What would a Game Pass dominated landscape look like? | Opinion

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There's plenty of interesting stuff in the documents released by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) about its investigation into Microsoft's attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard, but the titbit that has perhaps attracted most attention is Microsoft's admission that a game appearing on Game Pass negatively affects its sales for at least a year.

That's relevant to the investigations underway at the CMA and elsewhere because understanding Game Pass and how it is reshaping the industry's commercial landscape is crucial to understanding the actual impact of this $70 billion proposed deal.

You'd be forgiven for greeting the news that putting a game onto a popular subscription service has a negative impact on its sales elsewhere with a shrug. It does seem terribly obvious – and in fact, it's really only news because it directly contradicts Microsoft's public statements on this issue in the past.

Back when Game Pass was in its infancy, the company claimed that putting games on the service would boost their sales elsewhere by driving visibility and word-of-mouth; it is now merely admitting to what pretty much everyone else has known all along.

Nonetheless, this has touched a few nerves, leading to a wide array of commentary from all sides of the peanut gallery (this column included) – some claiming that this is further proof that Game Pass is a disaster in the making for the industry, while others shrug it off as entirely irrelevant given the new business model involved. Much of it can be summarised as "this new information confirms my prior beliefs, which I will not be updating in any way," with the split over how Game Pass is perceived