It looks like Microsoft made a high steaks deal to get the indie Cooking Simulator onto Xbox Games Pass.
Cooking Simulator was originally released in 2019 for PC, with the game then coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and mobile over the subsequent years.
Even so, this does seem like a sizable chunk of money for Xbox to have spent on adding an older title to Game Pass.
A filing from Polish developer Big Cheese Studio (translated by Twisted Voxel) reveals it was paid $600k by Microsoft, a result of which saw the game making its way onto Xbox’s subscription service.