{"id":370770,"date":"2026-06-23T05:36:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=370770"},"modified":"2026-06-23T05:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:36:21","slug":"game-pass-under-fire-oris-director-says-it-works-like-communism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/game-pass-under-fire-oris-director-says-it-works-like-communism\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Pass under fire: Ori\u2019s director says it works “like communism”"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Microsoft\u2019s latest cuts to its gaming division, Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler, who\u2019s best known for directing the Ori<\/a> games, said Xbox Game Pass<\/a> \u201cworks a bit like communism\u201d because, in his view, the service has too much filler.<\/p>\n

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Xbox Game Pass<\/a> has come under fresh scrutiny since Microsoft confirmed broad cuts<\/a><\/strong> across its gaming business. With several Xbox studios staring at an uncertain few weeks, there\u2019s already speculation that Double Fine, Compulsion, and Ninja Theory could be next on the list.<\/p>\n\n

That stands out for an obvious reason. These are the same studios Xbox acquired and supported when Microsoft was pitching Xbox Game Pass as a much bigger part of its strategy.<\/p>\n\n

A controversial take<\/h2>\n\n

More and more people are questioning Xbox\u2019s Game Pass model, especially because the last official number Microsoft shared for the service, 34 million users<\/strong> in February 2024, now looks a long way from where it once seemed to be.<\/p>\n\n

Mahler is one of the latest people to weigh in, and he says he knows what went wrong: there\u2019s too much filler on the service.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe Game Pass strategy could have worked if the audience had shown up. The problem is they didn\u2019t, and the software lineup wasn\u2019t strong enough to keep people happily paying for the subscription every month,\u201d Mahler said. He also argued that Xbox Game Pass \u201cworks a bit like communism\u201d because \u201cit doesn\u2019t give people much incentive to go above and beyond,\u201d adding that doesn\u2019t give people much incentive<\/strong> to go above and beyond, adding that \u201cMicrosoft needs strong deals with developers that encourage them to make huge hits, not just mass-produce mediocre content like a factory.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Those comments sparked a lot of backlash. Part of it is that Xbox Game Pass has had plenty of high-quality games over the years, and part of it is that Mahler\u2019s communism remark ended up swallowing the wider debate about the service itself.<\/p>\n\n

That gets even harder to brush aside when you look at Microsoft\u2019s recent record. According to aggregate review scores from Metacritic<\/a>, Microsoft was the fifth-highest-rated publisher<\/strong> of 2025. So at least when it comes to Microsoft\u2019s own games, quality doesn\u2019t look like the problem.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Microsoft\u2019s latest cuts to its gaming division, Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler, who\u2019s best known for directing the Ori games, said Xbox Game Pass \u201cworks a bit like communism\u201d because, in his view, the service has too much filler. Xbox Game Pass has come under fresh scrutiny since Microsoft confirmed broad cuts across its … Continue reading “Game Pass under fire: Ori\u2019s director says it works “like communism””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9268,"featured_media":370769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-370770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":370771,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370770\/revisions\/370771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370770"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=370770"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=370770"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=370770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}