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Weaker subscription deals have hit indie publishers, says analyst | GamesIndustry.biz
(www.gamesindustry.biz)
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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Subscriptions and those that use them are a worse deal for indie devs, and it only becomes an even worse deal as big name publishers put their new AAA games in the subscription and demand a proportionate slice of the pie.
My opinion / analysis of the situation is that it's only going to get worse for non-AAA and non-backed indies as "$180 a year gets me aaaaallll thiiiiiis, why would I spend a whole month's of gamepass on your one game" becomes more and more common.
Furthermore, there was never a world where Netflix stayed as "$15/mo for everything". Other corps want their own Netflixes. So they pull their content and put out another subscription. There's no world where MS Gamepass stays the only subscription-based game service in town, and when users are paying for three gamepasses, they're even less likely to buy a cool game that's lacking AAA polish for $10.
However, unlike movies and TV, no game has really become exclusive to Gamepass (some tried with Stadia, which thankfully died). There are shows that were exclusive to HBO Max that cannot be legally acquired anymore. Players that want some degree of ownership of their games can buy them on Steam/Epic, or if they want full ownership of their games they can buy them DRM-Free like on GOG. Those guys can keep on doing that through the rise of the "wow it's genuinely a good deal" gamepass, the "more corporations want their own gamepass" phase, the "prices go up and quality goes down now that we've got an audience" phase, and the "service is going away forever" phase.
It's game buyers that'll keep indie games alive. Subscription models are a poisoned treat that benefit indie games right now but are already shifting to be a huge blow to the indie game scene.
I think the games generaly wont go into subscription only simply beacuse of how much time they take. You speak as if 180$ is a good deal but a lot of pepole do not play enough to justify spending 180$ on gamepass ( of course if you play online on consoles the equation works a little diffrent beacuse of their shitty practice of paid online but thats another matter ). Its not music that is consumed repetivly in massive amounts or to a lesser extent tv and film industry. Games take an awful lot of time amd many of the best ones are free to play already( Path of Exile )
i say $180 a year because it sounds like less of a "good deal". More people are willing to write off "$15 a month" than they are "$180 a year".
A well thought out answer.
I see your points, which I mostly agree. I think at one point, but there are also Indies games that may hardly see any penny without the exposition of the subscription as well. There are games like Chain of Echoes that I bought after playing it on GP just because I like it so much that I want to support the devs and wouldn't have buy it in the first place had it not included with GP, but this may be a rare case or just a matter of releasing a demo.
Rockstar had their games on GP for a short period then pull them from the platform repeatedly for a while, I guess they intended for people to use GP to demo their game. Not sure how that work out for them.