I think you are a bit confused at what I'm getting at. I agree with your comment, because what you just said is literally what I said in my own comment :P including the fact that 1st party offerings are almost always a better value then third parties whether that's for selling boxes or services, because they're about selling attachment to ecosystems. I also said that third party publishers mostly see Gamepass as an additional source of one-off payment revenue, not the main source of income.
...which, is exactly my point. For skeptics, the current model of Gamepass is not indicative of whether or not microtransactions will increase because the industry hasn't really adopted a subscription model overall. Once most of the industry does that and the consumer base almost completely adopts a subscription model, we'll probably see even more egregious monetization models because there will be less initial income from a game's userbase since there will be little/no sales.
But that's so long term that there is really no evidence for it. That's what I'm saying. It's hard for people either way to provide evidence because the industry doesn't revolve around Gamepass-like services yet.
But of course, the industry was going to go this direction with or without Gamepass. So Gamepass is just the leader for now. Personally, I'm more of an optimist about Gamepass.
I see what you're getting at. I also need to clarify my point:
- Subscription models will only have room for a fraction of the developers.
- Traditional model isn't replaced for the rest. Just as people are willing to spend money on cosmetics in free games, they'll spend money on purchases even though they have subscriptions. The numbers have proven that so far.
- Platform holders don't have creative control but they do still have the ability to target devs that make their platform more desirable
- GAAS games are limiting. The upside from a hit is tremendous however they are also most likely to fail. That's why most Indies are single player. That's not going to change. There's a lot more room for single player than multiplayer in a subscription model. Multiplayer games are more likely to cannibalize each other due to the much higher long term engagement. Where as a consumer can put 2000 hours into Halo 5 like I did, could spread that time out over 50+ single player games. The idea is that Microsoft's benefits from more GAAS games in their subscription is counter intuitive based on numbers and logic. Who cares what 10 games come out next month if I'm only going to keep playing the same 1 or 2 I'm playing now?
- One of the reasons subscription models are popping up is because the gaming industry is about to explode with opportunity when 5G goes mainstream. Projections are there will be more sales in 5 years, not less. Subscriptions aren't the horse leading the change. They're the cart resulting from 5G and cloud opportunities that will explode the industry.
