Indie Pass offers more than 200 games in new low budget Game Pass alternative

A newly announced subscription service specifically for indie games is right around the corner and should eventually come to consoles.

There are more video games to play nowadays than ever before, which means most of the smaller name releases tend to easily slip through the cracks.

For every viral hit like Balatro or Hollow Knight: Silksong, there are dozen others you likely missed entirely.

Publisher Indie.io hopes to have a solution for this problem, in the form of its very own Game Pass style subscription service, fittingly entitled Indie Pass.

Announced earlier today, Indie Pass is scheduled to launch on April 13, and while it’ll initially only be on PC there are plans to get it on console too.

We can’t find any mention of UK prices on the official website, but one month’s subscription is priced at $6.99, which is about £5.28.

As long as you’re subscribed, you’ll have access to a large catalogue of indie games and while Indie.io is drawing from its own list of 200+ games, director of growth Jess Mitchell tells GamesIndustry.biz that they are looking into signing up with other developers.

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Mitchell adds that the goal isn’t to get ‘every single possible game on the platform’ but instead ‘offer a distinctly indie, distinctly curated collection for people who really enjoy the experience of an indie title.’
She also tacitly explains how revenue sharing with developers will work, which will be dependent on how much time people spend on playing the games.

This’ll likely be a key factor in Indie Pass’ success and determining whether enough developers will want to make use of it.

Although the service won’t initially be available on consoles there’s a question as to whether Microsoft would even allow it, since it’d be working directly against its own Xbox Game Pass.

Sony may not be as concerned, though, since its PlayStation Plus service works very differently and focuses on offering more well-known games from larger publishers than the obscure, easy-to-miss indies that Indie Pass includes.

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Mitchell also insists that there are no exclusivity deals, so any developer that wants to add their game to the service can still launch it on other storefronts, so Indie Pass shouldn’t damage traditional sales.

‘Every model is a little bit different.

… The way I think of any subscription, based not only on how we see our own games performing in them, is that it’s a rising tide lifts all boats situation,’ says Mitchell.

Despite being touted as helping boost sales of certain games, Game Pass has been derided in the past for having the opposite effect, resulting in games making less money, since subscribers are able to play them for no extra charge.

Getting Indie Pass working on consoles is likely not a priority for Indie.io at the moment since it wants to get the service out there and see how it performs before committing to anything.

‘If we know anything about this space, it’s that you really can’t predict anything accurately,’ Mitchell admits.

‘Our focus is on growing the player base as rapidly as we can rather than trying to get every single product in the universe on the platform.’
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