XBox then buys indies and shutters their studios. Whoopsie.
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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Maybe not; but my bigger worry is that while this is good for indies initially, by guaranteeing a minimum fixed income for a project - the long-term effect will be that Gamers^TM^ may just begin to expect indie titles to be “free” via GamePass and won’t buy them otherwise.
This would pretty much monopolise those sorts of titles to XBox and leave developers dependent on Microsoft for their continued existence.
Unfortunately that's already happening, I know a few people that are hard to convince to play something that isn't on GamePass — I never insisted, but it's still a bummer that I need M$'s blessing to play with people I know, considering I don't have an Xbox and cross-play games that we all like are hard to find.
Yeah it’s straight up the big tech playbook. Undermine competition with low subscription prices and a lot of content. Lure in developers with deals that are too good to be true. And then once the customers are invested in using GamePass and stop buying games, increase subscription prices. And since MS is by then the gatekeeper to the market they don’t have to pay out so much to the developers anymore. It’s basically what Uber has done, once they killed the taxi market in a city they increased prices and lowered payouts to drivers. And since customers are used to those ride hailing apps the normal taxi market will never bounce back and drivers are basically forced to work with Uber or change jobs.
Also once Microsoft has a large chunk of the market in hand they basically decide before hand which games become a success or not instead of letting the market decide. So yeah games critical of their customers like the Israeli government will probably never get on GamePass and thus never reach a large audience. We’ll be seeing way more censorship than what we’ve seen with Steam recently if GamePass becomes the default way to consume games.
I hate Game Pass. It's a poisoned well. If it's a continued success it won't just turn games into subscription service content (meaning we'll own our games even less. Anyone thinking MS will continue selling games separately I guarantee if Game Pass sticks around for the next decade there will be "only on Game Pass" games) but it will become a locking mechanism for whatever MS new gaming OS will be. MS will make sure Game Pass won't work on Linux so MS could continue having OS dominance in the gaming space. And of course the service will eventually enshittify because $$$.
The future of Game Pass is a future nobody wants. Paying for an overpriced service to play a curated list of games you can't own on a machine that will track everything you do and feed you ads every chance it gets.
As far as I'm aware GamePass is already Xbox+Windows exclusive because it uses the Microsoft Store on PC
I thought there was some way but I guess I was mistaken.
I think that there's big enough chunk of gamers that wasn't own and support Indie games directly rather than rent them through gamepass that it hopefully won't have much impact.
I am hoping there won't be any exclusivity BS though, Epic has been bad enough with that already.
Their “close deal” and “close studio” keys are right next to each other on their keyboards. Simple mistake to make
Whose employees then go and form a new company, marketing its first game as "by the makers of X" and MS is left holding IP of dubious worth and their dick in their hands.
RIP 48 of those games.
48 studios will be closed before they get a game out, and then the other two will be closed after making something award-winning and genre-redefining, and the IP will never see the light of day again.
It's hifi rush all over again ;_;
They're not buying the game theyre supporting it to get it on game pass same as they did with palworld. I dont see anything wrong, right now.
I mean, at this point studios must know what it means to let MS meddle in things. Or is the feeling of "no, not with me, this time will be different" so prevalent?
49 studios shut down. Details at 6.
It's just business.
Might as well cast a wide net with a bunch of indie trash, hoping that something ends up gaining a following for- whatever reason.
It's cheaper and easier than taking on risk themselves and trying to compete with the big dogs.
Well, that's 50 studios that won't ever see my money.
*edit
So, every time a corpo does something shady, social media at large argues: "vote with your wallet"
Given Microsoft's criminal and genocidal history I decide to boycott companies who associate with that behemoth, especially when they are validating a business model that fucks over other indies. It's the perfect example of "fuck you I got mine". I'm clearly voting with my wallet against this unconscionable practice, yet, this thread, on average, thinks that's a bad thing. I think it paints the average user here on a very negative light, which is disappointing.
Given the state of the industry right now, there’s a good chance these games simply wouldn’t have been made without these deals.
If the choice is between releasing on GP or not releasing at all, I don’t begrudge them for taking the deal.
People have made better games with fewer resources.
That's dumb. That's like saying you won't buy a DVD because it's available for rent at Blockbuster.
I will avoid giving Microsoft my money where possible, but I’m not going to oppose indie developers taking their money.
It just means their game trailers get an “Available with Game Pass” logo which I swiftly ignore.
Sucks to be your then 🤣