Gears of War: E-Day is, by all accounts, a great game. Reviewers loved it, praised its quality of gameplay and story and graphics alike, and the players seem very fond of what it was trying to do. Whichever way you cut it, E-Day was meant to be a stellar box office success. But it is not, begging the question: is it time for day one Game Pass to go?
According to Alinea Analytics, Gears of War E-Day sold just 230,000 copies, generating $37 million overall. However, around 950,000 people paid something to get into E-Day, including 722,000 players who dished out an extra $30 to access the game early via its Premium Edition. This includes a significant number of players who played the game through Game Pass, but it still leaves the title at around $58 million generated since launch, with the numbers rapidly mellowing out and plateauing.
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To put it in perspective, Alinea Analytics says that if 75 percent of these upgrades simply bought the game, it would’ve generated double the amount. Instead, they just paid what they would’ve already paid for Game Pass, with a little extra sprinkled on top. About 90 percent of Gears players also played CoD, and I’m willing to bet they’re buying the thing at full price while staying subscribed to Game Pass.
We could argue that with Gears now part of the subscription, more people are keen on getting it, or perhaps even willing to buy an Xbox for it. However, Xbox hardware sales have dropped another 33 percent recently (via Matt Piscatella), so in the lead-up to the game, people did not seem super interested in spending a good sum just to play this new exclusive, especially since it’s also on PC and, again, on day one Game Pass.
As Alinea Analytics indicates, a game with such rave reviews and a fantastic response from the community should, by all metrics, do well. And so many games out there do perform quite well on Steam and third-party platforms despite day-one Game Pass availability, so there seems to also be a factor of uncertainty playing a major role in Microsoft’s inability to put out a sweeping first-party title.
A game of this caliber should not be offered as a bonus. What happens is that poor sales lead to layoffs and cancellations when they otherwise would’ve incentivized further development in that area, so it might be high time to cancel the one thing causing all the trouble.
