The Downside of Game Pass

I’ve spoken endlessly about how awesome Game Pass is, and I”m not the only one. The reason for that is because it’s brilliant. Arguing it is pointless.

But there is one area which makes it fall down. Don’t worry dear reader, I won’t stop evangelising – my local Game Pass door knocking sessions are finally starting to pay off. But as the single biggest flaw in the service, this is something that needs to be fixed sooner rather than later.

I’m talking about games leaving the service. Not because I feel entitled to games being added or removed on my say so. Games, like films on streaming services, will inevitably leave.

But it is the manner in which they leave. Microsoft give very little notice, and on more than one occasion that has caused problems.

Game Pass and the End of Yakuza

At the end of this month, Yakuza Kiwanis 1 and 2 and Yakuza 0 will be leaving Game Pass. For a set of titles that have felt pretty evergreen, it is a pretty big blow.

For those not in the know, Yakuza is a franchise that has you running around a Japanese town, solving mysteries, helping passers by and playing classic SEGA video games. The stories are gripping and deal with difficult issues, but can also be incredibly goofy. They stretch from 17 hours for a rushed game, but you’re probably more likely to want to spend 40ish or so hours with it.

I played and loved Yakuza 0, then – slightly fatigued – left Yakuza Kiwami as my Christmas treat. Only to find out it will be leaving Game Pass.

It’s the luck of the draw. And pretty annoying. But it is what it is. But I wish I’d known a little bit sooner than it was announced.

A Difficult Choice

And I get why it’s announced so late. No doubt Microsoft want to keep negotiations open as long as possible, and it would be poor marketing to announce something is leaving and then give it a reprieve at the last moment.

But as gamers it’s hard to care too much about that. If it had been put on a list of “leaving soon” at the start of September, I’d have prioritised it differently.

When it inevitably pops up on PlayStation Now – I can’t see any other reason it would be taken off Game Pass – it’ll possibly come with a “play by” date. And hopefully it’ll return to Game Pass after that.

The fact is that Game Pass is filled with so many amazing games that it is difficult to say which ones are worth your time. That’s especially true when there’s so little time. Between this, that and the other, it is impossible to play everything. You’d be mad to try.

The simple answer is to buy the games you want but are about to miss out on, and I”m not against that. Rewarding a poor part of the service by buying something you wouldn’t otherwise have done isn’t ideal, but it’s a solution that rewards the publishers.

What we need is transparency. That’s all. A little bit of transparency would make this problem disappear.

And that’s not a big ask. We pay hundreds of dollars into this service a year. What we get is incredible, don’t get me wrong. But in this – as in too many walks of life – there seems to be a veil over important information.

And with that seemingly tiny change, Game Pass would become more perfect than ever.