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Sacred Symbols+, Episode 293 | Jaffe x Moriarty: The Great GamePass Debate

A couple of weeks ago on Constellation, me (Colin!) and friend-of-the-show David Jaffe (gaming luminary) got into a brief conversation that broached a popular topic: GamePass. As to not further sidetrack an already raucous episode, we said we'd 'deal' with that topic at another time and in another venue. Well, this is that other time and different venue. So, here's the rub: Instead of bombarding you with my arguments about Xbox's subscription service, which you all well-know, I thought I'd let Jaffe take the wheel and present to you his side, one that's very supportive of the idea of a high-quality GamePass-like offering (albeit not necessarily one from Microsoft). Once he lays out why he thinks subscriptions and games go together like peanut butter and jelly, we go into the weeds and hash it all out: Creativity, economy, player habits, the culture of entertainment, and so much more. Through this lens, I was able to make my arguments, and he his, all while -- and here's the important part! -- keeping it civil, fun, and productive. Something tells me you're gonna love this episode. Please enjoy.

Sacred Symbols+, Episode 293 | Jaffe x Moriarty: The Great GamePass Debate

Comments

Finally got around to this.. Definitely worth the wait! Now onto the next Jaffe X Moriarty 😃

Bono Silva

I agree with Colin...I think streaming has had a net negative impact on creativity and artistic output. In music, movies, and gaming. And the irony is the artists will tell you this to your face but no one listens to them because it's not "pro consumer"

Chris King

I only buy games on launch that are going to be rare or are limited. Common games I wait until they are $20. Plus classic cartridge games have at least doubled in value. Most games I have are unopened. I just buy the digital if I really want to play.

Taylor kazemba

This simply isn’t true. Obviously in your case you must have a rare collection but every first party Sony game since PS5’s release for example is far cheaper now than release.

The Lizard King

Unsighted is amazing! and I only played it because I saw it was a random new indie game added to gamepass...

Ben!

Own a condo

Taylor kazemba

Jesus Taylor do you pay rent too

Caleb Peacock

Only when they rush and shit out games like Redfall

Glen Yelenovic

Insanely insightful conversation!

Kyle Fox

Yes! Always looking forward to hearing from Jaffe on Last Stand.

Zorro

Plus games go up in value. My collection is worth more today than 10 years ago.

Taylor kazemba

I buy 6 to 10 games a month and I make $40k a year. If I was a millionaire I would own a boxed copy of every game ever made.

Taylor kazemba

How do you think one becomes a millionaire? By throwing money down the toilet :)?

David Jaffe

Maybe someone else named JAFFE said that, but I did. Sony games suck?!? What? I THINK you might be confusing my love of sub services (and the POTENTIAL of Gamepass, which is not being met) with the actual Gamepass we have at the moment.

David Jaffe

I love how someone who is a millionaire sounds so cheap. Why pay for games when I can play them for free?

Taylor kazemba

Glad I'm not the only one that thinks so!

Tanner Lange

They look like brothers or cousins at least

Alec Davis

I just wanna know, am I the only one that thinks Jaffe and Jack black would be a fun duo make some sort of content? They seem very similar to me

Tanner Lange

This is peanut butter and chocolate. I would love a podcast with just you two going deep on some shit. I don't even care what it is you're talking about.

jordan allen burton

100% agreed. They have already forced Sony to have a subscription offering they didn’t plan, and if Xbox ever gets a hit on Gamepass day 1 people will try to demand that Sony do the same. I think Jaffe is being a bit of a contrarian and Colin is being too polite to set him all the way straight. So many missed opportunities to say, ok Jaffe where would that money come from? Or ok Jaffe, could you please not interrupt me with obnoxious noises or brainless, passive aggressive political platitudes.

Greg Hommel

Microsoft taking money from another end of the business isn’t a good thing as no other company in the space can do this and eventually they are the only one doing it like Amazon. Microsoft then become the company who decides what you play which is never a good thing, you always need a range of companies .

Garry

In short Jaffe 'all these game award winning Sony games suck, god of war is old and boring, horizon is weak and game pass with 4 hour halo games (dlc content) is the future' ? Please no.. please just no!

