I’m interested in the economics of it, and I’m no expert so would be great for some insight.

In years gone by, the quality and popularity of a game would directly correlate to it’s sales. Whereas for gamepass games, I assume that studios get a kick back percentage of revenue for installs, play hours, etc.

As the investment needed by a player to install is zero (barring a download and install, it’s all sunk cost from already having a gamepass), their threshold to try a game is a lot lower, therefore the requirements for the studio to ensure high quality is much lower for a similar return on investment. (I.e. more speculative downloads with lower return than lower hard sales with higher return).

What do you think?