Shawn Layden: "Subscription Services Turn Developers Into “Wage Slaves” and Are “Bad for the Business”"

yurinka said:
Shawn is talking about game subs, not about cloud gaming or what appears in that image: server cloud infrastructures.

Digital game stores like PSN, eShop and so on need server cloud infrastructures to work. Same goes with online multiplayer games, internal game metrics, etc.
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This might be the industry now but not where it's headed.

The future of console gaming is gaming without a console using the cloud and Tencent, Nintendo & Sony have none of it thus having to purchase services from the list. When Game Pass could not move XBOX out of Walmart shelves it just became the trojan horse for the inevitable GeForce now/boosteroid equivalent.

Just listen to how much PC bros raves about the cost/benefit of GeForce NOW sub vs buying a brand new fully decked out PC that would have comparable performances to Nvidia offshore PC.

Obviously we'll have to see if MSFT evangelism does not succeed and if rivals can still sell hardware at a premium.
 
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Guesclin said:
This might be the industry now but not where it's headed.

The future of console gaming is gaming without a console using the cloud and Tencent, Nintendo & Sony have none of it thus having to purchase services from the list. When Game Pass could not move XBOX out of Walmart shelves it just became the trojan horse for the inevitable GeForce now/boosteroid equivalent.

Just listen to how much PC bros raves about the cost/benefit of GeForce NOW sub vs buying a brand new fully decked out PC that would have comparable performances to Nvidia offshore PC.

Obviously we'll have to see if MSFT evangelism does not succeed and if rivals can still sell hardware at a premium.
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Over time, tech makes it so you can do more things with fewer devices. A phone can pretty do everything. But not everyone wants to play games on a phone. I dont.

Only purists who want physical or have a DVD/BR catalog still wants an optical player under their TV. Or at minimum have an optical drive console to play them. This is definitely an older demographic thing. I dont a sense young people care much for finding hard copies of games, DVD/BR movies or hoping any artist still release CDs. They go digital.

Nothing would make console makers happier giving up hardware (which they dont make much on or even lose money sometimes) and go all high margin digital.

Only problem is they havent completely figured out a ironclad digital strategy of sales, subs and cloud with no dedicated console yet. But some have. Adobe I think is all sub plan. Can someone even buy any MS Office kind of product at stores anymore? Not sure, but I dont think so since they are sub plan too with Office 365.

What would solve their issue is having their own launcher and have it on as many devices as possible and try to get games installed or streamed so they get the cut.

Apple TV and Music is everywhere. You can even buy and play this stuff on PS and Xbox. The ecosystem theory would be why the hell is Apple allowing other devices to use the app when it's more profitable to to wall it off and use it only on Apple Macs and iPhones. But they figured out the best sales strategy is casting a wide net. You got the core Apple hardware fans who buy gear and use the software. Then you expand it to PC/Android and any other gadget to do TV and Music too because not everyone will buy Apple hardware. But they will use the sub plans or services. So they get both audiences. Just because it's on other devices doesnt mean all the Apple hardware fans switch over and Macs and iPhone sales drop 50%.
 
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So before Gamepass turned everyone into wage slaves, the developers were multi millionaires making billion dollar games getting millions in bonuses?

Now it makes sense why they hate Gamepass. It killed not only their dog, but it killed their wealth too.
 
Anyone working a 9-5 this day n age already is a wage slave. With homes being unaffordable and new generation of kids having issues finding jobs.

Heck I'm already at the stage of being suicidal the only thing slowing me down is I've not stacked enough assets for my niece before I call it a day. Plus I'd like to at least see what GTA 6 looks like on release day.
 
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Guesclin said:
This might be the industry now but not where it's headed.

The future of console gaming is gaming without a console using the cloud and Tencent, Nintendo & Sony have none of it thus having to purchase services from the list. When Game Pass could not move XBOX out of Walmart shelves it just became the trojan horse for the inevitable GeForce now/boosteroid equivalent.

Just listen to how much PC bros raves about the cost/benefit of GeForce NOW sub vs buying a brand new fully decked out PC that would have comparable performances to Nvidia offshore PC.

