Xbox Game Pass tries to tackle evergreen games like Fortnite — but it won't work

On Wednesday morning, the team at Xbox rolled out news for a series of changes coming to Microsoft's subscription service, Xbox Game Pass.

There are a number of improvements across different tiers (PC titles and Cloud gaming are notably available at every level, to some extent), while the high-end Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier received a number of new perks meant to justify an eye-popping new price tag of $30 a month, which is a 50% price hike in the U.S.

To say it's been poorly received by hardcore players on social media might be a twinge of an understatement, with plenty of furor and criticism for the new amount being charged at the highest tier.

All of that is completely warranted, but I do think there's another interesting discussion to be had with what the attempt here has been. Namely, Xbox is trying to solve an extremely valid problem, but isn't going about it the right way.

The Games-As-A-Service elephant in the room

Winding the clock back a bit, anyone who has read my work before knows I'm a huge fan of all the data shared by Circana executive director and analyst Mat Piscatella, who regularly provides updates on the most-played games in the U.S. on a weekly basis.

Scouring through those updates for this entire year, week after week, month after month, you'll quickly pick up on something interesting: It's the same handful of games, and many of them are free-to-play titles. These "black hole" games are sucking all the air out of the room.

Fortnite and Call of Duty take the top two spots, occasionally swapping but always there like ironclad stalwarts. Roblox and Grand Theft Auto 5 can be depended upon to secure spots #3 and #4. More variety is sometimes found from this point on, but it's still heavily live-service driven, with games like Marvel Rivals, Minecraft, and others.

Sometimes there's a breakthrough, such as with the recent arrival of PlayStation's Helldivers 2 on Xbox, which is another live-service game.

It's a problem everyone is the gaming industry is aware of and no one knows how to solve. Over the last few months, I've heard comments from some Xbox employees that getting players who only care about Fortnite and other free-to-play games into Xbox Game Pass was a significant long-term goal, though there weren't any details at the time.

As a result, on paper, I do get the idea here. Provide a Fortnite Crew subscription (which gives the Battle Pass and some microtransaction currency) alongside access to new Xbox first-party games. If someone is usually willing to buy Fortnite battle passes, maybe they can be tempted into a subscription that'll cause them to dip their toes in the water of other titles.

The issue is that this kind of price increase, hitting the existing marrow of Xbox users, is likely to eject them to a point that any uptick is made irrelevant, or at least seriously diminished.

There is simply no point in sacrificing the hardcore base you already have in order to maybe leech users from a more casual pool.

So...what happens now?

The age of bots is upon us, and I usually urge caution when it comes to social media outrage, as it's increasingly difficult to tell if that anger is legitimate or real in many capacities. That's not the case here.

My colleague Jennifer Young wrote about how she feels Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has simply priced her out at this point, and (anecdotally, perhaps) it's a sentiment shared among almost every immediate friend or coworker I've been talking to today.

If there is a large enough wave of cancellations, then could Microsoft withdraw or reverse course, at least partially? It's certainly possible.

Xbox has numerous games launching in the coming weeks, from smaller, more artist-driven fare like Double Fine's Keeper to big role-playing games with Obsidian Entertainment's The Outer Worlds 2. I'll be fascinated to watch how this all unfolds.

For now, we'll have to wait and see.

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