iusearchbtwAug 29, 2023

Weaker subscription deals have hit indie publishers, says analyst | GamesIndustry.biz

https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/2944272

Weaker subscription deals have hit indie publishers, says analyst | GamesIndustry.biz - SDF Chatter

Smaller subscription deals and the underperformance of certain titles have had a severe impact on Devolver and TinyBuild, says stockbroking firm Goodbody. Both companies floated at the peak of the games business in 2021 and have seen their share prices plummet over the past two years. Devolver has seen its share price drop 92% since its peak in January 2022, while TinyBuild’s has fallen 95% “We have seen from Devolver and TinyBuild that subscription is under pressure at the moment,” says Patrick O’Donnell, technology and video gaming analyst at Goodbody. "The cheques coming from Sony and Microsoft are just not as big as they were. And that creates problems if you’re concentrated on that side of the market. “TinyBuild, of all of them, was most exposed. Devolver was exposed, but not quite as much.”

Show threadNeatoAug 29, 2023
They are in a no-win situation. If they aren't making enough from subscriptions they can pull their games, but then they lose a massive amount of marketing and visibility. Much like Spotify and other streaming services, smaller artists just aren't making much from these. And with the way that contracts and subscription fatigue works, it's unlikely a competitor is going to be able to offer better deals while also attracting sufficient customers.
Show threadporyAug 29, 2023
The win comes later once gamepass gets netflix’d. It’ll only go on like this for so long before there’s UbiPass and EAccess and Sony Prime and so on and so forth. Then a few years after that, when the services finally get pushed back against and die, everyone who just kept buying games on steam/gog/itch/whatever (or pirating) just keeps on not paying sub fees. Like nothing ever happened.
Show threadlearningduckAug 30, 2023

My impression of this comment read like us vs them (subscribers vs buyers) to me which I don’t think realistic. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

There are games that may be too short or don’t have much repeatability that people better off renting than buying.

Show threadKrauerking

Yeah, no.

This we will own nothing and be happy for it is exactly what got the world into it’s current mess and it really makes to many investor groups salvate at the thought of it.

He has a point where eventually these companies that have merged and want to run their own subscription is gonna kill this and people’s wallet for most of the money to go to the major players and devs anyways.

I’m sure Epic would love to have a subscription bundle and it would absolutely dry up money for indie studios unless they have private cash flow

Aug 30, 2023 at 1:24pmWeb