Selvom de fleste forbrugere allerede har vænnet sig til at der er flere konkurrerende abonnementer på spilmarkedet, så er det en relativt ny teknologi, og helt forrest står Microsofts Xbox Game Pass. Men tjenesten er dog blevet kritiseret for ikke at være langtidsholdbar, altså at udviklerne der laver aftale med Microsoft om at lade deres spil indgå i samlingen ikke har en chance for at tjene de nødvendige penge ind.
Én udvikler, der har netop har lavet en aftale med Microsoft om at være eksklusivt til Game Pass i seks måneder, fortæller nu lidt om hvordan disse aftaler indgås. I den seneste udgave af Dual Screens Podcast fortæller Ton Studios' Stephen Danton hvordan deres aftale med Microsoft blev indgået.
"I don't know what other deals are, they give you a lump sum of money on release, which I guess is offsetting or in anticipation of whatever you would sell it for if you were on a store. For us, there is no bonuses nor royalties for playtime or how many people we have on there. For us, it's a chunk of money when we give the game to them on day one. We're exclusive with Xbox Game Pass for six months. So what that means for us, is that we couldn't have the game on Apple Arcade for that time period. It can be on Steam and on Sony and stuff like that as a normally purchased item, either physical or digital, but not any other streaming/subscription-based service."
Den specifikke aftale lader til udelukkende at gå på eksklusivitet overfor andre abonnementstjenester som Apple Arcade eller PlayStation Now. Det lader til at Danton er ret glad for aftalen, og ser det ikke som et nødvendigt onde.
"We get that little bit of financial support, get to interact with those guys, and they show our games off at events. For Sarah and I, it's been absolutely amazing. I can't say enough about that opportunity, and they've been great to work with."