Streamers like Asmongold discussed whether Enshittification has arrived at the Game Pass. But what is that anyway and what does it mean?
What is behind Enshittification? The term was coined by Canadian science fiction author, journalist, and blogger Cory Doctorow (via pluralistic.net). The term refers to how companies treat their users:
- A new platform offers useful products and services at a loss to attract new users.
- Once users are locked in, the platform shifts the surplus to the service providers.
- But once the platform has achieved a monopoly or quasi-monopoly position, there is no longer an incentive for the platform to maintain quality – Now it seeks to extract as much profit for itself as possible.
High switching costs prevent users from leaving the platform, even if there are technically alternatives available.
Many users believe: the Game Pass is now worse for players
What does all of this have to do with the Game Pass? According to some users and streamers like Asmongold, the Game Pass is going through the same process of Enshittification. Asmongold discusses this with his viewers on YouTube and refers to the changes as “Shittification” (1:06 in the video).
This is the logic behind it: The Xbox Game Pass was initially calculated by Microsoft at a loss. In a conversation with WindowsCentral, it was stated in 2023 that Microsoft was investing many millions into the Game Pass as a service, not really making money from it in total.
According to reports, the Game Pass now has around 30 million subscribers, which it is said to owe in part to the success of Starfield, which became available on Day 1 in the Xbox Game Pass.
The success was also due to the relatively low price that attracted many players.
Increased prices and no release games in the standard Game Pass
This is the current peak of the discussion: With the announcement to significantly increase prices and remove release games from the normal Game Pass to place them in a much more expensive version, users now claim that the peak of Enshittification has been reached.
Now profits and shareholders are the focus, not the average player anymore.
Here are the new prices for the Game Pass:
- The price for the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate increases from 14.99 € to 17.99 €.
- The regular PC Game Pass increases from 9.99 € to 11.99 €.
- Xbox Game Pass Core (formerly Xbox Live Gold) increases from 59.99 € to 69.99 € per year, but still costs 6.99 € per month.
- New is the Xbox Game Pass Standard. This subscription contains old, popular titles from the Xbox catalog but no longer includes Day-One games. The price is 14.99 € per month.
The biggest competitor for the Game Pass is PS Plus on PlayStation. With the price changes and game adaptations, PS Plus may become somewhat more attractive again. After all, the strongest argument for the Game Pass until now was that you could access all new games directly for 10 euros a month: Game Pass vs. PS Plus – The two major subscription models for console and PC compared
