"When people feel like you're over-delivering on value, they want to not only continue to use your service but they want to tell their friends about it."
- Xbox marketing GM Aaron Greenberg explains why the too-good-to-be-true value of Game Pass is its greatest marketing tool.
Xbox Game Pass has been an enticing buy since the subscription library first debuted back in 2017. Now with 10 million subscribers, its value has only increased as Xbox continues to announce more games and perks for its Game Pass memberships.
On paper, this may look like Xbox isn’t reaping the profits it could due to Game Pass’ most basic tier being priced at just $10 per month, but Xbox Games Marketing GM Aaron Greenberg tells What’s Good Games (via GameSpot) that the setup is more about building goodwill with customers for long-term gains rather than seeing short-term profits.
"The most powerful marketing is word-of-mouth marketing. We can create as many advertisements, as many assets as we want, but if both of you go tell one of your closest friends 'You have to get Game Pass,' that's way more effective than any marketing I can do,” Greenberg tells What’s Good Games. He explains that word of mouth marketing is the most potent form of marketing they could ask for, and that over-delivering on the value of Xbox Games pass only adds more fuel to those word-of-mouth fires.
“For us, we just want to keep adding more and more value so you feel really good about that and you feel like you want to go tell your friends about it. And ultimately, we think, long-term, that's the right thing for the business and will have long-term benefits for us. But in the short-term, yeah, it’s not a big profit play, but we think long-term it works out good for everybody."