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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

The original post can be found in this X thread

Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king. But it's going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not. Direct from developer to players is the way.

Getting a board to ok a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit.

There is nothing wrong with that but it may not become a monopoly of subscription services. We are already all dependent on a select group of digital distribution platforms and discoverability is brutal. Should those platforms all switch to subscription, it'll become savage.

In such a world by definition the preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made.

Trust me - you really don't want that

TLDR ; you won't find our games on a subscription service even if I respect that for many developers it presents an opportunity to make their game. I don't have an issue with that. I just want to make sure the other ecosystem doesn't die because it's valuable.

 

[Schmick]

There is no chance the traditional method of purchasing a game will die. None. From my point of view I am perfectly happy to see both the tradtional model and subscription model coexist.

Its nice to see though Swen acknowledging the opportunities subscription services can give to developers.

 

[Punished Miku]

I wouldn't be a fan of subs only. The best thing Xbox did was simultaneously introduce subs while also investing money in strengthening BC. Your purchases on their system are more likely to be carried forward. If they didn't do both of those things, it wouldn't be as reassuring that they respected purchases.

As for his idealism comment, in some cases it will breakout with the direct to sale market, and in some cases subs are far more likely to help an idealistic game get exposure. It's not like we haven't seen massive issues with the AAA retail model lately and the homogenization of game design. First it was the tacked on multiplayer in the 360 gen. Then it was the open world design with padding to make the purchase worth it. Then it was the GAAS design model that is crippling studios left and right, from Rocksteady to Naughty Dog. All that has been going on for almost 20 years now without subs, with games feeling more and more similar. Subs come along and you can get experimental and niche content like Pentiment. Both models have a place.

I just don't get these comments about idealism and a board approving things. It's the same dynamic any time you have a publisher, period. You can go to Kickstarter, or you are getting approval from someone that is paying the bills - regardless of what your distribution method is. I have yet to see a studio decide to launch on a sub day 1 go out of business, but we've seen a ton of them that chose retail die lately. Subs are a huge lifeline to more experimental and idealistic AA and indie games.

 

[Lunarorbit]

Not happening. Especially hilarious that a ubisoft exec is saying this. According to this logic consoles should have died years ago.

Is this just for the benefit of their shareholders? DRM didn't work when Ms tried introducing it last Gen. You want a bigger rip from sales and think threatening your player base is going to work?

 

[Gaiff]

There is no chance the tradition method of purchasing a game will die. None. From my point of view I am perfectly happy to see both the tradtional model and subscription model coexist.

Its nice to see though Swen acknowledging the opportunities subscription services can give to developers.

It's obviously not going anywhere anytime soon but it'll eventually become a niche method of purchasing games like vinyl (which funnily enough I hear outsold CDs for the first time in decades in 2023).

An undersold factor is consumers' habits. At our age, we've been accustomed to buying physical releases from the old cartridges to CDs, DVDs, and then Blu Ray discs. Digital keeps getting a larger and larger portion of the pie and it'll reach the point where people even in their mid-20s will look at physical releases as a curiosity rather than a necessity. When we reach that point, I think physical copies will only be sold as special editions and it's also very likely that optical drives are sold separately from consoles in the future since digital distribution will be far and away the dominant method.

Big companies salivate at the prospect of a market dominated by subscriptions. We'll own even less and they'll become more powerful than ever, able to dictate when and how we play our games. Remember the debacle just recently with Sony threatening to remove movies/TV shows from people's libraries despite the fact that they paid for them. Thankfully, they walked back on it but the mere fact that they can just go and take away stuff you bought with your money is insane to me.

It's inevitable like Netflix or all these subscription-based services like Apple Music or Spotify.

 

[Gaiff]

Not happening.

It is happening. Just not now but slowly and surely.

 

[crackajack]

I understand why MS offers GP, they just have to be aggressive as long as their share and for that also important game pipeline is struggling, and Sony kinda was forced to counter it, but I can't see Ubi or EA really benefitting from their subs long term, even though they seem to think it is doing well enough to not abandon it. It gives probably great numbers short term, but once people are expecting all you can eat buffet food and are conditioned that way, they will hardly be buying anything for 70$ anymore and or won't buy mtx much since another game (for "free") is just cheaper and good enough.
I might be projecting, but saved money due to a small entry fee (where people already expect major AAA releases each and every month which is just insane), that could be spend on mtx or whatever does not sound reasonable, if said money might be "nescessary" to spend on food, drinks, vacation trips, clothes and whatever, where there is no flat rate offer available. I anyway did not buy that many games ever, even less addons, but with Plus the incentive to look beyond its offer and sepnd extra money is very small. I am most probably not Sony's prefered customer and hardly should be.
I'd say subs are not only disruptive but rather destructive overall, but they are here now and backpedaling is barely possible unless all do it. Offer and demand will adapt. Probably at the cost of some quality, which has been anyway rather questionable forever but with ever more bloated developments more and more.
I'd think bargain bin games can and should land on these services, but everything else just ruins your very own market and blows up customer expectations.
Any GotY contender and winner should not devalue their game by prematurely adding it to some service and be just another "worthless" game among many. Maybe MP&mtx centric games can launch on there, and maybe some niche indie game that rather takes enough money to recover costs, and get some attention without paying for an expensive ad campaign. But any game of some actual value should not go that route.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Same, Swen, same.

Bro spitting facts!