Every Friday, AV Club employees kick off the weekend by taking a look at the world of gaming, immersing ourselves in the ideas behind the hobby we love with a little Game theory. We’ll sound off in the space above and invite you to respond below in the comments, telling us what you’re playing this weekend and what theories make you think.
If I have any personality flaws, perhaps the biggest one is that I’m an unapologetic Xbox user – which in the video game space is the only thing less cool than being a PC user. Nintendo fans are either kids or modern adults, and PlayStation fans are smart writers who play smart games for sad dads – that’s why they have the confidence to put that hideous damn spaceship under their televisions without dying of shame. But what do I have under my TV? A large black rectangle that is so visually unattractive that if someone deigned to walk into an Xbox user’s home without knowing what the thing was, they would find themselves unable to perceive it. That’s how uninteresting the very concept of Xbox has become.
Still, as an Xbox guy, I have access to something that the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 don’t: Game Passa Netflix-like subscription service from Microsoft that gives you access to a large library of video games for a monthly fee. I’ve written before about how great Game Pass is, but I’ll say it again: Game Pass is great. It’s a fantastic alternative to losing your home or running out of food for the gamer on a budget, and although it has the unintended side effect of slightly devaluing individual games (because it incentivizes you to never buy a game in case it ever appears on Game Pass), I’d rather pay $10-$17 a month to play a bunch of stuff I’d never buy than never play a bunch of stuff I’d never buy.
But it’s been a weird year for Game Pass, and the service seems to be in a bit of a weird state of limbo right now — made even weirder by the fact that it’s almost the holidays and Microsoft doesn’t seem to be making much of an effort to convince people to buy Xboxes. and Game Pass subscriptions for loved ones (“This year, get her what she really wants: Something that looks like a refrigerator crossed with a jet engine”). The service had several high-profile releases in 2023, most notably Starfieldwhich was available in the service on day one.
Even though he is very goodhowever, Starfield wasn’t met with an overwhelmingly positive response, putting an awkward spotlight on the rest of the year’s Game Pass offerings — because, damn Starfield won’t do it for you, what are the chances something like the weird soviet theme BioShock a clone Atomic heart will you? October Forza Motorsport is a very high-quality racing game (and seems well-positioned to be that “forever game” that companies love and players tolerate these days), but it’s a simulator racing game, not a fun party racing game with broad appeal.
Then there’s the fact that the biggest game of the year isn’t on Game Pass, and maybe never will be, with the developers of Baldur’s Gate 3 effectively narration IGN that their game is too good and worth the money to switch to the subscription service. Their rationale makes perfect sense (the game is huge and doesn’t have any of the microtransactions that are usually very common in Game Pass games) and I certainly don’t think every game Must be on Game Pass (just look at how Netflix is destroying the film industry with the way it devalues art), but the fact that they’re comfortable sharing what’s being filmed with the public speaks to some kind of failure on Microsoft’s part.
I really don’t think Game Pass or Microsoft have problems and I don’t know or care at all about the economics of the service, I just hope they can turn things around and have a more exciting 2024 to justify the amount of time and money I shelled out for that dumb cinder block versus the other dumb thing that looks like a giant alien sandwich. Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard, which will certainly bolster the Game Pass library, but meh. Even I found the inner strength to resist the annual call of… Call Of Duty. I just want a good reason to play my Xbox and I don’t want to have to pick up some boring new hobby like reading or going out.
