Mike and Alex return to the concept of “the Game Pass Effect”. Games, the argument goes, designed for consumption on a subscription service alongside dozens of others a month will need to be conformed to this mode of consumption. They will lack the grandiose worldbuilding, demanding mechanics and novel-style writing of the best the medium has to offer. They will, instead, be shallow, light-hearted, toy-like experiences designed for piecemeal engagement, likely with loot-based progression. This (evidently) detracts from the quality of a game.
Back when the Xbox 360 launched, Microsoft pushed the big budget game as a differentiator. Following all the recent layoffs, it’s clear this strategy has run its course.
The Microsoft shill take on the Microsoft causing the death of big budget gaming...
The whole driving force for growth in gaming both technologically, creatively and financially was all nonsense, and it was definitely not because Microsoft ran the industry into the ground with obviously bad decisions and creating an unprofitable business model that massively disrupted consumer spending habits. /s
Following the closure of 4 studios, many are now worried for the future of Ninja Theory once Hellblade 2 is released.
Meant better to sell the studio and not closing it 🤦🏻 not to sell more games….
and games are sold anyways, you can buy it on xbox (not recommended if you got gamepass) but many pc gamers prefer to buy on steam than deal with the xbox app or pc gamepass!
On a side note to OP, the sales of studios wont happen though, especially when they want to retain the IPs, and well nobody is gonna buy a studios without its IPs; the other publishers that want a certain dev from the studio that are closing on their team can try to grab them as soon as they see they notice of the studio.
@Sephiroushin
Well hypothetically speaking, Ninja Theory can be sold to Sony at a lower rate sans the Hellblade IP.
Sony can then welcome them to work on the Heavenly Sword IP, which they still own.
Will be a nice proposition for Sony who can continue to offer a God of War-like hack n slash in their portfolio via Heavenly Sword 2, whilst Cory Barlog & co. decides to take a break from the God of War IP & venture some other genres.
On top of that, Ninja Theory was also interested in a sequel to Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and such Sony can come to a deal with Namco Bandai regarding the Enslaved IP.
Because they're next come next year. HB2 won't hit some impossible metric within MS so they're getting axed in 2025. Leave gaming now MS.
Every xbox studio is in danger now because there’s just no way they’re gonna rake in big money from game sales because of gamepass, even CoD was rumored to not come to gamepass because it would canibalize their sales number.
If they are smart they don’t put COD on GP day one. It’s one of the best selling games on yearly basis
Satya will make sure that doesnt happen. As you rightly put it; why kill the cash cow?
But then again, it is MS after all.....
Also if you punish a studio for releasing a great critically acclaimed game which won some awards then what chance does anyone have
Ninja theory games were never big sellers. I could be wrong, but I doubt hellblade 2 will sell millions. I would rather they go independent and make heavenly sword 2.
heavenly sword is Sony owned IP. this will never happen as original didn't sell enough...
Wikipedia: "In 2008, it was reported that a sequel to Heavenly Sword was in-development at SCE Studio Cambridge, but was canceled due to Sony no longer seeing it as a commercially viable product"
Telltale Games have given gamers a massive library of narrative driven games. In this article, Power Up Gaming presents you some of the best Telltale Games of all time!
And why are we only seeing this type of article now, when this has been obvious for years?
Is it suddenly OK to kick MS now that they are on the floor?
'The Gamepass Effect' is 'The Netflix Effect' with a different name.
First they lure you in with lots of content and a cheap price, then they cheapen the content and raise the price. Some people leave, but many forget to cancel the auto-renew subscription and haven't checked in to notice it's mostly crap, old and/or filler now. It's a classic bait and switch and it relies on known human behaviours.
Sea of Thieves, Halo Infinite, Redfall - this is just how it is at MS now. They've chosen their path.
"They will, instead, be shallow, light-hearted, toy-like experiences designed for piecemeal engagement, likely with loot-based progression. This (evidently) detracts from the quality of a game."
No, they are incomplete, broken, low effort, designed to be heavily monetized, oddly with the microtransactions and storefront working flawlessly day 1 yet the games need a "roadmap" to get them to a state they should have been in at launch. But game pass (evidently) makes that ok even though outside of game pass they are still charging $70 for it.
In much the same way that low budget bad films were 'straight to video', we now have the concept of 'straight to streaming' in which we can see the same formulaic rubbish films appearing on Netflix, AppleTV etc.
Following from that, we know have 'Gamepass Day One!', which was considered a highlight of being a subscriber until it's become apparent that day one games are typically lightweight rubbish shovelware.
'Straight to Gamepass', 'Good enough for Gamepass', and now 'The Gamepass effect' describing this current mediocrity.
This isn't the "Gamepass effect". This is MS both not fully implementing while shortchanging it. "Rushing it market, fixing it later" like they've always done. Only rather than a "one time thing" like with a Windows release, its multiple thing like Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves or this game.