The Xbox Game Pass subscription motivates people to spend more on games. This is according to ID@Xbox regional lead Agostino Simonetta.
As Simonetta explains, subscribers are more engaged than non-subscribers. They play 40% more games, including those that are not on the Game Pass catalog, Gamesindustry.biz writes.
Well, they have a lot of free games to play – but actually they’re way more engaged outside the subscription. They go out to stores and buy more games than they did before they joined.
Agostino Simonetta
The ID@Xbox survey also reveals that 91% of subscribers tried a game that they would not have typically played before they got the subscription. That’s good news for niche developers who might have otherwise struggled to reach their player.
Additionally, players become more willing to explore new genres. After subscribing, the number of genres they tried increases by 30%.
“We see Game Pass as an opportunity to broaden the horizon of the fans,” says Simonetta. “So they’re going to go and discover that, ‘In ten years, I’ve never played a horror game, but guess what? I tried one and now I’m developing a taste for the genre’.”
This findings confirm what Phil Spenser, head of the gaming division of Microsoft, said last year. According to him, if a game is on Xbox Game Pass, it sells better on other platforms. A game that is popular with subsribers will inevitably grab the attention of non-subscribers.