The anecdote of a developer beautifully illustrates why the Xbox Game Pass in its current form cannot be sustainable and long-term, and why Microsoft now needs to make a strategic shift.
What is this anecdote about? Sergiy Grygorovych, founder of GSC Game World, spoke in an interview with YouTuber OLDBoi about a deal with Microsoft. It was about the exclusive Day 1 release of Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl on Xbox Game Pass. The game was released on PS5 only a year later. Grygorovych explains:
We have made more than the actual costs of Stalker 2. It has already paid off before the first day.
Sergiy Grygorovych in an interview with OLDBoi on YouTube
The interest from Xbox in Stalker 2 was fueled by the incredibly positive feedback on the first trailer. The view counts were so high that Microsoft “jumped in quickly” to secure the deal.
30 to 60 million dollars for 1 year of exclusivity?!
How expensive was Stalker 2? Unfortunately, there is no concrete information on the development costs. Studio owner Maksym Krippa told Forbes Ukraine that it was supposed to be a double-digit million sum (via insider-gaming.com).
This makes sense: The post-apocalyptic shooter was in development for over six years. At times, several hundred creatives worked on the game. Due to the invasion of Russia into Ukraine, the team had to relocate in the meantime. At the same time, the monthly operating costs in countries like Ukraine or the Czech Republic are not as high as in the USA, for example.
The Ukrainian industry website dev.ua estimates the development costs to be between 30 and 60 million US dollars. No single game from Ukraine has ever been so expensive.
What does this mean for the Xbox Game Pass? Even if the specific sums are unclear, you now certainly have at least a rough idea of how much money Microsoft has likely paid to the developers of Stalker 2 for the limited-time console exclusivity.
For this deal to be worthwhile for Microsoft, Stalker 2 needs to convert a large number of players into new, paying Game Pass subscribers. With 3 million sales in the first 5 months and 6 million players (sales plus Xbox Game Pass) by March 2025 (via Steam), Stalker 2 was a significant success, but certainly not a “system seller” that justified an investment of 30 to 60 million US dollars.
In short: Microsoft must have taken a significant loss here, just so that Stalker 2 releases a year later on PS5.
The first gameplay trailer of Stalker 2 has over 2.6 million views on the official channel. On the Xbox channel on YouTube, there are another 3+ million views.
This is not an isolated case: At the latest since the lawsuit between the FTC and Microsoft regarding the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, we know that in the past, sometimes enormous sums have been paid for Xbox exclusivity.
For example, it is said that they paid 50 million US dollars for Gotham Knights and 35 million US dollars for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (source: gamesindustry.biz). A GTA 5 would cost about 12 to 15 million US dollars per month in Game Pass.
Additionally, there are further hints like the LinkedIn note from a Microsoft employee who stated that he was involved in more than 500 exclusive deals concerning indie games and AAA blockbusters. The sums paid were said to range between 50,000 and 50 million US dollars (via X).
With such absurd investments, it’s no surprise that the new Xbox chief Asha Sharma is now overturning the entire Xbox strategy, which had focused heavily on Game Pass during her predecessor Phil Spencer’s time. It’s just sad that the new course comes at the expense of thousands of creatives in the industry, who lose their jobs despite having done great and successful work (right, id Software?).
It’s also bitter for us consumers. In May 2025, I celebrated that the Xbox Game Pass had finally found a strong balance of regular first-party releases, clever third-party gems, and an extremely fair price for us gamers. With the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the future looked bright. More about that here:
Now it’s clear: that was a dream that could only briefly come true. The subscription became more expensive. In the meantime, there have been longer phases without first-party highlights again. And in the future, Microsoft is likely to significantly restrict the Game Pass launches of major blockbusters: Developers hate the Xbox Game Pass – and it could lose its most important argument
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