While sharing his views about the current subscription models prevalent in gaming industry, Larian Studios’ CEO, Swen Vincke has announced that none of Larain’s games will be coming to any subscription services.
Vincke shared his views about the contemporary gaming subscription landscape, claiming that the ‘discoverability (on such services) is brutal’, and that his company won’t be releasing any of its titles on subscription services, like PS Plus or Xbox Game Pass. He had previously stated similar things when Baldur’s Gate 3 was coming to Xbox and many were wondering if the TGA’s GOTY 2023 tite will be coming to Game Pass.
Vincke was sharing his thoughts as a response to the recent news about Ubisoft revamping its subscription model, wherein a Ubisoft executive had stated that players should be comfortable with the idea of ‘not owning games’, while discussing the recent consumer behavior and expected future trends with gameindustry.biz.
Vincke stated that it will become increasingly difficult for players to get their hands on ‘good content’ if the subscription services are the ones who get to decide what goes to market. According to him, it is alarming if the subscription service model becomes the ‘dominant model’ in the gaming landscape, barring the creativity and unique ideologically-fueled projects of developers from seeing the light of the day; being preferred over games that would definitely work according to cost/ benefit analysis done by subscription services to maximize profits.
Vincke also said that while he understands and appreciates the subscription model, as it presents opportunities for many developers to make their games and bring their vision to reality, he remains pessimistic about the possibility of subscription services determining what games should be made, based on the preference and performance of titles in their catalogues.
