Microsoft paid $600,000 for Cooking Simulator on Xbox Game Pass — report
A new financial document claims that Microsoft paid a whopping $600,000 to developer Big Cheese Studio to get Cooking Simulator on to Xbox Game Pass.
Microsoft paid $600,000 to add Cooking Simulator to Game Pass
- Thread starter Habs
- Start date
Must be pretty cool for devs to know that they can get that guaranteed cash up front these days. Can't imagine how helpful that is for development compared to the old model of hoping beyond hope that your game is enough of a hit to turn a profit.
In all seriousness, I've been starting to hear more about this. Is there any truth to it, or just a baseless rumour?
edit: To be clear the below post isn't saying this is a bad thing for the devs, it's great.. I'm really just trying to discuss Gamepass's financials as people seem to think MS is losing gobs of money. MS can afford to pay devs more than enough money to have it make sense to be on Gamepass.
That's really not a lot for a service with 25 million users, who will access it for what, 6 months?
I think people underestimate what the average user spends on Gamepass too. $1 deal is popular on gaming forums and the like but we live in a world full of people who get their gaming news from what the console "advertises" to them.
MS has $200+ million to throw around every month or more, just from monthly subs.
That's really not a lot for a service with 25 million users, who will access it for what, 6 months?
I think people underestimate what the average user spends on Gamepass too. $1 deal is popular on gaming forums and the like but we live in a world full of people who get their gaming news from what the console "advertises" to them.
MS has $200+ million to throw around every month or more, just from monthly subs.
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Exactly. This is huge info.
So it seems like it is a one time lump sum payout? So now we have to look at how long this payout for gamepass last? And in the case of games like Yakuza, what are we looking at in terms of renewals? Do they pay less or more for the second time around? I imagine Sega gave them a package deal for ALL Yakuzas lol!
I can see them bagging dying light 2 for about 2 - 3 mil then 😏. (AAA fee).
what do they get paid for downloads? How is the 600k determined? I assume Microsoft pays more if the game is downloaded a lot more than anticipated ? If not that could work out badly for the devs until the deal expires, unless Xbox is open to renegotiating deals. Like 600k is X number of sales that they wouldn't otherwise get maybe, but what if like 5M+ people download it and play it a lot, basically it becomes a hit due to game pass, would Xbox pay more than the initial 600?
I think it's a lot considering the game released originally in 2019 and that money was 22% of that company's revenue in the last FY.
We do have a lot of Epic's payments to make games free from the Apple lawsuit. Gamepass games are free for a longer period, so I expect that MS probably pays more on average?
Good for Big Cheese Studios, they bagged a pretty good deal. Also shows that is not the big profile mainstream appeal indies that have a chance to get in the program. Wonder how era is going to twist this one to turn it in a bad thing...
welp i wonder no more
welp i wonder no more
Yeah, I found the exact quote. Was from Gary Whitta on a Kinda Funny podcast/video.
His exact quote was: "Somebody told me that part of the reason why it's not on game pass is Sony paid them not to put it on game pass, said instead we'll incentivize you to not do any additional subscriber deals or whatever."
So yeah, not exactly the most rock solid "someone told me", but Whitta also isn't just a random source. I wonder if we'll hear more about it ever.
No they make a deal that both parties agree upon as its all up front. I'm sure some deals can be made based on downloads or play time but up front cash is one time.
Microsoft was probably like here's where your current player base and viewership data is, here's how many subscribers we have, we think 600k is fair for a X month contract on Game Pass. Then the devs said sure sounds good, or maybe negotiated a bit.
No wonder a whole host of indies take it. Obviously not all deals are equal, but they get that bag and a built-in playerbase more prone to trying their game out, which can lead to word of mouth etc etc.
Not much info has been made public. We know from past interviews that deals can just be a single up-front payment or a single payment with bonuses based on meeting performance metrics within given timescales, but actual details on figures are very hard to come by. Understandable, I guess.
Pretty much everyone benefits. Microsoft, the devs, and the subscribers.
It varies depending upon what gets negotiated with the dev and how much Microsoft values the game.
Huh? I didn't say it was a bad thing.
People on this forum always say Xbox is losing gobs of money because of Gamepass.
I was just pointing out how they can afford this stuff at a profit. That's all.
It's great for devs and the service can easily afford it.
I've honestly never thought about it.
I assume the devs would calculate some sort of estimate of the revenue they'd lose by adding it to a subscription service, but I have no idea how you'd even get to that figure. And even then, you'd have to weigh up the guaranteed, up-front cash against the potential money you might make in traditional sales, and that's before factoring DLC and the impact of more people having access to your base game for free. Plus less tangible benefits like getting your studio's name in front of a lot more people and prominent placements on the console UI etc.
