Veteran Videogame Analyst: Subscription growth has flattened [in video games]
Adding a bit more to the discussion on whether game subscription can be "the future", it looks like despite the heavy push made in the past decade, subscriptions only make up 10% of total video game spending in the US.
Link: https://nitter.net/MatPiscatella/status/1747660051269988522
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What a lukewarm take. A quick glance to the subscription video-on-demand market should be fairly informative to the future of video game subscription services.
Right now they're still in the honeymoon phase, that is to say the "offer better value to capture a market" phase, of enshitification.
Not at all surprising he's getting pushback.
Not really.
Video on demand works because the content is short and you need a large variety in a pay period as a consumer.
I don't just watch one show or movie in a month, it's several. So bundling makes sense.
It's also fairly commoditized. I will watch what movies are available on Netflix, not like I'm extremely committed to watch a single given movie as long as the general selection is good. Maybe there's one or two films a year I care about seeing that specific film before it rotates into a subscription service I subscribe to (and if not, meh).
For video games, it's maybe one title a month that I really care about playing and then I only have time for that one game. But I only really care about setting aside time for that game and a lot of the other options out there you couldn't pay me to play.
They are very different markets and a subscription model isn't necessarily the future or even what's most profitable for a company to offer (as Sony was recently acknowledging).
It's worth remembering that the goal of subscription services like gamepass is not to be the most profitable avenue. The goal is marketshare.
Microsoft lost, and Microsoft lost hard. Reportedly, the CEO wanted to exit gaming entirely after the Xbox One. They didn't based solely on the new business plan, which was to disrupt the market. Kill the existing model by offering super low-cost subscriptions (paid for by Azure and Office 365) and become the new encumbant of a new industry where you can jack up the prices and lower the cos(and quality) over a decade trying to chase profitability.
Subscriptions are not about revenue generation as every subscription model out there lowers revenue massively. It's about holding a larger share of the market so you can make money in other ways.
I think you're confusing the advantages and strategies of having a subscription and the advantages and strategies of having a loss leader.
Not all subscriptions are designed to be loss leaders, and most of the benefits you see in GamePass (lower or even negative revenue in exchange for increased market share) is seen over and over with loss leaders that aren't subscriptions.
Yes, I agree that Microsoft has adjusted strategy from a focus on winning console wars to increasing software gatekeeping across PC and now apparently even competitor consoles. And that GamePass plays a large part in that.
But it would be a mistake to assume that subscriptions in games are all going to have the same goals and focus as Microsoft with GamePass.
I would argue that there are three kinds of game subscriptions right now
the last one has existed for a long time and doesn't really factor into the discussions people are having today. it's not really relevant. the other two are both a factor of each other and relevant to what we are talking about.
Great take, I wish more would see the music industry like this as well.
I used to pay for Spotify premium then realized that I hardly added more than a handful of new things to my "library" each month. I switched to budgeting the same monthly funds towards building a local library from direct purchases and bandcamp.
It really depends on your level of consumption of new content whether a subscription service makes sense.
I mean... yeah. Turns out that having models and looking at the actual data and analyzing the market tends to land on lukewarm takes. The hot takes are for the press and the trolls.
FWIW, I don't have visibility on subscription growth at all, so I'll have to take his word for it, but none of that sounds unreasonable.... except maybe for the fact that the hype may make people make bad moves and double down in ways that are harmful. A degree of fearmongering can be useful, if only as a deterrent.
I think there are plenty of valid criticisms of the subscription model, and the reasons for those criticisms are the same as many of the reasons growth has flat lined. Labeling criticism as fear mongering seems like overly reductive spin, especially when this analyst doesn't seem to be interested in addressing those criticisms.
It's like saying "data shows very few people die annually from eating tide pods, therefore maybe we shouldn't be so scared of eating tide pods." Like, no, it's because nearly everyone realises it's a very bad idea that nobody dies from it.
You've crunched the numbers correctly, but have drawn the exact wrong conclusion.
Any time I see someone use the term "fear mongering" sincerely, I add a general heaping of salt to whatever they are saying. It's often an attempt to turn the topic to the "evil motives" of the "other side" before the original debate is settled.
If there's nothing to fear, that can be said without accusing anyone who thinks there is something to fear of trying to generate it for selfish reasons. In fact, I'd think that showing someone is fear mongering will be a greater burden than showing any particular thing they say is untrue, let alone a deliberate lie. But it gets thrown around so much lately as if it's an argument on its own.
There are valid criticisms, for sure. I was not in the original thread, though, so I don't know how willing to address those he is, but it's a valid point that it's not an all or nothing proposition. You can point out that subs aren't overtaking the market in gaming without implying that they should.
I'd be more interesting in debating whether subs are additive or not. I do know of anecdotal mentions of stunted sales on sub-forward releases, but I'd love to see more data about it (and what that means about revenue eventually, too).
But none of that influences the concerns on preservation one way or the other.
Honestly, I don't think you're right about the reasons growth has flatlined. I think the sub model just doesn't fit gaming best. The content just doesn't work well with the rotating carrousel of new and new-ish games most subscriptions have. I think Nintendo could be onto something, in the way Netflix was early on, in that you may be more willing to pay a fee to just have access to every single game before a certain point and from the beginning of time, but nobody is gonna figure that one out anytime soon.
I'm not sure there ever was a honeymoon phase for game subscriptions. They generally still push you to buy dlc/season passes. They still segment stuff into pre-order bonuses that you don't get in a subscription. You already have titles leaving the service.
Couldn't you repeatedly get gamepass for a month for £1 or similar? Assuming they don't offer that anymore, I think the honeymoon is over!
I did have a honeymoon phase with gamepass. Now it's just a thing that keeps charging the monthly fee in the background but also reminds me of the list of games I'd like to try that it has each time I open it up to consider cancelling.
They've figured out how to make money from me having a backlog, I just realized. I might have to open it again and compare the amount I'd pay for x months vs the expected sales price to just buy all of those games where x is how many months it'll take to clear my backlog. I don't even have to open it to see that I should cancel, because x might be infinite. Hell, I could even just cancel it with the intent of starting back up if I manage to clear my Steam backlog if I want to lie to myself about eventually getting through my backlog.