Obviously we'll have to see if MSFT evangelism does not succeed and if rivals can still sell hardware at a premium.
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I think the future is:
  • Digital only, physical limited to gift / game cards sometimes as part of collector editions
  • Mobile + PC + console hardware continue converging until at some point becoming the same one with performance difference unnoticiable by most people
  • Percentage of game revenue coming from addons keeps increasing until percentage from game sales is pretty small, and a huge chunk from them is from catalog games (discounted old games)
  • AI driven stores get to know your tastes and what you have everywhere, to make better personalized store featurings to try to solve the lack of visibility most publishers suffer. Things improve but aren't enough
  • Pushed by constantly rising game budgets and the 3 previous points, all big publishers keep expanding their multiplatform side ending all as mobile + PC + console publishers
  • All the main digital game stores (Google Play, Apple App Store, Steam, PSN, eShop, Amazon Luna, MS, a Tencent one after they acquire Epic and Ubisoft) end becoming mobile + PC + console multiplatform ecosystem / stores
  • Acquisitions: EA + Take 2 (by MS), Bandai Namco + Kadokawa + some big Asian publishers more including top ones in mobile (by Sony), Epic + Ubisoft (by Tencent), Valve (by somebody that isn't MS)
  • Game subs continue slowly growing until they reach a ceiling, generating around a third or 40% of the game revenue, more than doubling the current number
  • Most of that game subs growth due to cloud gaming. All these multiplatform store ecosystems allow you to play all the games you bought in console+PC+mobile+smart tv in the cloud, not only the ones rented with the sub
  • Similar to what happened before with mobile gaming but in a smaller scale, cloud gaming helps to grow the userbase and revenue of gaming without negatively affecting older systems, but instead providing them new users
  • Different reasons cap the growth of cloud gaming:
    • Too big cost of the cloud gaming tier of the sub
    • Sub par quality -or not availability- of internet connection in huge areas of the world
    • Reached certain point horsepower, the difference between high end consoles and PCs with portable consoles, smartphones, tablets or even later smart tvs, plus the convergence of their hardware, mostly removes the need for cloud gaming for most cases
  • AAA/AA gaming -not only the current 'small' mobile games- highly grows first in China, later in India, followed by Middle East and later Africa as their population grows and their average personal income keeps improving
  • AI helps to get really photorealistic games. You'll be able to create your own games but the big companies will continue making the by far best games
  • After most of these points, next big change/step in gaming are wireless connection with the brain:
    • You control the game directly the brain, not needing buttons or keys
    • New level of VR: Image and sound projected to your eyes and ears via the brain, no headset needed
  • Regarding the market leaders / top grossing companies, pretty similar to now: Sony top 1, close second Tencent, close third MS
 
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ecosse_011172 said:
Streaming isn't "very popular", it's almost the entire market.
Anyway, this thread is about gaming and judging by your dogged arguing, you must believe that Game Pass is good for the industry.
I disagree.
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lol you have no idea what you are talking about. I'll leave you with this, a screenshot of the Super Mario Bros movie's estimated profits by Deadline. Streaming doesn't even make up 50% of the total revenue that movie made.
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Source
 
Sinfulgore said:
lol you have no idea what you are talking about. I'll leave you with this, a screenshot of the Super Mario Bros movie's estimated profits by Deadline. Streaming doesn't even make up 50% of the total revenue that movie made.
wk9UAcdwLq8GNwgy.png
Source
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You found a rare example, great.
I'm still waiting to hear how our glorious Gamepass future will be good.
 
mdkirby said:
The main point here in my opinion, and something I've held since games pass launched, is it destroys the value perception of games, reducing the perceived value almost to free. You've not had 15? Years of this. That's a whole generation of gamers who would have been future buyers, who will have got a gamespass sub for $100 bucks for their birthday or Christmas and never needed to actually buy any games, yet still had thousands to play including new major releases.

I'm old enough to have worked in the industry and when this happened to mobile with the launch of the iphone AppStore. It was a quick race to the bottom on pricing (prior to that simple little games like video poker cost £10-£15). Now fast forward however many decades, I can't imagine many of us here on Gaf have many kind words to say about the state of mobile gaming.
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The state of how mobile gaming became what is was is why I worry about the reducing the perceived value of games. Watching it go from stuff like Infinity Blade, Chaos Rings, N.O.V.A. 3 and Zenonia to freemium was something else. There were a lot of quality games for cheap that people didn't even want to pay $1 for. Still not over it.
 
CuteFaceJay said:
Anyone working a 9-5 this day n age already is a wage slave. With homes being unaffordable and new generation of kids having issues finding jobs.