I guess $600k feels like a good figure but I don't really know what I should compare it against.
Developers have a choice, Spencer said what they found out was more often than not people want lump sums.. not a payout based on usage/downloads/engagement.
My only point was it was not a lot for Gamepass compared to it's revenue.
It's a lot for the devs, great for them.. I edited my post.
They reportedly paid 5-10 million for Guardians of the Galaxy and Dying Light 2 was way more succesful.
That makes more sense then, looked like you were saying it wasnt a lot to the company because microsoft have billions blah blah and i wondered "do this person even know what cooking simulator is and when it came out or even see the news about how its near a quarter of their profit"
I think the capcom leak is the only thing folks have and it is actually a marketing agreement that just says they can't release on a subscription service for x amount of time. Basically what has been done for quite a while. If Sony advertises your game then they don't want it being on Gamepass for free day 1. There is no evidence that there are deals solely to keep it off Gamepass.
Yeah I get it my comment seemed out of nowhere and wasn't clear what my intention was.
I find the economics of these services interesting.
The cult of the lamb quote was from there, but the overarching narrative was from else where. It had been mentioned in passing before, but what really blew it up on this forum was relating to MS's acquisition of Activision. There was a thread recently of someone translating what Microsoft was saying to a regulatory body in Brazil over the deal. One of the things that got translated was them mentioning that Sony pays companies to not put their game on game pass or other competing subscription services.
Microsoft responds to Sony's claim that Call of Duty is unrivaled & unique (Claims Sony is paying to block games from Gamepass) Activision/Blizzard
INTRODUCTION Well, here we go again :p Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard and the transaction is under review from multiple competition regulators around the world. One of them is the Administrative Council for Economic Defense or CADE in Brazil. Back in July, CADE asked 11 third...
www.resetera.com
Of course I don't think we'll easily find out which individual games were paid off.
I don't know why people think this distinction matters that much.
If Sony includes that clause in a contract they pay for, they are paying to keep games off of Gamepass.
They aren't forced to include that clause.. and it's a clause that stops the other company from getting potential revenue... so it's part of what Sony is paying for.
The clause makes sense for Sony to include... but it's all a part of contracts that really exist to lower sales of a game on a competing platform and raise them on yours. These aren't wins for consumers so there's nothing wrong with being critical of them.
Yes but from the Capcom leak we know this is probably related to marketing agreements and not a deal solely to keep it off of those services.The cult of the lamb quote was from there, but the overarching narrative was from else where. It had been mentioned in passing before, but what really blew it up on this forum was relating to MS's acquisition of Activision. There was a thread recently of someone translating what Microsoft was saying to a regulatory body in Brazil over the deal. One of the things that got translated was them mentioning that Sony pays companies to not put their game on game pass or other competing subscription services.
Microsoft responds to Sony's claim that Call of Duty is unrivaled & unique (Claims Sony is paying to block games from Gamepass) Activision/Blizzard
INTRODUCTION Well, here we go again :p Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard and the transaction is under review from multiple competition regulators around the world. One of them is the Administrative Council for Economic Defense or CADE in Brazil. Back in July, CADE asked 11 third...
You think that MS doesn't do the same? Have we seen any MS advertised game come to PS plus when it was released? Or hell have we seen any games on Gamepass release on PS+ at the same time? Most likely the MS gamepass deals include Gamepass exclusivity.
I posted it above, but in the specific case of cult of the lamb, it seems the source was Gary Whitta who "heard it from somebody".
The reason I asked is that I've seen people behave like that's some huge sum of cash , however even small games cost millions to make.
Epic paid 505 games $15million only for PC store exclusivity for Control. Big bucks all round
Being "solely to stop it" is meaningless. The point is that it stops it. Its like saying microsoft paying for Tomb Raider timed exclusivity wasnt solely to stop it from releasing on playstation for a year but to "give their platform the game for a year". Well no shit. It still did. Nobody will pay to just hurt the competition when they can pay to hurt the competition and have some benefit for them.
Well maybe, but it's hard to say.
If it's a pre-existing thing, it might be. It also might be something new, I don't think it's shocking a company would pay a company to not release something somewhere, they've been doing that for decades.
Of course since it's Xbox saying it, it's hard to take the quote entirely at face value since it's a biased source. So again, muddies the water.
I always speculated that the fee that Microsoft pays would cover the expected launch window sales going by their metrics. Essentially compensation for losing out on 600k in sales revenue. That's just speculation of course and I have no idea what kind of sales Big Cheese is aiming for on Xbox.