2025 has been an amazing year for big monumental game releases so far with titles like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Assassin's Creed Shadows, but it's also been terrific for the indie scene as well. One recent game that got a lot of attention was Raccoon Logic Studios' Revenge of the Savage Planet — an action/adventure sci-fi title that came out May 8 and launched on Xbox Game Pass, with platform availability on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PCs, PS5, and PS4.
Despite bringing the game to Game Pass, though, studio head Alex Hutchinson has warned of the service's impact in an interview with Gamers Social Club. Specifically, Hutchinson believes day one Game Pass releases lead to games being "devalued," resulting in less full game sales, lower profits, and financial struggles.
"What we’ve seen is that content has been devalued and that people are less willing to pay for things, which in the long run will likely mean less games being made and a lot more studios going under," he explained.
Given Hutchinson's feelings about Game Pass, you're probably wondering why Raccoon Logic made the decision to bring Revenge of the Savage Planet to it in the first place. He notes that the goal was to try and balance discoverability with sales, hoping that someone who played through Game Pass might purchase the game's The Cosmic Hoarder DLC pack or motivate someone else to buy a copy. That hasn't happened, though.
"It’s always a balance between getting the word out and actually trying to stay in business and make some money. Games are incredibly expensive to make, and there’s a lot of competition," he said. "... The hope was that the exposure would lead to people who got the game as part of their subscription to at least buy the little add on pack or to encourage a friend to buy it on another platform so they could play it together but we haven’t seen that, or at least not yet."
Hutchinson acknowledges that the payments Microsoft delivers to publishers and developers to get their games on Game Pass help provide financial support, but says they're not as impactful as they used to be in most cases. Notably, the amount of money offered varies depending on the size of the studio and game, though these numbers are never revealed publicly.
"Years ago the check for subscription services was big enough to make a big difference, but these days unless your game is tiny, or you’re a rare enormous brand, it isn’t much," he commented. "But MS have been amazing partners and we’re so glad to be working with them."
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Ultimately, Hutchinson says the industry should switch over to a system akin to how movies would first come out in theaters, then head to DVD, TV, and streaming services one year later (these days, they come much, much sooner, but I digress).
"Personally, I think the whole industry should agree to only allow games on subscription services a year after release," he asserted. "We need to mimic the old movie model of having it in theatres then on DVD then on TV or streaming. The current structure will prove very damaging to anyone who is not owned by a publisher soon if it continues."
Revenge of the Savage Planet itself has been said to be successful thus far, with Hutchinson noting that "sales have been good" despite most of its player traffic coming from Game Pass. If you ask me, that fact suggests games will ultimately sell well if they're good regardless of whether they're on Game Pass or not, but I'm also not a dev and don't have access to deeper data.
I do ultimately hope that the Game Pass model is sustainable for Microsoft and its partners, because it brings a ton of value to its members — especially when money is tight and you don't have room in your budget for new games. That's an issue I've been dealing with for a little while now, and my Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription has been a boon.
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