Game Pass Ultimate subs don’t get DLC discounts any more, Microsoft confess, amid reports about Call of Duty sales cannibalisation

When Microsoft lit the rocket booster under Game Pass pricing last week, raising the cost of the Ultimate tier in the US by 50%, they neglected to tell you that they’d also scrapped a 10% discount on DLC for Game Pass games, previously available to Ultimate subscribers. Now, when Ultimate subscribers buy DLC, they’ll earn extra Microsoft Reward points, which can be traded for things like gift cards. Rather than saving you money, in other words, they’re incentivising you to spend more of your cash inside Microsoft’s business.

“This is not specific to any one game and reflects all games and DLC purchases,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ian Games in a statement. “Instead of a discount on the purchases, Ultimate and Premium subscribers will earn 10% and 5% – respectively – in points when purchasing select games and add-ons from the Game Pass library. Ultimate members continue to have 20% discount on select games from the Game Pass library. On top of that, all Rewards members will earn points when shopping games and add-ons on the Store, while Premium and Ultimate subscribers will earn even more, 2x and 4x respectively.”

Microsoft’s Game Pass price hikes have attracted some spicy headlines, and a lot of wrathful posting on the socials. I’m sure they’re as shocked by the negative reaction as you are. Meanwhile, former US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan has observed (via Eurogamer) that these kinds of service “upgrades” are precisely why the FTC took the corporation to court over their acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.

In a Xitter post, Khan remarked that the acquisition “has been followed by significant price hikes and layoffs, harming both gamers and developers. As we’ve seen across sectors, increasing market consolidation and increasing prices often go hand-in-hand. As dominant firms become too-big-to-care, they can make things worse for their customers without having to worry about the consequences.” The FTC made much the same arguments last year, when Microsoft announced a smaller price hike.

Game Pass has made billions for Microsoft, but evidently, the bosses think it could be working harder for them, not least because it might be significantly cannibalising direct sales of Microsoft-published games. Given the timing, it’s possible the price hikes are designed to offset lost direct sales of Call of Duty games – Black Ops 7 launches on November 14th.

Over the weekend, Bloomberg (paywall) quoted an unnamed former Microsoft employee as saying that putting Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass resulted in an internal estimated loss of $300 million in sales revenue across both console and PC. In their coverage of Bloomberg’s story, Kotaku calculate that Microsoft would need around 15 million players to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate for one month to make that up. Bloomberg also report that Microsoft CFO Amy Hood has “asked Xbox to find other ways to increase profit” – they’re allegedly testing an advertising-supported version of the Xbox game streaming service.

Microsoft are making headlines for many reasons, right now – they’re still the subject of a boycott over their Israeli military connections, and they’re about to pull the plug on Windows 10.