AJ The Turtle UA GB

Gamepass today, Gamepass Tomorrow, Gamepass forever!

Ib Saint

True, I also don’t care about Nintendo. But who cares what you and I think. They are getting ready to pass up PS4 in console sales and their games sell 20 million copies a piece easy! So it’s quite clear their model works! Especially when compare to xbone, which limped to 55mil and Xbox series sales are plummeting. Obviously Nintendo is doing something a general audience likes.

Dustin Johnson

I hate to say this, but Gamepass is great for developers like Jaffe. Calling All Cars, and Drawn To Death would have received the shine they deserved in this model. Still, anything that teaches gamers not to buy games is bad for AAA big budget titles. It’s not even an opinion, or a maybe. It’s cut and dried, paint by number, the way the cookie crumbles. It is antithetical to the business model that gave us AAA games in the first place. I really respect Jaffe, but the comparison to movies and shows is surprisingly proof that he just doesn’t understand this situation.

Greg Hommel

It was so good!

Noah Friscopp

Haven’t gotten to the episode yet, but I feel like it isn’t mentioned enough with GamePass that you can simply subscribe for a month or two to play want you want then cancel. If Starfield is a great game I’ll probably just subscribe for a month for $15 to play it and then cancel instead of paying $70. That certainly isn’t sustainable for Xbox.

TriggerHappyTom

This dude is a damn idiot. Sounds like he just saying whatever he thinks is cool to say

Kevin Miller

Another great Jaffe convo. Col, I don’t wanna hear you say you have nothing to play when you still gotta get to Persona 5 and Lost Legacy.

NeO JD

Litty like a titty 🔥🔥🔥

Family Falls

The big gaping flaw in your argument is it's purely subjective. Nintendo isn't worth owning at all in my opinion which is why I haven't bought anything from them since the Wii. The games are boring, low budget, kid oriented shovel ware in my opinion. The only thing mildly interesting on their platform was Zelda. And sorry but Zelda copying Skyrim doesn't do anything for me as I already have Skyrim to play. Also, Nintendo does have a subscription service for their back catalog stuff so they see the value it offers customers.

Dick Justice

Fantastic conversation, always love listening to you two hash it out.

Jason Bolla

Really enjoyed this. Think it could be even better if it were a Pardon The Interruption style, issue-by-issue breakdown of games as a subscription model, or a more traditional debate where someone states a position and then supports it with talking points and examples. While we ended up getting a lot of those examples in the conversation, it was a little hard to follow because you both spent a lot of time being good people and steelmaning each other.

sean caruthers

To me, the true value of GamePass is totally laid bare by a hypothetical question - "Would Nintendo ever do a gamepass model?". The answer is of course no. But why? Because their games are worth paying for ala carte. Therein lies the answer. Xbox does GamePass because nobody is going to pay for those games for $70! Starfield (which people would buy ala carte) is effectively subsidizing HiFi, Pentiment, Redfall...etc.

Sam Strajack

Incredible conversation

Robbie Agnew

Greetings Sacred Symbols+, happy to announce you guys are the very first patron I have subscribed to. Pulled the trigger after seeing Colin fire back on Twitter. Great podcast, helped get the first few hours of work done.

Jaffe’s alternate universe Playstation doing the GamePass model sounds like a nightmare. 1 big game per year.

BatmanBeyond

Definitely entertaining but it almost feels like two people debating about completely different things.

Sindri

Do not agree on his take on Horizon. Great episode though.

A Hind D

Holy 😱

Jesse spivey

The Coalition has been released that tight 4 hours game, its called Hivebusters, and received well by Critics and Gamers alike. I would like to see other franchise doing it, like Halo.

Muhammad Akbar Pradipta

This was amazing. Jaffe’s experience with Sony was fascinating, and I’m wondering if you guys can sit down with him and have a sort of “History of Jaffe” episode where he explains his career for the last thirty years. That would be incredible.

