No More Robots (Descenders/Not Tonight) talk Game Pass - "It's essentially an advert; a straight up advert!"

[MilesQ]

This is super interesting...

"I always guessed that Descenders was an Xbox game," Rose says, "and now it's doing much better on Xbox."

No More Robots is committed to putting its games on as many platforms as make sense; Descenders has been confirmed for a Switch release, while Not Tonight was submitted to Nintendo the week this conversation took place. However, both titles proved that games can have natural homes. Not Tonight started in one, but Descenders needed time to find its own.

Descenders left Early Access in May this year, around a year after it first hit Steam. The 1.0 version added multiplayer, and it also launched on Xbox and (crucially) Game Pass on the same day. The latter, it seems, was a hard sell for Rose, who is a passionate and vocal advocate for developers protecting the value of their work.

"That worries me greatly," he admits. "And after I did all of my Twitter rants, people from Xbox took me to the side and talked to me about it. I thought, 'Okay, fair enough, but I'd still like to see it in motion.'"

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"Since Descenders came out on Game Pass, the thing I did not realise would happen -- because you'd assume that you put something on Game Pass and sales tank, right? I had assumed that: why would anyone buy the game when they can literally see it on Game Pass?

"We were like, should we do this Game Pass thing? But we did it, and 1.0 came out, and I think it the launch was about three times as big as the Steam Early Access launch... You could say it was putting the multiplayer in, or it was not being Early Access any more, so more people bought it. But the biggest surprise for me was Game Pass."

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Rose adds: "Being on Game Pass means that you basically have constant featuring on Xbox. You're game is on the dashboard all the time... People are seeing our game every day.

"And because of that, during launch month, our Xbox sales -- we didn't do any discounts on it or anything -- quadrupled, and have now settled to about three times as much as before. It's essentially an advert; a straight up advert.

"And now Xbox is asking, 'Oh, can we feature Descenders in more of the Game Pass advertising?' Yes, you can. Of course you fucking can."

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More than 600,000 people have now played Descenders, and the Xbox launch was a huge factor in reaching that number. However, Rose concedes that he is not quite a subscription convert, because these favourable winds may be specific to Xbox Game Pass -- a service owned and controlled by the company that owns and controls the platform -- and they may also be temporary.

The rewards gleaned from visibility may disappear over time, as they have on pretty much every single digital marketplace. For now, though, the sun is shining on Game Pass, and No More Robots is making hay.

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Lots more at the link and well done to NMR. 600k player is fantastic stuff!!

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[TheJackdog]

i never considered how games LEAVING gamepass just frees up more eyes for games ENTERING game pass.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

Sounds more like the reason isn't Game Pass itself, but the advertising for the game on the Xbox dashboard.

I've actually decided against buying games due to these services. I had a 25% off Void Bastards coupon on Steam, but because it's on Game Pass I decided not to buy it because I'll get to play it anyway in October when I use the 3 free GP months from my Ryzen purchase. I've also thought of getting Celeste and Iconoclasts on PC a few times, but because Celeste was on Live Gold and Iconoclasts was on PS Plus I don't find the games as valuable so I don't want to pay more than €10 for them.

 

[Brown Intruder]

Glad to see it working for them.

Game pass is the daddy.

This thread will drop off of the first page like a stone..

 

[Shogun]

I'm glad No More Robots have found success. Looking through the games they have been publishing and they are all of a consistent high quality. Hopefully we see more of them on GamePass.

 

[Deleted member 13645]

Sounds more like the reason isn't Game Pass itself, but the advertising for the game on the Xbox dashboard.

I've actually decided against buying games due to these services. I had a 25% off Void Bastards coupon on Steam, but because it's on Game Pass I decided not to buy it because I'll get to play it anyway in October when I use the 3 free GP months from my Ryzen purchase. I've also thought of getting Celeste and Iconoclasts on PC a few times, but because Celeste was on Live Gold and Iconoclasts was on PS Plus I don't find the games as valuable so I don't want to pay more than €10 for them.

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We'll one of the things Phil Spencer mentioned is that it advertises through friends too. Your friend with Game Pass tried out a game, you see them playing it in your friends list, check it out and then end up buying it to play with them. Purely anecdotal but this is how Sea of Thieves worked with our group. A few of us had game pass and a few non-gp subscribers ended up buying it to play with us, where none of us would have tried it without game pass.

 

[MilesQ]

We'll one of the things Phil Spencer mentioned is that it advertises through friends too. Your friend with Game Pass tried out a game, you see them playing it in your friends list, check it out and then end up buying it to play with them. Purely anecdotal but this is how Sea of Thieves worked with our group. A few of us had game pass and a few non-gp subscribers ended up buying it to play with us, where none of us would have tried it without game pass.

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This is the only reason I bothered with SoT and I'm glad I did.

 

[m23]

i never considered how games LEAVING gamepass just frees up more eyes for games ENTERING game pass.

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I never thought of it that way. I guess games would just get lost in the shuffle if the library ballooned to hundreds and hundreds of games.

 

[Komo]

Well yeah this is what Xbox even said would happen and has happened with XGP games. More people are buying them because they don't see the sub fee as a part of that games costs. They just see the entire pass as a trial system to play games they've been eyeing.

 

[Fisty]

Sounds like it could be correlation given the other factors, but good to see the advertising was put to good use

 

[AntiMacro]

Glad to see it working for them.

Game pass is the daddy.

This thread will drop off of the first page like a stone..

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Accurate.

 

[Mike Rose]

Oh hey, thanks so much for the thread, and the enthusiasm!

I'm glad No More Robots have found success. Looking through the gane they have been publishing and they are all of a consistent high quality. Hopefully we see more of them on GamePass.

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Thanks Shogun, that's really nice of you to say :) we have a few unannounced games we've got coming in 2020 which I'm pretty dang excited about, can't wait to start talking publicly about them soon!

 

[LordBaztion]

I actually will try Descender after reading that.

 

[spam musubi]

The more games come to game pass, the less of a factor this will be because the odds of seeing any particular game (especially a smaller game) will decrease. Right now game pass is in the gold rush phase as it keeps going, it will be interesting to see what happens when it saturates.

 

[Gowans]

It's hard to believe this is the third year of Game Pass, the team around really seem to be discovering it's strengths and building towards them but also don't seem to be afraid of bending and adjusting when needed.

 

[shaneo632]

Quite a few devs have expressed surprise at how well their games sold even after going on Game Pass, feels like a win-win for everyone really.

 

[Raide]

Interesting. Never really thought about it that way. If only all those niche Japanese developers that keep ignoring Xbox would think the same way...