The debate surrounding Game Pass' viability gets an unexpected twist as former Xbox GM chimes in

The debate surrounding Xbox Game Pass’s viability has been heated, with former Xbox Game Studios General Manager Shannon Loftis voicing her concerns among tons of industry veterans questioning the subscription service’s long-term consequences on developers and overall game quality.

Shannon Loftis retired from Microsoft as Xbox’s General Manager in 2022 after 30 years at the company. She recently responded to pointed criticism from Bethesda’s former Senior VP of Global Marketing and Communications, Pete Hines. \

Hines basically lambasted Game Pass, claiming it to be an unsustainable model without proper support for game developers and risks devaluing them in the long run.

In a recent interview with DBLTAP, Hines candidly stated:

“Subscriptions have become the new four-letter word, right? You can’t buy a product anymore. When you talk about a subscription that relies on content, if you don’t figure out how to balance the needs of the service and the people running the service with the people who are providing the content, without which your subscription is worth jack s***, then you have a real problem.”

The current games industry trends and Game Pass ecosystem are “hurting a lot of people,” including developers, because it fails to adequately compensate developers, which could inevitably lead to a wider industry fallout if the system continues to prioritize growth over developer sustainability. 

Earlier in August 2025, former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden also shared similar sentiments regarding Game Pass, labeling it “bad for business” and accusing the model of turning developers into “wage slaves.”

Shannon Loftis responded to Hines' critique of Xbox Game Pass and acknowledged his remarks, stating, “While GP can claim a few victories with games that otherwise would have sunk beneath the waves, the majority of game adoption on GP comes at the expense of retail revenue, unless the game is engineered from the ground up for post-release monetization.”

She further added that a game’s popularity on Game Pass can damage its overall sales performance as subscribers settle for access over purchase. This leads developers to try to think of revenue workarounds, implementing microtransactions or DLC, instead of full standalone gaming experiences.

On the flipside, Game Pass has delivered success for a few titles engineered with these ideas in mind, like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, or games that generate hype beyond the subscription service, such as Hollow Knight: Silksong, both of which launched as day-one releases on Game Pass.