Heck I'm already at the stage of being suicidal the only thing slowing me down is I've not stacked enough assets for my niece before I call it a day. Plus I'd like to at least see what GTA 6 looks like on release day.
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I'm hoping you're not being serious here and that you really aren't considering suicide... I'm here to chat if you need it.
 
ecosse_011172 said:
You found a rare example, great.
I'm still waiting to hear how our glorious Gamepass future will be good.
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Not really a rare example. If you were reading my posts you would know I also brought up Wicked, which made $70mil in VOD sales within its first week available for purchase. I feel like you are trying to overcomplicate this, my whole point is that many people are still buying movies, which is true, and that's it. This has nothing to do with streaming or Game Pass. Why even bring Game Pass up? What does Game Pass have to do with people buying movies?
 
Sinfulgore said:
Not really a rare example. If you were reading my posts you would know I also brought up Wicked, which made $70mil in VOD sales within its first week available for purchase. I feel like you are trying to overcomplicate this, my whole point is that many people are still buying movies, which is true, and that's it. This has nothing to do with streaming or Game Pass. Why even bring Game Pass up? What does Game Pass have to do with people buying movies?
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You seem to have forgotten what the thread is about, go read it.

My argument is that the move to subscriptions has been bad for other media as well as gaming.
Yours is....?
 
Again, if the Gamepass model was so successful and this massive money making service Microsoft claims it is, Nintendo and Sony would be all over it (and I'm talking putting 1st party games on it day 1).
 
Nobody ever talks about alternative modes of selling games.
Studios could sell games per-playthrough.
One-shot games (TLOU, Alan Wake, Max Payne, anything from Remedy) with low replayability could be sold per-game.
$20 for a single playthrough, on one account, on one console.
Give users the option to buy games outright or just play games through once.
Being able to play a brand new game for $20 puts the buy-in on par with a movie.
 
adamsapple said:
Who the fuck would want to work as a hobby.
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I'm retired, and it's not a "hobby" per se, but I do occasional paid political work because I think it's fun.

Again, not a "hobby" but I know plenty of other people in the same boat, so working because you want to and "for fun," not because you have to, isn't as uncommon as you think.
 
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ecosse_011172 said:
You seem to have forgotten what the thread is about, go read it.

My argument is that the move to subscriptions has been bad for other media as well as gaming.
Yours is....?
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I know exactly what this thread is about but the comment of yours I replied to was about how well movies sold.

My argument is that people are using subscriptions as an excuse for the problems within the video game industry. The movie/tv industry press tried to do the same with streaming. They blamed Disney movies' underperforming at the box office on Disney+. Then movies like Moana 2, Inside Out 2, and Deadpool 3, made a billion at the box office, and that narrative started to slowly die away. In the gaming industry, people are doing the exact same thing with Gamepass/subscriptions; it's the easy scapegoat. I don't know why people refuse to see the obvious problems within the games industry. It's like Concord. Anybody with common sense could tell you why Concord failed but many people within the industry refuse to address or even talk about the obvious problems with that game.
 
Sinfulgore said:
I know exactly what this thread is about but the comment of yours I replied to was about how well movies sold.

My argument is that people are using subscriptions as an excuse for the problems within the video game industry. The movie/tv industry press tried to do the same with streaming. They blamed Disney movies' underperforming at the box office on Disney+. Then movies like Moana 2, Inside Out 2, and Deadpool 3, made a billion at the box office, and that narrative started to slowly die away. In the gaming industry, people are doing the exact same thing with Gamepass/subscriptions; it's the easy scapegoat. I don't know why people refuse to see the obvious problems within the games industry. It's like Concord. Anybody with common sense could tell you why Concord failed but many people within the industry refuse to address or even talk about the obvious problems with that game.
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I love it, your successes from Disney are all sequels, the risk averse, boring and predictable identikit blockbusters that plague the industry is not the glorious gaming future you think it is.
 
ecosse_011172 said:
Why would it be any different to the other media that's already went down the path with the same results? Hardly anyone buys movies, hardly anyone buys music, it's all been devalued with the message of "You don't have to buy this".
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Are you saying there were no shitty music and movies before streaming services? Didn't shitty games exist before gamepass? Expedition 33 was day 1 gamepass game. That didn't affect its quality, it turned out to be one of the best games of all time. At the end of the day, quality matters. If quality is good people will play your game on gamepass and also buy it as expedition 33 is already at like 4 million copies sold despite being day 1 on gamepass. So developers shouldn't give this poor excuse that gamepass is hampering games quality. If you can't make a good game then you won't whether its on gamepass or not.
 
