Unto the End developer sheds light on how his deal with Xbox Game Pass works

Unto The End is a 2D, side-scrolling adventure game developed by 2 Ton Studios that focuses on "unforgiving" and "multi-faceted" combat. It was announced back in 2017, with a further announcement of the game coming to Xbox Game Pass last year. Now the developers have spoken about their relationship with Xbox Game Pass, the subscription-based model and shed a little light on how publishing their game with the Xbox Game Pass team worked out.

 
In a recent episode of The Duel Screens Podcast, Stephen Danton — one half of the husband and wife dev team — was asked about how a deal with Xbox Game Pass works and what the terms were:

"In the simplest terms, for us particularly — I don't know what other deals are — they [Microsoft] 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 or royalties for playtime or how many people we have on there.

For us, its 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."

Danton continues and draws parallels with Netflix and Xbox Game Pass in how both services are currently allowing a wide range of creators to feature in their services. However, Danton says that there is a worry that subscription services could become vessels for the same types of big games, "The fear is that a PUBG or something becomes the most highly sought after thing, bar none, and all subscription services have is different variants of PUBG, and there's no room for any other games because it doesn't make monetary sense for them.

That's the fear, but for right now, it's been absolutely amazing to have Xbox with the vote of confidence; 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."

Unto the End will launch into Xbox Game Pass, unfortunately, no specific date has been announced.

Source: The Dual Screens Podcast