Microsoft’s latest (and rather cruel)round of layoffshas been in the news a lot this week as analysts and consumers grapple with what this means for developers and the gaming industry at large. Many employees were forced to leave the company, gaming projects were cancelled, and studios were closed.
There will, naturally, be consequences for the industry. There will befewer triple-A games in the coming years, not just because individual games have been cancelled and studios shuttered, but because instability is bad for everyone, and the gaming industry is facing brain drain as veteran developers are forced out.
Game Pass Gets Worse To Make More Money
But another likely consequence is forGame Passspecifically, which will become even more, as they say on the internet, ensh*ttified. This is what every big tech disruptor has gone through, including Netflix, Uber, and Spotify. It offers users convenience and good value to attract them to its service, and once the old way of doing things is all but dead, it reprioritises profit and monetisation over giving its users value. It can hike prices and make its services worse, because there’s nowhere else to go. It’s a win for shareholders and a loss for consumers, which is, of course, the whole point of its existence.
We’ve already seen this happen with Game Pass, to some extent. Last year, Xbox madehuge changes to its pricing structure, angering many users,including me. Xbox insisted that it would now be able to “offer more value”, whilethe US Federal Trade Commission called it “product degradation”. The changes basically made it so that not all paying users could access the same content, and prices went up.
Call of Duty: WW2 was also taken offline just days after it was added to Game Pass becausePC users were getting their computers hacked. There was an unpatched exploit in the version uploaded to Game Pass.
Game Pass was actually on track to justify its cost – I wrote earlier this year thatGame Pass was having a great year, with plenty of excellent games on the service to make the subscription more worth it. However, prospects are looking very different post-layoff. Microsoft has now proved it’s willing to nerf Xbox (and by extension, Game Pass’ first-party offerings) by closing down its studios despite record revenues, likely to channel billions of dollars into its foray into AI. It will likely continue to do this until the AI bubble bursts, whenever that may be.
Hopefully, that’s soon. I’m sick of having generative AI pushed at me every time I open an app.
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Game Pass Has No Choice But To Keep Getting Worse
Game Pass is profitable, but it hasn’t been entirely successful at disruption the way Uber or Netflix was. It seems that people are still willing to pay developers premium prices for games instead of using a subscription service, especially one that’s getting more expensive. Because other companies like PlayStation haven’t gone all in on a Game Pass model in an attempt to compete, there are still entirely viable alternative ways for people to engage in games.
So, the free market isn’t dead. Its cancelled projects will mean less first-party games with which to sell subscriptions. It’s lost a ton of goodwill with its users, leading torenewed calls for people to end their subscriptions.
Its ensh*ttification will not work, regardless of the fact that it has very little competition in the subscription space. It will have to hike prices further, and the service won’t get any better – in fact, it’ll probably get worse. Phil Spencer’s real job is maximising profit for shareholders, meaning you willstillhave to pay more money for less. As of right now, we don’t have to look at ads before booting up a game yet, but hey, never say never, right?
