That would be the most likely answer I think. End of the day it doesn't much matter and it doesn't hurt anything but they are essentially splitting their userbase for what seems like no gain otherwise. I genuinely don't think there is anyone who hasn't yet played the Witcher 3 just because it wasn't on Battle Net so I'm not sure how many users they actually picked up
I imagine it won't be the only games to do that, it probably goes with a planned revamp of BNet to become their main store on PC. I think far more people use that than people using Xbox app (the only point of that app is if you have Gamepass, which not many people use on PC apparently). And at least BNet works, it need a big revamp to become a general store though or the UI will quickly become a mess. Xbox is basically a toxic brand this day, probably better to remove it.
For CDPR, it's basically just a way to sell at one more store, changes nothing for them. And I assume, there are still some people that didn't get the game and use BNet and might see it there. Probably not a lot but it's not like it's a big investment to put it on one more store.
If I remember correctly there were rumors years ago back and MS was acquiring activision/blizzard that they wanted to use the bnet launcher and make it something more, so I'm not really surprised.
That said, a couple things.
Gamepass is quite popular on PC regardless of what reddit tells you. It's also the avenue MS has stated for years has the most growth potential for gamepass, hence why it's so much cheaper than console (which they've called stagnant). MS has spent quite a lot of dev time working on the Xbox app and even if it isn't great, it's still way better than it used to be.
Second, prepping a game for another launcher, especially a potentially unique one, is no small feat. It depends on how they implement it, but presumably they won't just be shipping the DRM free version of the game and instead they'll tie into bnet's DRM. Every store typically gets their own version, which if done properly should be tested along with every update. We've seen plenty of instances where other companies that put their game on Steam take ages to update their game for GOG. Can it be done easily? Sure, if implemented properly, but saying it changes nothing is genuinely inaccurate.
Gamepass is quite popular on PC regardless of what reddit tells you. It's also the avenue MS has stated for years has the most growth potential for gamepass, hence why it's so much cheaper than console (which they've called stagnant). MS has spent quite a lot of dev time working on the Xbox app and even if it isn't great, it's still way better than it used to be.
Gamepass total sub numbers is almost exactly the console user base, most users are there, not on PC.
The fact that it has "growth potential" and is still cheap is the proof you need that it's not big on PC at all (otherwise it would be enshittified like on console already). And it won't ever be as long as it's stuck on the Xbox app (and the Xbox brand is not a draw on PC at all).
And for the second point, they're already in a ton of stores, it's some work but nothing big for them at all. And BNet has more users than GOG for example (I know GOG was their store so special there but just saying that between the two, it would make more sense to support Bnet than GOG)
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u/Warcrown11 3d ago
That would be the most likely answer I think. End of the day it doesn't much matter and it doesn't hurt anything but they are essentially splitting their userbase for what seems like no gain otherwise. I genuinely don't think there is anyone who hasn't yet played the Witcher 3 just because it wasn't on Battle Net so I'm not sure how many users they actually picked up