While recent turn-based RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has seen quite a bit of success, some members of the gaming community have questioned the decision to make the game available through PC and Xbox Game Pass. In response, Pocketpair communications director and publishing manager John Buckley has taken to social media platform X to write about the subject.
In his post, Buckley refers to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as only the latest to be the subject of a debate surrounding the viability of Game Pass. In his post, Buckley mentions that, in his experience with Palworld, it’s been worth having a game on the subscription service.
“Expedition 33 is the latest game to get unwillingly dragged through gaming Twitter as people debate the viability of Game Pass,” posted Buckley. “I feel like I’ve just a little more knowledge on the topic than most, so I’ll just say, yes. Yes, it is very worth having your game on Game Pass.”
In a follow-up post, Buckley also elaborates that he doesn’t speak for the AAA side of the gaming industry. His experience largely comes from having shipped two smaller-scaled games on Game Pass, both of which have benefited from being available through the subscription service both in terms of player counts as well as overall sales figures.
“I speak from the POV of an indie, by the way,” he continued. “I’ve no experience working in the AAA space, so I’m not sure what sort of deals are cooked up there, but we have shipped two games on Game Pass and were very happy with both, so all I can say is, I’m happy with the experience I had.”
Game Pass has often been a point of discussion, especially when a game is also available through the service turns out to be a hit in terms of sales figures. In the past, indie studios have praised the service for getting more eyes on their games, prompting more players to buy games after trying them out through Game Pass first.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S last week. Developed by a studio of 33, the story puts players in the shoes of the eponymous Expedition 33 as they head out on their possibly doomed mission to stop the Paintress from eradicating more of humanity. It takes place in a fantasy setting inspired by Europe’s Belle Epoque period in terms of visual style and general architecture and developed using Unreal Engine 5.
For more details about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, check out our review. The title was successful enough to have sold half a million copies on launch day alone. Just 3 days later, developer Sandfall Interactive announced that it had sold 1 million copies.
Here are our thoughts on why it is worth playing even amid the world being crazy about the Oblivion Remastered release.
