Subscriptions are the future - but nobody agrees on the details | Opinion
Rob Fahey
Contributing Editor
Friday 15th April 2022
Oddworld Inhabitants
Sony Interactive Entertainment
A broad consensus seems to be building around the idea that the industry is transitioning towards a more subscription-based business model -- led by services like Game Pass, the upcoming revamp of PS Plus, and whatever alternatives are being cooked up by the likes of Amazon and Valve.
It's not the most harmonious of consensuses, though; no two companies see this subscription-based future quite the same, with significant underlying disagreement on the roles that will remain for up-front purchases and other business models; the bigger third-party publishers definitely imagine a future role that's very different to being a passive supplier of subscription service content to Sony and Microsoft.
Even as almost everyone comes around to the notion that subscription services will play a big role in the future of the industry, then, there are some pretty major battles ahead about exactly how that's going to be realised and what it's going to mean for everyone involved.
We got a sneak preview of one of those upcoming battles this week, in the form of comments from Oddworld founder Lorne Lanning on the Xbox Expansion Pass podcast. To be clear, Lanning isn't being combative or accusatory in his comments, lamenting the "devastating" effect on sales of Soulstorm which the company saw as a consequence of accepting an up-front deal to put the PS5 version of the game on PS Plus in its launch month.
We should gird ourselves for a messy public fight over percentages and engagement calculations, because arguments over how this new pie is sliced up are only getting started
There's no suggestion that Sony is somehow the villain of the story for
Read more on gamesindustry.biz
