Xbox manager claims Game Pass isn’t ‘disruptive’

The director of Xbox’s indie division wants you to believe that Game Pass isn’t “disrupting” the gaming ecosystem, despite the company. Ambitions for massive PC growth. These comments were made in response to people wondering if the popular subscription service would fundamentally change the way gamers buy games — or if they would buy them at all — and reports that appeared to support that idea. The director seemed to think these concerns were natural but overblown. Microsoft simply spends billion from dollars to acquire First party studios for the vibe I guess.

“I wouldn’t call it disruptive because I don’t think Uber came in that way and got rid of all the cabs in this industry,” said Xbox’s Chris Charla GamesIndustry.biz

. “It’s additive. People still buy a lot of games and they still buy a lot of games on Xbox. They buy games through Game Pass with a discount they get as members. And so I don’t think Game Pass was a disruptive business model, it added up in a really positive way.”

Charla, general manager of Xbox’s indie division, compared Game Pass to the impact of digital distribution. He acknowledged that digital distribution would disrupt traditional game retail, but claimed that ultimately it was “additive” as not every game is big enough to justify putting it on a physical disc. “We continue to look at third-party games, and I’m going to talk specifically about games from independent developers… they’re absolutely the foundation of Xbox,” he said. my city has reached out to Xbox for comment but has not received any at the time of publication.

By that logic, Game Pass is a net good for game sales because it helps indie titles grab attention

. But the tech giant is banking on AAA giants like ZeniMax and Activision Blizzard, not the depths of its indie catalog. Even Xbox customers considered their subscription less valuable during dry spells between first-party titles.

And we don’t even need to speculate on Game Pass’s impact. Despite Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s claims that the subscription service is driving sales, a filing obtained from a UK regulator revealed that Game Pass does indeed work depressed game sale

for 12 months after the start of the service. Indie developers seem fine with this, probably because Xbox gives them money up front to offset the risks of releasing their game. But the data shows that Game Pass is changing consumer habits. We don’t know how much because the exact numbers are redacted, but Microsoft’s own data shows that “adding titles to Game Pass would result in B2P cannibalization [business-to-person] Sale.”

Even on the consumer side, there’s no guarantee that a few years from now the subscription service will feel anywhere near as good. Xbox only ended its introductory offer of $1 for the game pass. Measured against the business models of other subscription models like Amazon Prime and Netflix, there is a non-negligible chance that the costs for Game Pass could increase in the future.

Oh, and Uber almost destroyed the taxi industry facing a major labor shortage. I hope Chala’s comparison is inaccurate and not prophetic.