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Original DOOM designer John Romero thinks Xbox Game Pass is "really great"

ZoukGalaxy

Member
And he's 100% right. But the gaming community is the only place in the world where people argue that paying more for things is good.
Straw Hat Cat GIF

And he's 100% right. But the gaming community is the only place in the world where people argue that paying more for owning things instead of paying for owning nothing is good.
Patch Leak GIF by Zypto
 
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Err



No. It's 'try and if you don't like then stop playing'. If you like finish it before it leaves gamepass and never spend another dime on it.

And I like it!
Isn’t that still try before you buy? I think the consensus here is some games benefit from Gamepass while others don’t, I think this is literally because good games sell.
 
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Holammer

Member
For players/consumers Game Pass is no doubt the best value.

The debating is always about whether it hurts or helps game dev and publishers.
If it actually was a good idea the rest of the industry would have followed suit ages ago.
But it's not, it's just MS bleeding money out of its ass for a competitive advantage because they are the only ones capable of doing it, and it's not even working.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Isn’t that still try before you buy? I think the consensus here is some games benefit from Gamepass while others don’t, I think this is literally because good games sell.
Not really because you never 'buy'. It's more like 'Try because it's included'.

There are some outliers that might prompt someone to upgrade a game to gold or deluxe editions for £20 as GamePass hides the cost in the sub. But I haven't really been enticed to say play Origins while it was on GamePass and then buy the DLC afterwards.

He's basically making a comparison against f2p games. Like the huge numbers that try a game if it's f2p but bounce off after a day or two and never buy a cosmetic etc.

And that's fine - that is a real benefit of GamePass. I just disagree that trying the game and liking it leads to either buying it for ownership or buying the DLCs at scale
 

ZoukGalaxy

Member
Then pay to own them, there’s nothing preventing that.
I do, physically, and in the long terme it's even cheaper than digital (thanks to physical stores competition at game launch and heavy sales) or any renting online service like Game Pass since you can resell everything when you want and if you want. Nothing is lost unlike Game Pass, but that's another story/point of view/debate.
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And he's 100% right. But the gaming community is the only place in the world where people argue that paying more for things is good.

Those mental gymnastics man...

Also, : "you'll own nothing and be happy"

What exactly is ‘good for the industry’? It’s not like publishers are these benevolent entities that seek to pour all profits back into making better games.

They aren't ? That's news to me, I suppose that you playing it for "free" puts more money in their pockets, am I right ? 'Cause we've all seen how profitable GP is
 
I do, physically, and in the long terme it's even cheaper than digital (thanks to physical stores competition at game launch and heavy sales) or any renting online service like Game Pass since you can resell everything when you want and if you want. Nothing is lost unlike Game Pass, but that's another story/point of view/debate.
Cat Reaction GIF
The concept of buying physical games isn't foreign to me, I did it for years.

I now pay $230 AUD a year for GP, or the equivalent of about 2-3 full-price new games. For that, I get multiple new games every month and don't have to drive to a store to buy them or sell them and if I really want to buy a game eventually I can buy a digital key for it for about $5 and download it whenever I want.

Tim And Eric Idk GIF
 
What exactly is ‘good for the industry’? It’s not like publishers are these benevolent entities that seek to pour all profits back into making better games.
Gamepass hides the difference between good games and bad games. Since you pay one fee regardless, there is no market pressure or market reward for the quality of the title.

Free To Play games have their player counts, and Pay to Play games have their sales numbers. Gamepass games have neither of these things to gauge success.
 
Gamepass hides the difference between good games and bad games. Since you pay one fee regardless, there is no market pressure or market reward for the quality of the title.

Free To Play games have their player counts, and Pay to Play games have their sales numbers. Gamepass games have neither of these things to gauge success.
There are metrics on how many people play the games. That's like saying there's no point in making good TV shows if people are paying for subscriptions ... the point is you make good content / games to keep people paying for your service.
 
There are metrics on how many people play the games. That's like saying there's no point in making good TV shows if people are paying for subscriptions ... the point is you make good content / games to keep people paying for your service.
The flaw is that you leave the decision for what is a good or bad game to the subscription service. This leads to situations where popular Netflix series die because they didn't want to fund it anymore. Xbox, at this point, can't be left on their own to decide what games are good and what games are bad. Xbox clearly had no idea because they didn't have to feel any financial pressure to make profit for decades. And that is why Xbox lost.
 
