https://twinfinite.net/2019/03/xbox-game-pass-developer/
During a livestream from PAX East hosted by Microsoft’s Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, we heard more about what the Xbox Game Pass service does for developers.
Oxenfree co-director Sean Krankel from Night School Studio talked about what Xbox Game Pass did for his game.
“When we brought Oxenfree to Game Pass it was really interesting because we initially thought it could cannibalize our other sales or what’s that gonna do, and actually it was just the opposite. It was something that lifted sort of all of our sales because we found that we found a lot of new audiences.
We found people who tried the game who wouldn’t have otherwise tried it, they might not have understood the genre… It has really become a super-important part of our ecosystem because it’s just really discoverable.”
Krankel also confirmed that thanks to the experience with Oxenfree, Night School Studio’s next game Afterparty is going to launch on Xbox Game Pass day and date with its traditional release (even if he’s not yet ready to say when that date will be).
He then mentioned that it’s a new way for the studio to reach new audiences and get people talking about the game to people that aren’t subscribed to Game Pass, so this actually improves sales on other platforms as well.
Krankel believes that the size of the games made by Night School is also perfect for Game Pass. Being about seven hours long, people aren’t intimidated by the time investment necessary to try them out.
“It’s an exciting time for developers certainly of our size, because looking at something like Game Pass, it’s a new way to get games out there, right? I think if you look a few years ago, a team of our size, even taking a swing at Oxenfree — a single-player fairly short experience — was semi-risky, and fortunately, the game paid off.
Yet, now working with you on Game Pass, we get to find a much larger audience in a way that isn’t “how do we jam this game full of free to play mechanics” which is something that really doesn’t jive with the creatives for it.”