The FTC trial for Microsoft’s eternally pending acquisition ofActivision Blizzardundoubtedly revealed a lot of interesting industry information. Most of it was inevitable due to general laws of public disclosure, but some of it, funnily enough, was only made public because someone decided to redact the intended private bitswith a Sharpie.
Regardless, among the numerous headlines the trial spawned, there was one quote fromPlayStationCEO Jim Ryan that garnered a lot of attention, and it’s the following (as perThe Verge): “I talked to all publishers,” Ryan stated in his deposition, “and they unanimously do not likeGame Passbecause it’s value destructive.”
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Well, that seems pretty definitive. Ryan apparently talked toallpublishers, and none of them like Game Pass. Simple as that. Though there was, of course, no need to question Ryan about this, as he has no reason to be biased, Microsoft’s lawyer decided to push back a bit, which made Ryan reply, “I talk to publishers all the time, and this is a very commonly held view over many years by the publishers.”
Nobody’s forcing publishers to do this. And it’s not as though Game Pass is so big that it would be a death sentence to stay out of it—far from it, in fact. So, what the heck is Jim Ryan even talking about? Activision and Take-Two? I mean, yeah, they tend to be the ones that stay most at arm’s length from Game Pass (though Take-Two recently putGTA Von it), but those aretwopublishers. Twobigpublishers, yes, but it’s still a stretch to say there’s a “unanimous” dislike of the service.
So, I repeat, what was he talking about? If so many publishers really hated Game Pass, you’d think they’d just not put their games on it. You’d thinkXboxwould be really struggling to fill the service up with games outside their first party, but they’re not. It seems like publishers are actually pretty happy taking guaranteed money upfront and enjoying an immediately large pool of players, or enjoying a nice sum of money down the line, once a game’s sales have slowed down. The founder of No More Robots, Mike Rose, came out andexplicitly statedjust how happy he was with the service and how he planned to continue supporting it with day-and-date releases.
Some people have quickly dismissed this comment from Rose, claiming it’s not relevant, as No More Robots is an indie publisher, but it was Ryan who made the blanket statement of “all publishers,” and, again, big publishers also place their games on the service.
The only conclusion I can come to is that Ryan meant that big publishers dislike putting their games day-and-date on Game Pass, as that’s the only thing that aligns with reality. And yeah, if a game is likely to be a big success, it’s just not smart to limit its sales by adding it to a subscription service at launch.
You never know just how much of a hit a game’s going to be, or how many copies it’s going to sell, so keeping that earnings potential unlimited for big games is often the smartest thing to do. But it’s pretty dishonest to turnthatinto the much less-nuanced and much more-definitive statement that “all publishers unanimously do not like Game Pass.”
This has led Game Pass detractors to tout louder than ever that the service is surely a detriment to the industry and that it will only result in lower-quality games due to how “value destructive” it is. Look, I can’t pretend to know what the future of the gaming industry holds, and if you think Game Pass will turn out badly in the long term, that’s a fair opinion. But don’t take the word of PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan to bolster your argument; that’s just kinda silly.
Of course he’s going to say it’s bad and value destructive, and that publishers don’t like it. It’s good for his case. But not only is this blanket statement incorrect, it doesn’t even matter. Evenifall publishers unanimously hated Game Pass, so what? Since when should the average consumer be worried about what publishers think? You know, those entities that fill games with annoying and exclusionary monetization tactics and whose top priority is their bottom line? If publishers don’t like something, it’s probably because it gives more value to the consumer for less, and that doesn’t mean it’s a detriment to game quality.
Furthermore, big publishers choosing not to put their games day-and-date on Game Pass isn’t bad for the industry, because they’ll just, you know,notdo it. The only entity that has to worry about it being “value destructive” is Xbox itself with its first-party offerings. However, Xbox actually gets the revenue from Game Pass subscriptions, whichcanincrease indefinitely. Yeah, it may not work out well, and Xbox may suffer big losses if the service’s earnings can’t make up for development costs, but that’sXbox’sburden to carry, not the entire industry’s.
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