It's not meaningless because MS advertising and Gamepass deals probably include the same clauses.
Microsoft paid $600,000 to add Cooking Simulator to Game Pass
- Thread starter Habs
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It literally made up like 23% of the entire companies revenue lol.. this is an indie game not a AAA and they will be paid accordingly.
I find it amazing how much the game pass cash made a chunky positive impact in their earnings or w/e
Of course its meaningless. When microsoft does a marketing deal that stops a game from releasing on ps plus theyre "paying to stop it to release on plus" the same way. Theres no need to sugarcoat anything
Until we see some documentation/sources that MS does the same thing, I'm not going to assume they automatically do it. I mean hell, this is the company that kept Destiny 1 stuff still locked post Destiny 2's release.
I have no clue.. we know Sony does it as part of some contracts... does MS? I really don't know, maybe? Maybe now they will since Sony has re-marketed their "premium download service option"?
If they do, we can analyze and critique that.. but we just don't know. MS used it as an argument in a legal battle.. so if MS was doing it to Sony's knowledge, surely Sony would have said something back?
But highly possible.
And I don't think that contract had anything to do with PS+ or PSNow at the time... it was a marketing deal. So not sure your example even relates all that well.
There is also no need to paint it as some sinister scheme either. It's the same shit that has been happening since the beginning.
Yeah like I said.. great for the dev... more than enough to have it make sense to release on Gamepass.
Which is the story for almost any dev.. that's the point of them taking these deals lol There's a weird stigma on the internet though that Gamepass is bad for the industry, and it really doesn't make much sense. If the industry thought that, they'd stop taking these deals.
Equal to about 30,000 sales given the game is $20. Seems a bit low considering 25 million subs, but considering that at least for now it also provides a marketing and mindshare boost I guess it does make some kind of sense, especially with that 22% of revenue number…
It would be a bit more than that factoring in revenue split on sales, but more importantly it is guaranteed money and also limited duration
For sure! And if they can sell even a fraction of the game pass base some of the DLC at $10 then it's even more revenue
For the game dev, the question is, would they receive enough sales to make more than $600,000 if they denied the Gamepass offer? On top of this, would the missed sales from PC/PlayStation owners who would've otherwise bought the game on their console who also have Gamepass still be worth accepting the 600k from Microsoft? I don't think games like this sell particularly well on Xbox, so for them, the 600k was probably fine.
It could be but that would mean out of 25 million they only expected 30k impressions of people playing(based on current price). Super small slice of the player base. But then again looking at when it released. This wasnt a day 1 game was it? Or it was so they may have recouped some of their costs back at launch.
However I do see a lot of these deals exponetially going up in price, hence why MS is getting as much talent in house as they can to reduce some of their longer term costs.
This game released in 2019 and this money is 22% of the total revenue they made last year.
Its a 2019 game. Cooking Simulator. What kind of slice of the userbase you think would want to play this let alone buy them to call this "not enough"?
It depends on what it cost them to make it and even then with the amount of potential users, you would think it would be more than just 30k impressions they paid for. So I would think there is more to the deal.
I see Was this day 1 on gamepass? its decent they at least got 20% of Revenue from there.
Edit: looks like it was 17% of Revenue and 22% of net profit. Which I think in this case it does work out in a decent way for them.
They paid to boost the catalog with a niche interesting game that might interest a subset of the gp userbase, just like several other niche games that get constantly added for value of the catalog and not because 10 millions upwards are going to play. Considering the company itself seems pretty happy with the deal regarding how much of their total revenue and net profit it accounted for, the usual era posters going "nah deal not good" is very surprising. Or not that surprising, honestly.
You aren't paying based on some idea that every "impression" equates to a full priced game buy. That would be untenable as each person downloading is paying less per month than the game costs, and are downloading other games.
One of the main points of these services is that more people will download your game as it's part of a service.. than if you just charged $20 for it.
Obviously the # of potential people playing is a factor, but that is actually a factor that doesn't always raise the price paid.. as that is an opportunity for exposure/MTX buys that you might not have received... companies often do this before a sequel is to be released.. or like I said, because the game has MTX.
