfront a lot of money, sometimes more than they'd make in sales if they are a smaller developer, or may help with development costs and pay a little less but the developers are also spending less.

Then there are the studios owned by Xbox, in which case they don't have to worry. They get all their funding from Microsoft and it is Microsoft who has to worry about whether or not the game makes money either through sales or by being a game that people would play on Game Pass.

For the third-party studios, I also imagine they get a pretty split of the profit margin for sales on the Microsoft store, a split that is in their favor because every game that is on game pass is sold in the microsoft store at a default 20% discount. To agree to that means the developers either are getting a more favorable percentage of the sales or they got so much money upfront that that is Microsoft's way of making up the return on investment.

[RiChuF]

Originally posted by Scyris:

paid a dollar myself to try starfield,.

ermm that was removed before launch so i doubt it

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

please, someone explain to OP how a monthly subscription works.

I think the OP probably knows how a monthly subscription works. But that does not explain how Bethesda gets compensated from a Microsoft service.

Fortunately, some here were good enough to give helpful information.

[CurrySpirals]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

please, someone explain to OP how a monthly subscription works.

I think the OP probably knows how a monthly subscription works. But that does not explain how Bethesda gets compensated from a Microsoft service.

Fortunately, some here were good enough to give helpful information.

Well, Microsoft owns Bethesda.