This is a glimpse at our future under Techno-Feudalism, by the way. Five companies own all the entertainment and charge you extortionate rates to rent it. Please enjoy these last few years of Steam allowing indie games to be published with $20.00 or lower prices - once Gabe Newell goes away, inide devs are going to get “Spotified” out of existence by whatever venture capitalist buys up Steam.

  • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    I am having difficulty believing that. Without accounting tricks I don’t see that happening. The guy cites anonymous sources from Microsoft so I can’t take that at face value. Later down in the replies he says this:

    So yes, dev costs/spend does not come under Game Pass P&L. Because obviously dev costs can also be recouped via microtransactions, premium sales, DLC etc…

    I don’t know enough to tease out the implications of this but for me it’s a sign that they are being disingenuous with their accounting.

    • RION [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      5 days ago

      Jez Corden, who’s considered generally reliable in the gaming leaks and rumors community, is pretty confident that game pass is profitable.

      And I think separating dev costs from game pass P&L is the more reasonable way to look at it, as Corden explains:

      What Microsoft doesn’t do is factor in Game Pass cannibalization at the point of funding the game outright. Given that games are being built for a variety of endpoints and business models, sources argued that it wouldn’t make sense to put the entire dev costs of titles like Call of Duty or DOOM: The Dark Ages on top of Game Pass — unless the game was going to be fully exclusive to Xbox Game Pass as its only mode of sale and access. Microsoft performs the calculations after seeing how the title performed in the marketplace.