It's complicated and there are tons of factors including release date, how much your marketing spend is, etc.
What you are saying is exactly why people think Gamepass is some huge money sink.. it isn't, because MS isn't paying anywhere near what people think they are paying.. and it's more than enough money for devs, despite people thinking the math should be based on # of downloads vs. games price.
I think really it boils down its not cut and dry, in this case for an older game it makes perfect sense to make the deal happen, and I could forsee that the cost is way higher for Day 1 games vs a game that would be a catalog game. So it all depends. I was under the assumption it was a Day 1 game, when reality its a catalog title. So in most cases it makes a lot of financial sense.
Yeah for sure.. most games on Gamepass are catalog titles, which is why MS doesn't have to pay that much, and that amount is still great for the companies involved.
I believe Cooking Sim has DLC too, so this will drive DLC sales, more revenue.. then since the game will leave Gamepass, people will have to buy it to even access the DLC they purchased (which I think is kind of a situation MS should maybe make more clear when buying Gamepass game DLC.)
Yeah, I know Mundane Job Sims get dunked on frequently, sometimes deservedly so, but Cooking Sim is a legit good title in this subgenre.
Nice to see MS bringing niche genres to GP. Great for exposure to a broader audience.
I think the meat and potatoes will be a lot of catalog stuff, also this falls in line with why MS decided to push to get more studios because I could see the Day 1 Stuff thats 3rd party to be less likely and they will need a good way to keep engagement and I think with the flurry of studios they have now it will shore up the service enough. That was my biggest question mark, because I could see more 3rd parties to want to launch only boxed, and the price to get them Day 1 would continue to go up vs in house where they have way more control over cost.
All this just points to why MS is going the route they have been going. At some point first party will be The Foundation for the service and they will have catalog 3rd party stuff to round it out.(similar to what Netflix pivoted to)
Yeah the idea is to ramp up 1st party output so you dont have as many super expensive deals.
And yes, competition for those deals increasing.
Basically what Netflix did (even though I hate a lot of the Netflix comparisons). It's the "economy of scale" model.. you need content to grow to the point where the service makes sense.. as when you have 100 users you still need a huge content catalog, really the same size as when you have 100 million users.
So you buy buy buy content, at a "loss" at the beginning.. and then once you have a massive userbase, you buy less and create more.
The math of this is super complicated in games because you have DLC, retail sales, digital sales, MTX of all kinds, etc.. as secondary revenue streams, and putting a game on a sub service has negative and positive implications for some of those revenue streams. For MS they do have to consider their own game budgets and how it relates, but the idea is that they should be better off paying for games internally than buying out other games. Those games are temporary, and MS only gets a 30% cut of secondary revenue... vs. their internal games, where MS also gets all the retail/digital sales/MTX/etc and they can boost the catalog indefinitely.
I understand your point, but I don't think that is a fair comparison.
Epic/505 deal limits Control availability for PC to a single storefront (a single source of revenue). 15 MM for this would make sense for the position Epic is in/want to be (competing mostly against Steam, trying to improve their user base with extraordinary content).
The 600k deal to add a 2 year old game to Game Pass probably, a game that is available on other platforms and stores, sounds like a huge deal for the devs/publisher who most likely have low sales expectations at this point.
I think this business model works in MS favor for their own flavor of gaming imo. I think Traditional works as well just again shows where all companies have laid their stake and will fit in different ways. I think MS just looking to accelerate that approach With not having to buy content outright. Interesting times ahead.
Epic guarantees sales up to a certain point, they don't just pay outright for things.
So it's a bit different.. if Control had sold $15 million worth of copies all Epic would be "out" would be the 30% cut they normally would have received (but of coruse.. they wouldn't really have received that, as they'd never would have had significant Control sales w/o exclusivity lol). They get to keep the initial $15 million in sales though.. so at that point it's net 0 cost.
Of course this didn't work out for them on most of their games.. but IIRC they actually didn't "lose money" on Borderlands 3 for instance.