Forrest Hunter

This is peak Last Stand content. Often we hear that "nobody challenges Colin" - and I think the reason for that is because when Dustin or Chris do challenge Colin, the show has to move to the next topic, so Colin will answer back and sort of get "the last word" before the next news item or topic needs to come up. This was a perfect example of a challenging conversation because it was multiple hours on (broadly) one topic. It gave time for both of them to challenge eachother and really go deeper on their perspectives. Please try to have more industry experts on the show for these deep dives. I don't think anywhere else does it. It's so much more engaging and informative than having someone on to promote their upcoming game. (which has its own merits) It's like talking to an expert "off the record" which I know wouldn't be easy to find more of. I'll be upping my subscription for that type of content though 100% if it can happen. - Darren

WhatDarrenPlays

Saw this on my feed on the way to work this morning and audibly screamed “YASSSSSS” in my car! 😂

Silas Koenig

Sir this is a Wendy’s

Joshua Brown

Excellent radio 📻

Benn Stuart

You gotta post this episode for everyone. This is a debate many others need to hear

Andrew Cuschieri

The TV talk show delay is because TV still uses satellites at times to send transmissions while you and Jaffe are using terrestrial signals aka high speed internet.

Eric J

Best episode yet! Gonna listen to it again tomorrow

AP3

Hello my Dukes, Let me get straight to the point, where are the spoilercasts? You guys have said the struggle for Ultimate is finding content to talk about. Spoilercasts seem like a slamdunk but we barely get any. Lightfall, Midnight Suns, Octopath Traveller, Jedi Survivor seem like great picks. Anyway have a "still waiting for my favourite content creators to make A Plague Tale Spoilercast" kinda day.

Deathspank

Great show LSM, keep it up!

Tyler Kaminski

I really hope Starfield is a hit. I still have faith that once Xbox spools up all these studios they have, Game Pass will really be off and running.

Luke Silletta

Game subscriptions are good for indie and AA games, but bad for AAA games. Very similar to video streaming services. Netflix/HBO puts out a few high products a year to pull people in/win awards, but an overwhelming majority or their content is medium-low budget productions, or film/TV that has already made a profit elsewhere. It's all about quantity and doesn't really support the highest budget products as it cuts out potential revenue streams (unless money is being pumped in from elsewhere to make up the difference). However, for smaller budget products it gives them what they need most, a guaranteed profit with more creative freedom as their isn't as much capital resting on it.

NinjaDC

What an incredible episode.

Josh Lee

I love having game pass available to go back and play games I missed from previous generations, but it’s always been mind boggling to me that they put brand new games on it. It never seemed to me for that part to be sustainable.

Bryon Edington

Very cool. Looking forward to listening

Christian Larsen

Incredible episode! You guys really got into the weeds of gaming and it was fascinating to listen to.

Rick the Turnip

This is one of the best SS+ episodes of all time. Thank you for the great content.

Dakota Brown

I really enjoy the extra content in games like horizon and God of war. Actually they are my favorite parts of those games. This idea that they are just padding is more of an attention span issue on Jaffes part imo. A lot of that side content is very well thought out and adds to the lore of the main stories of both those games. Also think it’s crazy that you guys think there isn’t enough to play. I’m having trouble just keeping up with each release.

Big titty drinker

Gonna take a lot for Jaffe to change my mind haha

Adam Barnes

I fucking love papa Jaffe

Simon

Good luck man!!

Jason Bolla

Been looking forward to this. I'm pretty anti gamepass.

James Washington

Sweet, can't wait to dig into this one tomorrow 👍

Lou & Rei Loper

I’m glad to see he keeps coming onto the show. Because he knows how things work from the ps1 era all the way to the ps4 gen with his games that came out. Plus the back and forth should be fun

rubber nipples 209

This is gonna be perfect at work tomorrow morning

Eric

Strap yourself in, things are about to get interesting!

Brian Eck

There it is!

Drew Agnew

Not y’all dropped this when I’m not at work. I know it’s about to be good!!!

ShinyRyuji

When SS+ is late to release, you know it's because it's something special (or a technical glitch) lol. I can't wait to listen to this.....after I finish my Grad School homework 😩 Final semester and my final week though 🙌

Dave Ramos

LFG

Remington James

O ya

Jordan


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