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The flaw is that you leave the decision for what is a good or bad game to the subscription service. This leads to situations where popular Netflix series die because they didn't want to fund it anymore. Xbox, at this point, can't be left on their own to decide what games are good and what games are bad. Xbox clearly had no idea because they didn't have to feel any financial pressure to make profit for decades. And that is why Xbox lost.

If series are actually popular, they continue to get made. Do you seriously think Netflix stop making popular series just because 'they don't want to' make them anymore? You can argue that there is more money to be made from releasing games at full price, but suggesting that subscription services have no incentive to make and continue with popular series is ridiculous.

Sony have felt the financial pressure to make profit and as a result have wasted hundreds of millions on GaaS most of which are now canceled. Do tell me again how that's 'good for the industry'.

For the record, as a consumer I couldn't; care less who 'wins' of 'loses' out of a bunch of companies, I just look for what's best for me. If what's 'good for the industry' is a bunch of shitty GaaS and the endless quest to extract more and more money from the customer by increasing prices and MTX, I seriously don't understand why any sane person, as a consumer, would support that.
 
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Sintoid

Member
You don't invest in a division, but in the corporation which is doing fine.

'In the fiscal year 2024, Microsoft Corporation reported a net income of over 88.14 billion U.S. dollars, an increase from fiscal year 2023 figure of 72.36 billion U.S. dollars. Microsoft's sales revenue also peaked in fiscal year 2024 at 245 billion U.S. dollars.'
Never heard of cutting unprofittable branches?
Go tell Zune
 

MiguelItUp

Member
And others have the same opinion, others don't.

It's wild how many people want Game Pass to fail though, makes no sense to me. Doesn't really matter what "team" you root for, we should all be rooting for something that allows people to play more games at a cheaper price. Sure, it's a shame you don't "own" them, but that's the reality we're living in nowadays.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The concept of buying physical games isn't foreign to me, I did it for years.

I now pay $230 AUD a year for GP, or the equivalent of about 2-3 full-price new games. For that, I get multiple new games every month and don't have to drive to a store to buy them or sell them and if I really want to buy a game eventually I can buy a digital key for it for about $5 and download it whenever I want.

Tim And Eric Idk GIF

You're gonna be eating good in 2025.

 

BlackTron

Member
Honestly when I had GP that's how I used it on Series X. Rapid-fire game demos. It's probably still pretty good for that purpose. Don't even install, play cloud for some of those 100GB games. If you just want to try them out. Don't think they want Gamepass to unintentionally be Blockbuster though.
 

damidu

Member
And others have the same opinion, others don't.

It's wild how many people want Game Pass to fail though, makes no sense to me. Doesn't really matter what "team" you root for, we should all be rooting for something that allows people to play more games at a cheaper price. Sure, it's a shame you don't "own" them, but that's the reality we're living in nowadays.
nah its objectively good, that gaming subscription crashed and burned the way it had, instead of taking over the whole industry.
its devaluing games big time, conditions people to not buy anything, which is obviously unsustainable as seen in exhibit a.

the industry already struggles with recouping huge production costs of quality products, make that math again with $10 rentals.

fortunately it was never going to work. unlike video, games are huge time/attention commitment.
the 100million+ masses, which you have to reach for these numbers to make sense, will never play enough games to see the value in staying subbed years on end.

the idiot who thought of the term "netflix of gaming" should have been fired on spot, but he is ceo of ms gaming now.
 
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A.Romero

Member
I don't understand how paying for a month of game pass (about one quarter the price of the brand new game you want to play) is good for the industry.
They are betting of people subbing for more than one month.

I've been subbed since the service launched in my country for PC and it's more than I would have spent in the same period in the Microsoft store (zero).

I played stuff there that I wouldn't have bought otherwise like hellblade 2 or Diablo 4.
 

Wildebeest

Member
It's pretty good because you can get a free month, check out everything you might be interested in, then not need to look at it again for two years. Best bargain in gaming.
 

damidu

Member
Do people really believe this? MS was already struggling mightily before GamePass.
better than believing the "gamepass is sustainable" BS we have been fed for years
supposed to be the perfect model, somehow magically working for ms, devs and consumers, all at the same time, schrodinger's model lol
success all around, until it came crashing down
 
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