Xbox Game Pass Controversy Suggests the Service’s Value Is Based on Triple-A New Releases

While many people cancel their subscription services only to renew them sometime down the line (I’ve been doing that dance with Netflix for years now), it’s potentially telling that many of these cancellation comments so closely associate the quality and value of Xbox Game Pass’ lineup with the number of new, Triple-A games it offers at any time. Some of those who say they’re canceling their Game Pass subscription note that they have been enjoying some of the service’s smaller titles, but there is a growing sentiment that the value of Game Pass is closely associated with how often it helps subscribers avoid paying full price for every $60 (in some cases, $70) Triple-A game they want to play in a given month. Anything else the service offers beyond such titles is really just the icing on the cake.

While not entirely unexpected, that sentiment does suggest that Xbox Game Pass may be struggling with one of its primary objectives: helping people discover gaming experiences they may have otherwise missed.

In a 2021 interview, Xbox head Phil Spencer noted that Game Pass lets you “go to Master Chief…go to Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5,” but that the service’s best feature may be that it lets you “[discover] these great games, that maybe wouldn’t have been discovered because they didn’t have the same marketing budget as another game or might have fallen in the shadow of something bigger happening in the industry.” That idea was echoed in a 2021 blog post by Xbox Wire’s Will Tuttle who stated that “Xbox Game Pass has become a true discovery engine.” Indeed, the word “discovery” and variations of it can be found in many official statements regarding Game Pass’ goals that have been made since the service launched in 2017.

There is certainly evidence that strongly suggests that Xbox Game Pass can help some smaller games reach a wider audience. Many indie developers have praised Game Pass and its management team in the past, and there’s no doubt that the Xbox team is spending a lot of money to get indie games and other smaller titles on the service. While we don’t know a lot of the exact numbers in terms of deals and average user playtime of certain Game Pass titles, the service has a mostly positive reputation among smaller studios. In fact, some indie developers have been particularly harsh towards the PlayStation ecosystem since Game Pass launched and offered what certainly seemed to be a better discovery engine for smaller titles.

However, other indie developers have expressed their concerns that Microsoft’s recent acquisitions (specifically their controversial acquisition of Activision Blizzard) may lead to fewer people playing smaller games via Game Pass because there will eventually be significantly more Triple-A titles available to them via the service. Those concerns along with those recent fan criticisms bring us back to the idea that the Game Pass discovery engine is still fueled by Triple-A new releases. You may love that you discovered some smaller, overlooked, or retro games via Game Pass, but were you subscribed to Game Pass in the first place because you wanted to play Halo, Gears of Waror Forza? More importantly, how long will you be willing to pay for Game Pass as a discovery service without having a major new Xbox Game Studios, EA, Bethesda, or Activision Blizzard game to look forward to?

Again, this problem isn’t unique to Game Pass. Other entertainment subscription services (as well as movie theaters and other entertainment venues) have long struggled with how to get more people to look beyond the biggest budget releases and take a chance on smaller projects. The idea that you can use those bigger titles to help get eyes on smaller ones has long been a solid approach, but it’s an approach that still obviously depends on having enough of those bigger titles available at any time without having so many available at once that many people never bother to look beyond the headliners. Big releases are undoubtedly important to getting people in the door, and it’s currently very hard to say when (if ever) people will become so happy with having access to a larger library of smaller titles that they’ll stop assigning as much value to major releases. That question becomes harder to answer when you consider that Game Pass’ price will inevitably go up at some point.