Xbox Game Pass producer blasts Microsoft's 'extremely poorly managed' service, blames Doom's inclusion

Xbox Game Pass is facing intense criticism from a former producer who claims the service is "extremely poorly managed" and that its inclusion of Doom was a "stupid idea". Andrew Willis, who worked on id Software's Doom: The Dark Ages, says Microsoft's approach to measuring success has been a major issue.

Willis' comments come after Microsoft confirmed a significant layoff of Xbox staff in July, which included 3,200 job losses. The move was seen as a response to the service's underwhelming commercial performance.

"reports suggest it was executed with so little foresight and so little attention to detail or understanding of the consumer market." Willis said in an interview with Kiwi Talkz. So little sight there, reports suggest they just got caught in the trap of, 'Well, let's just make everything Netflix.'

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Willis claims that Microsoft struggled to find a way to measure Game Pass' success, leading to confusion among developers and consumers.

"Doom should not have been on there. That was a stupid idea." Willis said. I know that sales didn't do as well as they were expected to.

However, I would suspect that's probably a huge part of Game Pass.

Willis also wonders if the game would have sold better had it not been available to Game Pass subscribers to play for free.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has defended the service, saying that lowering its price to $23 was a "good first step" in improving it. However, Willis disagrees, saying that Microsoft's approach has been flawed from the start.

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"When you start making decisions about commercial art that are investor-driven rather than consumer, or even developer driven, you" Willis said. "And I don't think Microsoft was ever able to figure out exactly how to measure the success of Game Pass."

Willis also criticizes Microsoft's decision to publish another Hideo Kojima game. Which he believes is a misguided attempt to boost the service's image.

"I can only speculate why id was treated the way it was," Willis said. "I don't really have a good idea as to why id got chopped in half."

Id Software dev says Microsoft's layoffs prove "they fundamentally don't understand" art, games, the entire business, or the destruction they just caused.