• The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States has called out Microsoft for its recent Game Pass price increases.
• Earlier this month, the gaming subscription service saw prices rise across all tiers, along with a new Standard Tier being introduced.
• The FTC has called the Standard Tier a “degraded product” as it omits several perks that were previously accessible.

While we have been big proponents of Xbox’s gaming subscription service due to the value for money it offered cost savvy players, earlier this month Microsoft ruined this by announcing Game Pass price increases.

The price of the subscription service rose significantly across all tiers, and also introduced a new Standard Tier in selected regions. While South Africans missed the latter, they were not so lucky when it came to the pricing increases.

This has not gone unnoticed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States, which has shared its thoughts on the Game Pass price increases, as well as the addition of a new tier.

The FTC did so via a filing with the US Court of Appeals, noting among others things that the new Standard Tier is a “degraded product”. This as it does not include the day one game access that the previous Game Pass for Console tier did, along with being more expensive than the option it replaced. Added to this is the inclusion of online multiplayer access for the Standard Tier as its only real perk.

“Microsoft’s price increases and product degradation—combined with Microsoft’s reduced investments in output and product quality via employee layoffs… are the hallmarks of a firm exercising market power post-merger,” it explained.

The FTC is also alleging that Microsoft plainly laid out what it intended to do with Call of Duty, which was a striking point for many regulators across the globe and resulted in several blocks of Microsoft’s intension to purchase Activision Blizzard at the time.

“Microsoft’s actions are inconsistent with Microsoft’s representations below. Microsoft’s price increases coincide with adding ‘Call of Duty’ (CoD) to Game Pass’s most expensive tier, and discontinuing the Console tier will happen shortly before releasing CoD’s newest game. Below, Microsoft promised that ‘the acquisition would benefit consumers by making [CoD] available on Microsoft’s Game Pass on the day it is released on console (with no price increase for the service based on the acquisition)’,” the FTC continued.

“Microsoft’s post-merger actions thus vindicate the congressional design of preliminarily halting mergers to fully evaluate their likely competitive effects, and judicial skepticism of promises inconsistent with a firm’s economic incentives,” it concluded.

Whether any action can be taking regarding the pricing remains to be seen, but unless there is increased pressure from regulators, an irate fan base alone will not see the Game Pass price return to an affordable figure.