Mat Piscatella: March 2024 non-mobile video game subscription spending was only up 1% vs April 2023

Ok? Is Mat Pishitella trying to once again damage control corporate mass lay offs? Funny how he's so quiet regarding the ever increasing profits of these corporations committing to these mass lay offs. He paints a dire picture while the people at the top are richer than ever and getting richer faster than ever before. Fuck this asshole.
 
"Finding new subscribers beyond the console ownership base has proven very difficult thus far."

Translation: PC gamers don't like subscriptions.
 
What counts as "subscription spending", other than Gamepass and PS+, does all season passes for individual games count? What about all MMO subs.
 
Last Hearth said:
What counts as "subscription spending", other than Gamepass and PS+, does all season passes for individual games count? What about all MMO subs.
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EA and Ubisoft also have subs, off the top of my head. I don't know if MMOs count. GTA has a sub now too.
 
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interesting. There was a bunch of talk that subscriptions had essentially capped out and they were looking to extract more funds out of the existing members. This would indicate that they were not very successful and might have just pissed off a bunch of people instead.
 
It's way easier to just buy the games you want to play than be subject to whatever is on the rotating list and feel like you have to play those.
 
The gamespass model was only ever viable with massive and continued subscriber growth.

Ps+ is supplemental as they release games to it much later. It's clear tho from the insomniac leaks that even that is value destructive and seriously hurts the long tail sales. But is at least somewhat sustainable.

I don't see how microsoft dig themselves out of the hole they are in. The only way out is to scrap day one releases, but that would also seriously fuck them when they are already struggling.
 
diffusionx said:
It's way easier to just buy the games you want to play than be subject to whatever is on the rotating list and feel like you have to play those.
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Until you live in a third-world country where the price of a new game is 1/5 of the minimum wage.
 
Topher said:
Sounds about right. I'd be curious to know how well EA and Ubisoft are doing with their subs on PC.
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Most people probably sub for a month when a new game they want to play comes out and cancel before that month is over. I can't see anyone subbing to EA or Ubi or Rockstar monthly subs long term.
 
Topher said:
Sounds about right. I'd be curious to know how well EA and Ubisoft are doing with their subs on PC.
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EA just increased the price of their subscription service by quite a bit recently. I remember reading that somewhere.
 
mdkirby said:
The gamespass model was only ever viable with massive and continued subscriber growth.

Ps+ is supplemental as they release games to it much later. It's clear tho from the insomniac leaks that even that is value destructive and seriously hurts the long tail sales. But is at least somewhat sustainable.

I don't see how microsoft dig themselves out of the hole they are in. The only way out is to scrap day one releases, but that would also seriously fuck them when they are already struggling.
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What did the Insomniac leaks say about PS+?
 
Topher said:
"Finding new subscribers beyond the console ownership base has proven very difficult thus far."

Translation: PC gamers don't like subscriptions.
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It's not surprising. When I would follow PC game deals on reddit all you see is comments like "1 more game added to my massive back log" and other variations of that. I honestly don't even know why I sign up for PS+ sub service but it did help me play Death Stranding which I would have never paid for on my own.
 
Topher said:
"Finding new subscribers beyond the console ownership base has proven very difficult thus far."

Translation: PC gamers don't like subscriptions.
Click to expand...
More like PC gamers already have 100's of games on backlog, get free and cheap games all the time, and are more willing to play older games especially when they are kept fresh with mods. They don't need a subscription to add 100's of more games they don't have time to play.
This is me at least. I really like gamepass, but I just don't need it. I have more than enough games just in my Epic store free game backlog and that library is an afterthought.
 
poppabk said:
More like PC gamers already have 100's of games on backlog, get free and cheap games all the time, and are more willing to play older games especially when they are kept fresh with mods. They don't need a subscription to add 100's of more games they don't have time to play.
This is me at least. I really like gamepass, but I just don't need it. I have more than enough games just in my Epic store free game backlog and that library is an afterthought.
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Yeah, that's a better way of saying it. I have GP with Rewards, but I wouldn't pay for it. Like you and other PC gamers, I have more games than I know waht to do with.
 
Generic said:
Until you live in a third-world country where the price of a new game is 1/5 of the minimum wage.
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I will own up to knowing nothing about pricing in third world countries, but if MS is offering GP for cheap there it's probably just to drive user numbers up and I wouldn't expect it to last forever.
 
poppabk said:
More like PC gamers already have 100's of games on backlog, get free and cheap games all the time, and are more willing to play older games especially when they are kept fresh with mods. They don't need a subscription to add 100's of more games they don't have time to play.
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This.

I bought most of the games on GamePass that I was interested in for next to nothing on Steam sales.

For example I bought the MCC and all of the Fallout games, both Dishonoured games and Prey on a Steam sale for about $25-30 (for all of them). Not to mention they ALL preform better than they do on my Series X.
 
Interesting. Price increases with flat revenue mean less subscribers. That's generally to be expected but the goal is to have the price increase more than offset that and end up with a revenue increase.

And then still be able to drive growth after an initial lowering of customers.
 
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No surprise it stalled. There is an audience for it in gaming. It's just limited in size to people with time and motivation to play the games on a particular sub.
 
Generic said:
Until you live in a third-world country where the price of a new game is 1/5 of the minimum wage.
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Stop Being Poor British GIF by BabylonBee
 
IntentionalPun said:
Interesting. Price increases with flat revenue mean less subscribers. That's generally to be expected but the goal is to have the price increase more than offset that and end up with a revenue increase.

And then still be able to drive growth after an initial lowering of customers.
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Also, with inflation their 1% increase is actually like -10% after inflation correction vs last year. Now only to see the cookie crumble when people decide to stop subscribing to useless and overpriced services
 
Game Pass is a sinking ship.

Subscription growth is directly correlated to hardware growth. Unfortunately for MS, the XBS sales are doing worse than the Xbox One. Without hardware, good luck selling those subscriptions.

MS will ditch Game Pass and go all in on being multiplatform. They will go where the money is.
 
yazenov said:
Game Pass is a sinking ship.

Subscription growth is directly correlated to hardware growth. Unfortunately for MS, the XBS sales are doing worse than the Xbox One. Without hardware, good luck selling those subscriptions.

MS will ditch Game Pass and go all in on being multiplatform. They will go where the money is.
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If Microsoft ditches Gamepass, Sony will ditch PS+ Extra. Which would suck, a lot.
 
Not unique to video games really. People are getting steamrolled by the seperation of subscription services across TV for example. We used to complain about cable TV and packages. Now it's worse than before as all the media giants split their content. Sports, Netflix, Disney Plus, Stan, Binge, NHL. NFL, NBA and whatever god else. Yes there is more content available, but it's spread across too many platforms. People are getting sick of missing out on things and paying out the ass if they want acess to everything. You need to make choices.

Value is decreasing, costs increasing. Raising prices will not help long term, unless the content is increased. I still can't believe Steam has avoided these pitfalls, PC gaming is really a haven now.
 
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