In his most recent post, Hello Games Programmer Sean Murray revealed that over a million new players had taken to explore the vast unknowns of space in No Man’s Sky after the game was added to the Xbox Game Pass. When also considering the recent addition of cross-play between platforms, there are more players than ever exploring the galaxy together.
By itself, No Man’s Sky has improved tremendously since its fumbled release, and its community of players are now passionate about the game and its continuous stream of high-quality updates. The spike in players from Xbox Game Pass, however, points to something else entirely. The subscription service is broadening the player base from games in a way that has only recently become possible.
It is interesting to consider why No Man’s Sky even came to the Xbox Game Pass. A quick look at Steam indicates that the game has over 132,000 reviews, and of those made recently, 89% of users review the game as a Very Positive experience. Given that there are clearly many happy players on Steam and on other platforms, it seems odd that Hello Games would also bring their game to a subscription service.
Microsoft has been tight lipped on exactly what it offers developers for access to their games on Xbox Game Pass, but there have been enough developers speaking about the subject to give us a good idea of the overall plan, and the great benefits that come along as well.
Speaking to GameDaily, publisher No More Robots’ founder Mike Rose explained what they gained from the partnership, though we would expect every developer to get a slightly different deal depending on their game and the expected size of its player base. Rose joined the subscription program and saw great success for their game, Descenders, stating, “we saw player numbers rocket by a ridiculous amount, and our sales across both Xbox and Steam have been at least quadrupled daily compared to before we joined Game Pass.”
In addition, some developers describe receiving a lump sum of cash from Microsoft when they join the Xbox Game Pass, with the only restrictions applying to staying exclusive from other subscription services, while being free to sell their game on all other platforms. So, a game would be barred from also being part of something like the Apple Arcade, but could still sell its full game on Steam, Epic Games, or anywhere.
Ultimately, we are still in the infancy of game subscriptions, but Microsoft so far seems to be hitting it out of the park in providing both developers and consumers an outstanding product. It is great to see that even a game as popular as No Man’s Sky will see even further growth thanks to this deal, and we look forward to seeing where subscription models will go in the future, especially as project xCloud ramps up for a release this fall.
Source: gamedaily.biz, news.xbox.com
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