Can the gamepass system reflect the trouble that Spotify platform has created in the music industry to the gaming industry?
Gamepass system may be going the same way as Spotify. Former Xbox executive Ed Fries, who was the vice president of Xbox’s Game Publishing division, talked about many issues from the Halo series to the troubles of the Xbox console in Japan and the current boss of Xbox Phill Spencer in an interview he attended. At the end of the interview, he expressed his concerns that the Gamepass system was too much of an incentive for people to subscribe to a single system rather than buy games.
“The Gamepass system directs people to buy the service, not the product, as in the Spotify platform”
The main reason why Fries is skeptical of Gamepass, one of the most popular game services in the world, is that he thinks it can harm game companies in the long run. At a time when average AAA game prices are around $60-$70, the fact that Gamepass offers hundreds of games to players for $10 a month could distract people from buying games, according to Ed Fries.
Giving the example of Spotify in this regard, Fries claimed that the popular music platform distracted people from the habit of buying albums and that the income of the music industry was cut by half, almost to the point of ending the industry. That’s why he recommends that the gaming industry be wary of systems like the Xbox Gamepass (or Playstation Plus).
The Game Bakers, an indie game company and the producer of the game called Furi, stated in a recent interview that they were hesitant to release their games to Xbox. According to the company, not taking their games to Gamepass is a situation that causes them to lag behind in the industry, but there is no guarantee that they will earn income when they place their games on Gamepass.
Xbox Gamepass May 2022 games include games like This War of Mine: Final Cut Sniper Elite 5.