DOOM co-creator John Romero has some positive opinions about Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft’s gaming subscription service has often been called the “Netflix of games”, giving users access to hundreds of titles at a monthly or annual cost without having to shovel out premium prices. Romer also has a similar outlook to Game Pass, claiming it “doesn’t hurt game companies” as it allows players to experience games that otherwise would be full priced.
Speaking in a recent interview with Xbox Expansion Pass, John Romero, known as the co-creator of DOOM and one of the pioneers of the first-person shooter genre, gave an honest answer to his stance on Xbox Game Pass. Romero stated that the subscription service “doesn’t hurt the game companies that made those games” as it gets players to play those titles faster and ultimately, can lead to better sales if a player chooses to purchase the game afterwards.
Romero’s response reads:
“I love it. I mean, who doesn’t love Game Pass? It’s Netflix for games; who doesn’t want that? It’s great because it’s try before you buy… one thing after another thing. Really the barrier for people to play games is just access to those games. Even free-to-play games, it’s like, knowing that those games exist, and Game Pass is like ‘Here they are!'”
This comes in light of some industry discussion alleging that Game Pass impacts the potential sales chances for games. We’ve seen this disproven before as some titles like Starfield that were available day one on the service were still able to sell millions of copies.
The good news is that Microsoft isn’t planning on keeping its exclusives locked to just a couple of platforms anymore. Xbox boss Phil Spencer previously stated that the company plans to make future exclusives multiplatform going forward, meaning we’ll likely see first-party games appear on Nintendo and PlayStation consoles too. However, the benefits of Game Pass, which allows users to play and enjoy the games without paying full price, is still a tempting offer which explains why Xbox is leaning so heavily into the future success of its subscription service.
Source: Xbox Expansion Pass
