Xbox Game Pass has been ‘damaging the industry for a decade’ says Arkane founder

The designer behind Dishonored has criticised Game Pass in the wake of sweeping Microsoft layoffs, describing it as an ‘unsustainable model’.

Microsoft’s latest round of job cuts has led to studio closures and a slew of game cancellations, but one developer believes there’s an unaddressed issue at the heart of the matter.

In a post on X, Arkane Studios founder Raphaël Colantonio, who directed Dishonored and Prey before he left the studio in 2017, highlighted Xbox’s subscription service Game Pass as the ‘elephant in the room’ following the layoffs last week.

‘Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Game Pass),’ he wrote.

When asked about his thoughts on the subscription service, Colantonio added: ‘I think Game Pass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidised by [Microsoft’s] ‘infinite money’, but at some point reality has to hit.

‘I don’t think Game Pass can co-exist with other models, they’ll either kill everyone else, or give up.’

Colantonio, who has since co-founded developer WolfEye Studios, said he is ‘fed up with all the BS [Xbox] fed us at first’, regarding Game Pass supposedly not having any impact on normal sales, ‘only to admit years later that it totally does’.

He added: ‘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 realise the effects on the games.’

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer claimed Game Pass was profitable during an interview in 2023, but based on available evidence (Microsoft stopped sharing Game Pass subscriber numbers in 2022), spending on the service has only marginally increased over recent years – despite price increases and the addition of Call Of Duty.

While it’s difficult to say whether this lack of growth is the root cause of Xbox studio closures over the past few years, Game Pass has become Xbox’s key selling point in its shift towards a multiplatform publisher, so it’s certainly a factor.

Microsoft has claimed in the past that Game Pass helps boost game sales, but a document which emerged during the UK Competition and Market Authority’s investigation into the company’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard says otherwise.

‘Microsoft also submitted that its internal analysis shows a [redacted]% decline in base game sales 12 months following their addition on Game Pass,’ read the CMA report from 2023.

Microsoft might be trying to avoid stating it outright, but It’s clear Game Pass isn’t working as well as it hoped. The big question is whether this is the sinking ship for Xbox, or something they can turn around.

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