Xbox Game Pass may have hurt Outriders sales

(Image credit: Square Enix)

Call back Outriders? This cooperative multiplayer shooter from Polish programmer People Can Fly came out dorsum in April to polite acclaim, and after the company addressed some pernicious bugs, there wasn't much else to say about information technology. The game aimed to be a looter-shooter while excising some of the genre's more than repetitive aspects, and it mostly succeeded.

There was 1 other interesting circumstance regarding Outriders' release, though: its solar day-one availability on Xbox Game Pass. At present, the devs have called into question whether that was a good or bad movement.

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The story came out of a People Tin can Fly investor briefing, as reported by IGN. In the conference, CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski discussed Outriders' profitability — or, potentially, its lack thereof:

"We don't take any sales figures for Outriders," he said (translated from Polish past Google). "We estimate information technology at betwixt ii and 3 million units and assumed that this was a consequence that would ensure profitability for this project."

However, the game may not have sold as many copies as Wojciechowski estimated. Square Enix, the game'due south publisher, has not paid People Can Fly whatever royalties. That suggests that Outriders is not yet profitable, every bit Square Enix has to pay its own operating costs earlier the coin starts channeling back to the developer.

The interesting fleck for Xbox Game Pass fans comes next:

"Perhaps it was caused by some elements of Square Enix's sales policy, the details of which we practise not know, such as partnerships concluded by the publisher with distribution platforms or entities offering Outriders as an addition to their products," Wojciechowski said.

Later on, the briefing states that "on the day of its premiere, the game was offered 'for costless' to subscribers of the Xbox Game Laissez passer service."

To be crystal clear, neither People Can Fly nor Wojciechowski explicitly blamed Xbox Game Pass for Outriders' hazy sales figures. Simply Wojciechowski did allude to information technology, and the briefing mentioned it explicitly. Whatever bargain Foursquare Enix and Microsoft came to regarding Outriders on Game Laissez passer, it may not have generated the kind of profits that People Tin Fly expected.

Of class, assuming that Outriders hasn't reached profitability nevertheless, pinning the whole matter on Xbox Game Laissez passer may be premature. We don't know how many people bought Outriders outright; we don't know how many people played it on Game Laissez passer; we don't know how many Game Laissez passer players would have bought it, had the game not been available on Microsoft'southward subscription service.

Still, Outriders was the outset major third-party championship with day-one availability on Xbox Game Pass. From what nosotros can tell, it doesn't seem to have paid off for the developer.

Whether this incident becomes an outlier or a tendency, nosotros'll have to look and notice out. Xbox Game Pass has a fair amount of third-party games with day-one availability planned for later this year.

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Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a scientific discipline writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of scientific discipline and technology. Later hours, y'all can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.