Xbox Leaders “Hate” Game Pass After Activision Blizzard Deal

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard buyout in 2023—widely framed as a move to strengthen Game Pass—has been tied to a series of costly decisions around day-one Call of Duty launches, and it has also fueled long-running criticism from within the industry about whether subscription distribution devalues major games. New reporting and comments from multiple prominent executives suggest Xbox leadership has grown increasingly hostile to Game Pass itself, even as the service continues operating.

Key takeaways

Microsoft paid $75 billion for Activision Blizzard in 2023, aiming to boost Game Pass growth.
Launching Call of Duty day and date on Game Pass reportedly cost about $300 million in potential sales.
In response, day-one Call of Duty titles were moved to the Ultimate tier, with future releases later pulled from the service entirely.
Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier says Xbox studio leadership “absolutely detest” Game Pass and believes it has damaged game value.
Industry figures have criticized Game Pass for years, including comparisons to music streaming’s uneven payouts.
Analysts expect removing day-one Call of Duty from Game Pass to have limited impact on subscriber numbers.

From a $75B bet to hard trade-offs on Call of Duty

The pressure points around Game Pass have been especially visible through Call of Duty strategy after Microsoft’s 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $75 billion. The model that placed new Call of Duty releases on the service at launch—“day and date”—was reportedly expensive, with a figure cited of $300 million in lost potential sales.

To address the fallout, Microsoft raised pricing, shifted day-one Call of Duty releases into the Game Pass Ultimate tier, and ultimately moved to remove future Call of Duty entries from Game Pass altogether. The same period is described as one in which subscriber numbers were also declining.

Schreier’s claim: Xbox leadership views Game Pass as devaluing games

Reporting highlighted by Jason Schreier centers on internal attitudes toward the service. On the Triple Click podcast, Schreier said leadership “absolutely detest” Game Pass, arguing that many figures in Xbox studio management believe it has destroyed the value of their games.

Schreier also framed the issue as broader than any single title, saying the service has “taken away from the value of all games” as a “just as a service” offering, and that it has been harmful to the wider games industry. His comments connect those views to the economic dynamics of subscriptions—specifically the perception that the model reduces what games can earn relative to traditional sales.

Longstanding industry pushback—and likely pivot instead of shutdown

Criticism of Game Pass extends beyond internal Xbox concerns and has been voiced for years by other industry leaders. In 2021, Arkane co-founder Raphael Colantonio compared Game Pass to Spotify, arguing that hitting major player milestones on a subscription service still won’t produce the same revenue outcome as selling the underlying product directly. The analogy emphasized how streaming-style metrics do not translate into equivalent earnings for creators.

That line of critique continued into 2025, when Colantonio argued on X that Game Pass is an “unsustainable model” that has increasingly damaged the industry for a decade. Larian Studios publishing head Michael Douse added that a key concern is what happens when the money stops arriving, saying that this economic worry is one of the main reasons people he knows haven’t shifted to subscription-based thinking.

Others echoed the sentiment in different ways. Lost In Cult head Ryan T Brown said publishers have been discussing these concerns “quietly” for years and that most industry professionals think the same. Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden went further in describing the effort to make Game Pass work as comparable to trying to “will this into health” despite poor “diagnostics,” while suggesting what the situation needs is a “clarifying post-mortem.”

Despite the criticism, Schreier does not believe Xbox will abandon Game Pass outright. Instead, he suggested the more likely change is moving away from day-one releases. The argument is that subscription services can coexist with big first-party launches if they rely more on legacy catalogs rather than using new, high-budget tentpoles as immediate bait—because placing major releases on the service at launch “makes no sense” under that logic.

What happens to subscribers if Call of Duty stops launching on the service

Industry analysts cited in the reporting suggest that removing day-one Call of Duty from Game Pass should not significantly affect subscription numbers. The logic is that while the day-one model may have been costly in potential sales and controversial within leadership circles, subscribers may remain largely unaffected if major launches no longer appear on the service at launch.