Hydroxy said:
Are you saying there were no shitty music and movies before streaming services? Didn't shitty games exist before gamepass? Expedition 33 was day 1 gamepass game. That didn't affect its quality, it turned out to be one of the best games of all time. At the end of the day, quality matters. If quality is good people will play your game on gamepass and also buy it as expedition 33 is already at like 4 million copies sold despite being day 1 on gamepass. So developers shouldn't give this poor excuse that gamepass is hampering games quality. If you can't make a good game then you won't whether its on gamepass or not.
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Expedition 33 is a Multiplatform game.
How many of those sales are on Xbox, Playstation and PC?
 
Hydroxy said:
Are you saying there were no shitty music and movies before streaming services? Didn't shitty games exist before gamepass? Expedition 33 was day 1 gamepass game. That didn't affect its quality, it turned out to be one of the best games of all time. At the end of the day, quality matters. If quality is good people will play your game on gamepass and also buy it as expedition 33 is already at like 4 million copies sold despite being day 1 on gamepass. So developers shouldn't give this poor excuse that gamepass is hampering games quality. If you can't make a good game then you won't whether its on gamepass or not.
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Also, no, there has always been shitty music, good music and great music.
The point is that indie bands or only moderately successful bands used to be able to make a decent living, now it's extremely difficult with a 200 bucks cheque from Spotify.
I've repeatedly seen really talented bands or musicians I like, end up with other jobs to get by.
 
Tobimacoss said:
So before Gamepass turned everyone into wage slaves, the developers were multi millionaires making billion dollar games getting millions in bonuses?
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He's saying the dev studios do not need to strive for a quality launch anymore since they are used for gamepass where their motivation is just to meet MS's release schedule/terms and be paid by MS. It's not a difficult concept to grasp. Their success is far less self-autonomous. It's no different from a person running their own business vs being employed. One is a "wage slave" who might not really care for the product the employer is selling as long as they meet the requirements to be paid by them. Whereas running your own business you try to create a product that explodes by creating something of value to chase that success.
It's essentially the same argument as that age old "Employee vs Entrepreneur" applied to development studios. I'm not sure why people like yourself are not understanding this and talking about billion dollar games and bonuses.
 
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Three said:
He's saying the dev studios do not need to strive for a quality launch anymore since they are used for gamepass where their motivation is just to meet MS's release schedule/terms and be paid by MS. It's not a difficult concept to grasp. Their success is far less self-autonomous. It's no different from a person running their own business vs being employed. One is a "wage slave" who might not really care for the product the employer is selling as long as they meet the requirements to be paid by them. Whereas running your own business you try to create a product that explodes by creating something of value to chase that success.
It's essentially the same argument as that age old "Employee vs Entrepreneur" applied to development studios. I'm not sure why people like yourself are not understanding this and talking about billion dollar games and bonuses.
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Season 4 Success GIF by The Office
 
Ar¢tos said:
Didn't Xbox create the "subscription to play games online"?

Your comment isn't as smart as you think it is...
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I don't care if it was Sony, Xbox, or any other company—my message is about the hypocrisy of a guy who was CEO of Sony. When he was in charge, he was charging for a subscription to play games online—even free-to-play games—and now the same guy is complaining about subscription models. Ironic, don't you think?
 
Solrac said:
I don't care if it was Sony, Xbox, or any other company—my message is about the hypocrisy of a guy who was CEO of Sony. When he was in charge, he was charging for a subscription to play games online—even free-to-play games—and now the same guy is complaining about subscription models. Ironic, don't you think?
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I don't remember free to play games ever requiring a subscription.
 
The money used to fund massive games like DOOM Dark Ages doesn't come from a bottomless pit, the model itself has to self-sustain. In the same way that Nintendo needs to make at least some profit off all transactions, or they would lose money and eventually go out of business. The idea that anyone ever thought deep Microsoft pockets from other divisions within the company would simply "keep Xbox afloat" despite not being profitable at all outside of a few good years during the 360 cycle, is so ridiculous in hindsight. It's one thing to subsidize console sales and make money back on software, subscriptions and accessories. It's quite another to subsidize software nearly in it's entirety, essentially removing the base structure of the model, which is selling games for money, and then still subsidize hardware. Xbox attempted to replace their entire business model with just Game Pass subscriptions and accessories.