All super complicated stuff.. which is why some companies don't think it's worth it and others do.. the complexity makes it hard to argue what is best/better for anyone involved. EGS has another wrinkle in that it pissed off gamers lol
This. We can armchair all we want, but to them it made financial sense for their company so they took the deal.
Devs getting paid, consumers getting games. If you have an Xbox, make full use of Game Pass because it may not last forever.
600k is peanuts for a game.
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.www.trueachievements.com
They also have to finance a part of their first party games with Game Pass revenue.
Lmao, the game came out 3 years ago and is priced at $20.00 and has potential to earn MORE on gamepass from the fraction of people who like it and buy DLC. A lump sum 600k is pretty damn good all things considered.
They pay tens of millions for AAA games even after launch.
The amount of subs on game pass doesn't mean much unless you seriously think 25 million people would've bought the game. I would argue most people probably won't even play it.
I'm fascinated by the Game Pass business model, it's amazing to finally have a specific figure for one of these deals. I'm minded to say it's quite generous, and I'm not entirely sure how Microsoft would generate $600,000 revenue from its inclusion on Game Pass. It's a low profile, three year old game with a handful middling/low critics reviews and middling/low user reviews. Obviously there's various ways that Microsoft make money from this deal:
1. People subscribe/keep subscribed to Game Pass/Game Pass Ultimate beause of it
2. People buy the DLC for it -- there's one piece of DLC
3. People buy the game because they play it on Game Pass
4. People buy the game because of word of mouth due to it being on Game Pass
Could this sum to that much additional revenue for MS/Game Pass? I'm really not sure. It doesn't need to of course, especially while the objective is growth.
1. People subscribe/keep subscribed to Game Pass/Game Pass Ultimate beause of it
2. People buy the DLC for it -- there's one piece of DLC
3. People buy the game because they play it on Game Pass
4. People buy the game because of word of mouth due to it being on Game Pass
Could this sum to that much additional revenue for MS/Game Pass? I'm really not sure. It doesn't need to of course, especially while the objective is growth.
I am pretty sure the genre of "real life activity" simulator is a lot more popular than people think. Apparently, Cooking Simulator sold around 700k units before coming to Game Pass, which is pretty good for an indie game. The relatively strong sales indicates that people do like this kind of stuff, probably even more so if it wrapped into GP. MS keeps on putting these types of simulators in game pass and Power Wash simulator really took off. I think we would be surprised at how much people engage with these games.
I doubt many people are signing up for GP just to play these simulator games, but I would be willing to bet that they keep people engaged, which keeps churn low.
Also, I am glad people here are having a sensible view on how much it costs to put an indie game on GP. I have seen people argue that spending 600k on this game shows that GP is bleeding money, completely ignoring the fact that only amounts to a few cents per subscriber when people pay between 5-10 dollars a month for GP.
Well it does. There's no way a 15 buck subscription is paying anywhere remotely close to enough to compensate for all of the games the service has, per user. A world where game production costs remain the same as they are today, and where games are only or primarily distributed via services with these payouts and at this small of a cost to the enduser, is not a world that will ever exist.
Some could argue that we could all benefit from game development costs dropping significantly, and I'd kinda agree, but not all present day developers, AAA or otherwise, will live to see that day.
They don't generate revenue on Game Pass, because Game Pass isn't profitable. That term was only ever used by Phil during its very early days, and very quickly was sidelined for the word "sustainable", and then "sustainable long-term". That's very deliberate corporate speak, because of course misrepresenting a product and tricking investors into buying in would be very bad news.
You're right; the objective here is growth. The last time I dared to outline what I think they're doing with that strategy, I got banned for a day, so I'm not going to. But just like all major business decisions that are this sweeping from an industrial point of view -- the old "it sounds too good to be true" adage -- there's an underbelly that people are missing, deliberately or not.
All I'm saying is that games do not cost a couple cents per user.
And I really wish people were more ready and willing to have that discussion now rather than later.
You're going to equate Gamepass with gun control now too? Just wait for your inevitable future where microsoft dooms everybody to say "told you all so" instead of dropping in every microsoft related thread to pull the same bullshit, please.