How does Game Pass sales even work?

[Grimno]

So Avowed will be on Game Pass day 1, so if you're paying the $11.99 a month subscription fee you can play it.

But how does the studio profit? Like this has always confused me.

Like say for instance hypothetically no one buys the PC version, but 5 million people play it on Game Pass.
Is that a success? Is that a failure? How is that determined?

There are 35 million Game Pass users.
Does Microsoft just give Obsidian a big bag of money and then just suck up all the money back from game pass subscriptions?
Do they count new game pass accounts being opened when a game comes out and go off that as a success or failure?

Is the game physically unable to fail because Microsoft already paid?
How can it fail? How can it even succeed? So confused man...

How come "We are the media" guys never report on this stuff? Never even any insiders explaining how this all works.

[Jeffer'son Airship]

Except Gamepass is insanely profitable so it doesn't really matter.

[Quillithe]

Yeah there's not really a perfect comparison.

People playing on gamepass isn't quite as valuable as sales maybe.

But just using sales is unfair too. If one million people bought Starfield and 15 million signed up for gamepass to play it, you can't just claim it sold poorly at only one million.

[Orki]

but why would we want to play this slop?

[DrZann]

引用自 Quillithe：

Yeah there's not really a perfect comparison.

People playing on gamepass isn't quite as valuable as sales maybe.

But just using sales is unfair too. If one million people bought Starfield and 15 million signed up for gamepass to play it, you can't just claim it sold poorly at only one million.

Nice thing about Starfield and other Bethesda games is people who like them have a tendency to spend vast amounts of time with them and replay them. Another reason to keep that subscription.

[gromenawer]

Essentially:

10 people buy it for 100

vs

1000 people play in subscription for 10

For mediocre games, subscription is better. Same with Netflix, most of the shows there are low cost and crappy enough to keep you hook until the next big title comes out.

[Googledebunker]

引用自 Orki：

but why would we want to play this slop?

If you don't want to play it, then why are you still posting in the discussion boards?

[H.Honor]

1. Because most people forget about their subscriptions potential years of income for the company
2. the moment you do unsub you lose the games and might have to reconsider resubbing or buying the game it is a win win for the company

[Lieutenant Dan]

You know the studio is owned by Microsoft right?

[Charola]

引用自 gromenawer：

Essentially:

10 people buy it for 100

vs

1000 people play in subscription for 10

For mediocre games, subscription is better. Same with Netflix, most of the shows there are low cost and crappy enough to keep you hook until the next big title comes out.

But there is the fact that of the 1000 people who subscribed for 10, 500 remain subscribed for one or several months, so it is already a success for the service and for the game.

[Nemerlight]

People just sub for 1 dollars so that means 69 dollars less for Microsoft.

[Charola]

引用自 Nemerlight：

People just sub for 1 dollars so that means 69 dollars less for Microsoft.

1 dollar is just the first month

US\$ 19,99 Ultimate Xbox Gampass
US\$ 11,99 PC Gamepass

[SarahWills38]

the game studio won't profit, but microsoft will, so anyone that plays the game on gamepass will show up on their system and they can credit themselves as a sale.. that is potentially how obsidEIn will survive this release, because they will call out the numbers that try it out on game pass.

[Nemerlight]

MS very much cares about money. They showed that by firing bunch of devs who were not making enough. They wont hesitate to fire entire team if this game doesnt sell.

[SarahWills38]

引用自 Nemerlight：

MS very much cares about money. They showed that by firing bunch of devs who were not making enough. They wont hesitate to fire entire team if this game doesnt sell.

and yet their one chance to save this game was to sack their art director for the stuff he has said, and yet they have kept him on, there are many many players that will never buy this game because he is still there..

I can only assume they are going to use him as a scapegoat when this game fails.

[Nemerlight]

Firing gay developer just looks bad so it would be easier for them to just keep him around or fire entire team.