Only with explosive, constant growth in subscriptions would that even remotely work. And as we've seen, people unsubscribe all the time, resub periodically only to play a new game, removing that potential sale of a $70 piece of software in the process, and they essentially stay flat in subscriber numbers and can't grow. That we haven't seen even more layoffs is honestly shocking. The internal financials of Xbox cannot look good.
 
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Shawn just never had a service on that level. What really is bad for business is when release windows get oversaturated and your AAA title you spent 6 years making and countless millions, gets no sales because big publishers that spend 10x that in marketing get all the sales. Thus leading that developer to fire 90% of staff or close their studio.
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
A subscription model, by nature, transforms a well-crafted product into "content", automatically reducing its value. That mindset quickly sets in and creators "adapt" their works to that, which brings down quality.

This not theoretical, but unfortunately post-factum.
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If we adapt this and look at content across dozens of subscription services of film/TV content, I don't see that the overall quality of content has gone down. In fact, the medium of streaming has allowed so much incredible content to come about that would never have happened on linear TV or in theatres. It's become a whole new paradigm. That same paradigm shift hasn't translated into success for Xbox, if that was their goal. But I don't think video games in general can be adapted well into a subscription model. The intense growth and full replacement of individual sales would need to happen on a scale I can't even comprehend. As it is, it seems that people subscribe to Game Pass for that one big new game they want, they play it/ try it, they unsubscribe after 1-2 months, and Xbox and the 3rd party publisher/ developer lost out on that potential sale as well. It's a loss in revenue across the board.

Xbox has broken their own business model, and replaced it with far less revenue, and a tenuous-at-best plan for subscription-based revenue growth.
 
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Dr. Wilkinson said:
If we adapt this and look at content across dozens of subscription services of film/TV content, I don't see that the overall quality of content has gone down. In fact, the medium of streaming has allowed so much incredible content to come about that would never have happened on linear TV or in theatres. It's become a whole new paradigm. That same paradigm shift hasn't translated into success for Xbox, if that was their goal. But I don't think video games in general can be adapted well into a subscription model. The intense growth and full replacement of individual sales would need to happen on a scale I can't even comprehend. As it is, it seems that people subscribe to Game Pass for that one big new game they want, they play it/ try it, they unsubscribe after 1-2 months, and Xbox and the 3rd party publisher/ developer lost out on that potential sale as well. It's a loss in revenue across the board.

Xbox has broken their own business model, and replaced it with far less revenue, and a tenuous-at-best plan for subscription-based revenue growth.
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And they did the bolded WHILE ALSO spending over $80 Billion (over a 3 year period) in acquiring publishers that house many game dev companies. How could their changing business model have ever succeeded?
 
Subscription services do make less money than sales, Microsoft already knew that and admitted it in email's, and know GP is a cheaper option for new games and more choice with the higher prices of games, so he is right basically, they just had to reduce TOW 2 pre order price because it obviously wasn't selling.
 
GamePass Turns Games into a Software Assembly Line

Like, turning a studio into a Gears and Halo assembly line
Or, a software assembly line like an Office and Windows assembly line?

Now it's clear why Microsoft invested in GamePass, because the idea was to transform games into "Windows and Office" rentals.

Really, if the market embraced this, Microsoft would be ahead of Sony and Nintendo, since Microsoft specializes in software assembly lines, lacking creativity and vision.
 
Ar¢tos said:
Didn't Xbox create the "subscription to play games online"?

Your comment isn't as smart as you think it is...
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No, Dreamcast did with SegaNet. It may not have always required payment, but it sure did when I had to use the free trials in 1999-2001 to play NFL 2k online multiplayer. It was also around $20 a month.

Your comment isn't as smart as you think it is....

(Sorry, not trying to be too grumpy. I just couldn't help myself with a comment like that while being wrong on a subject)

Edit: I may be wrong. Looks like it could be free for many games if you knew how to configure your ISP settings correctly. My 13 year old self didn't know what he was doing. My snarkiness may be coming back to bite me in the ass.
 
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Laptop1991 said:
Subscription services do make less money than sales, Microsoft already knew that and admitted it in email's, and know GP is a cheaper option for new games and more choice with the higher prices of games, so he is right basically, they just had to reduce TOW 2 pre order price because it obviously wasn't selling.
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It'll temporarily boost Game Pass subscribers for a few months over the holidays. And the actual sales of copies of the game will primarily happen on PS and PC, essentially.
 
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