Senior Brendan Petillo is part of a family who have been big followers of Xbox since 2008. Petillo said when it comes to updates in the gaming world, his dad is always “on top of [that] stuff.” His family frequently stays up-to-date with announcements about what is happening in the community of Microsoft gaming.
Petillo and his family were startled by an announcement video on the Xbox YouTube channel that was posted on Oct. 1. It was announced the console’s biggest attraction, Game Pass, would be increasing its monthly price by 50%. Petillo and his dad were beyond shocked and disappointed with what was in store for a subscription they had enjoyed for many years.
Game Pass is a gaming subscription service that provides users with access to a library of games like Minecraft, Call of Duty and Starfield for the Xbox consoles and Windows PCs. In the announcement, Microsoft revealed they were expanding the list of games on Game Pass while also upping the price from $240 to $360 annually. This led to commenters bombarding the announcement video with negative feedback, many saying they had already canceled their subscriptions. While there are no released reports of how many canceled their subscriptions, Xbox’s website crashed on the day of the announcement due to the overwhelming traffic.
Petillo was let down immensely at the news of the price increase and felt like his faith in Microsoft’s company was fading.
“We [aren’t] subscribed to it [like] we used to be, which is a bummer because there are games on Game Pass that I like. I think they have to reevaluate their prices,” Petillo said.
However, Game Pass’ price increase is not for nothing. In their announcement video, Microsoft detailed what benefits they will be adding to Game Pass to justify the price increase. More than 45 games have been added to the library, like Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Some other benefits include EA Play discounts, Ubisoft Plus and an upgraded Game Pass rewards system.
The benefits, unfortunately, did not seem to resonate with many players, and some saw them as weak excuses to justify the price increase. Xbox enthusiasts are hoping they will reconsider their decision and reduce the price. Esports team sponsor and Physics teacher Jeffrey Rosauer heard the news from his students and is hoping that they will reverse their decision.
“Maybe they’ll consider a price reduction,” Rosauer said. “They probably only went through with the price increase because they knew they could handle [a] certain percentage of people canceling it.”
Even GameStop, a company known for working with Xbox, made a post on X (formerly Twitter) making fun of Microsoft’s decision, stating:
“Game Pass: $29.99 every month. Own nothing. GameStop: Buy once. Own forever. Math isn’t that hard.”
The Xbox community on Reddit has been overwhelmingly negative in terms of feedback, with one user stating, “Rest in peace, golden age of Game Pass.” A recent trending search term for the backlash was “#CancelGamePass.” The topic of the price increase for Game Pass has led to a broader conversation regarding Microsoft and “big-budget” gaming companies becoming less and less popular amongst fans.
The term “modern gaming,” usually associated with big studios like Microsoft and Nintendo, has gained somewhat of a negative connotation. Gamers are wondering if Microsoft should even be a main contender with Playstation and Nintendo because of the recent controversy in the past years. Recently, Microsoft has been under fire for mismanaging their studios in the past year, pushing for a 30% profit margin. There was also a massive layoff in May 2024 where Microsoft ended up shutting down studios like The Initiative, Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Games and Tango Studios, which released the critically-acclaimed game Hi-Fi Rush. Practices like these are the reason why many gamers are addressing big game studios with negativity.
The triple-A — a term referring to games with high marketing and development budgets, produced by large studios — game industry has seen a wave of criticism in the past five years. Triple-A game criticism can mainly be attributed to things like triple-A studios releasing unfinished and broken games, lack of creativity from game to game and a focus on in-game purchases rather than producing an overall good product.
“They started to just release it while they can so they [can] just make more money and not actually put time and effort into it,” Petillo said about Xbox’s triple-A lineup.
Some recently anticipated big-budget games that came out in an unfinished state include Star Wars: Outlaws, Concord and especially Redfall, which was released in such a widely lambasted condition that Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, came out and openly apologized for it.
“There’s nothing [more] difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community,” Spencer said.
Triple-A games still sell widely because they have mostly had the largest fan bases and are designed to appeal to the widest audience. Wii Sports and Mario Kart 8 mostly appeal to casual gamers who just want to have fun with friends and family on the couch. Grand Theft Auto mostly appeals to a general teen and adult audience. These games are among the highest-selling games of all time, with sales ranging from 70 to 190 million copies. This is attributed to the fact that their audiences aren’t specific.
“They still sell a ton just because the audience for those games is so huge,” Rosauer said. “They have a large fanbase, but I think people do catch on.”
Another thing players are questioning is the rise in pricing of triple-A games, specifically with Nintendo raising the price from $80 to $90 on most of their big-hit games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza prior to release.
“I feel like, back in the day, game developers actually cared about their games,” Petillo said. “Before they [released] it, they would make everything top-notch. Now they just want to release a product so they can make a quick buck.”
With the multiplying controversies within the triple-A community, many gamers are turning their attention to an alternative genre: “indies.” “Indies” are games developed by smaller, lesser-known studios that tend to focus primarily on creativity rather than spectacle and profit. An example of a popular indie is Hollow Knight, which appeals to teens and young adults who are already experienced gamers, rather than Mario Kart, which is mostly played by casual gamers.
While indie games have always had large fan bases, they have been receiving a popularity surge in recent years. According to a market report by Video Game Insights, indie games made up 99% of digital storefront Steam releases in 2024 and contributed to 48% of its total revenue, while in 2023 they generated 31% of its revenue.
The question is, why are people starting to migrate more towards indies? A lot of fans mainly attribute the switch to indie games typically being less pricey and more readily accessible than triple-A titles. Hollow Knight: Silksong costs only $20 and is on Steam, which means it’s more affordable than usual triple-A games and accessible to anyone with an ideal gaming laptop.
“I feel like the quality has gone uphill. The prices, however, stay the same, so if you get an indie game, you’re probably more likely to have a better time with it, because I feel like the quality itself is not going downhill and [the company is] not blinded by greed,” said Petillo.
Rosauer believes that there will be a nice balance between the two genres and that they will be as prominent in people’s game libraries as triple-A games are.
“There’s more representation for indie games, and I think that representation will stick around,” Rosauer said. “I don’t think they’ll overshadow triple-A games, and it’ll only be indie games winning Game of the Year, but I do think those genres that are more prone to innovate and do unique and different things are more prone to win big awards.”
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