One of my takes that’s absolutely aged like milk over the past couple of years was that GamePass was a good thing. More and more often I keep coming back to that position and wondering why I ever held it. Not only has it been doing to gaming what Netflix and the like have done to movies and TV, but the deal it offers just keeps getting worse. I’m not the only one thinking so either, as even individuals like the founder of Arkane Studios have been coming out to express their dissatisfaction lately.

As reported by Video Games Chronicle, the founder of Arkane Studios, Mr. Raphaël Colantonio, made some comments on social media harshly criticizing GamePass after Microsoft’s massive cuts last week. The comments were as follows:

“Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass),” he said. “I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidized by MS’s ‘infinite money’, but at some point reality has to hit. I don’t think GP can co-exist with other models, they’ll either kill everyone else, or give up.”

He continued on, saying:

“It’s a long game that involves throwing a tsunami at the entire ecosystem of the industry. Only the gamers like it because the offer is too good to be true, but eventually even gamers will hate it when they realize the effects on the games.”

Mr. Colantonio also expressed sentiments that Microsoft had fed developers “BS” that GamePass doesn’t affect game sales. Whether that’s true is probably something that one could debate at length, to be fair. On the one hand, it’ll certainly eat some sales since people are playing it on GamePass instead of buying it. On the other, there are other developers that seem to be happy with the results they’ve gotten by launching on GamePass.

(We’re not looking to steal anyone’s thunder here, so make sure to check out Video Game Chronicle’s full article to see what developer likes the GamePass deal.)

I’m not so sure that the situation is as bleak as Mr. Colantonio makes it out to be. After all, Game Pass has been around for going on ten years now, and games are still sold normally despite its existence. That said, I definitely have come to think that Game Pass isn’t good for gaming. Loss of ownership aside (that’s an issue stemming from a few sources, actually), there’s the mentality of games feeling so much more disposable than before. Tell me, do you truly feel as much motivation to play games when your doing it through Game Pass? I don’t.

It’s just like with Netflix and the rest. These aren’t my games, TV shows and movies in the way that they would be if I had the Blu-Rays, DVDs or digital images on my own HDD. All they are is content to be consumed, and that’s exactly what’s happening on the streaming services. Where we used to have tons of great TV and movies every year, now finding stuff that’s actually good is like picking out actual edible bits of food out of a sea of garbage. Why? Because you’ll “buy it anyway” by merit of your subscription; they don’t have to make anything good to get your dollar anymore.

We’re already seeing the same thing happen in AAA, and especially in stuff that’s launching on GamePass day 1. Certainly there’s good stuff launching on there, but, it too is becoming rarer and rarer. I suspect that trend will only continue now that Microsoft has cancelled all these projects and greatly downsized many of its studios. Is gaming doomed thanks to Game Pass? No. But it is contributing to certain aspects of it getting cruddier.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting that even notable developers are coming out against GamePass now. Will it make a difference? Probably not. But, every little bit helps, I guess.

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How do you feel about GamePass these days? Is it still a good deal or has it lost some of its luster for you too?

Image from the Xbox Games Showcase 2023