The makers of Baldur’s Gate 3 have made it pretty clear that the game won’t be coming to subscription services like Xbox Game Pass any time soon, saying they believe the amount they charge for the game is fair. Now in a new statement responding to Ubisoft saying we should get used to no longer owning games, Larian boss Swen Vincke has gone a step further.
Vincke’s strikes an interesting position, going beyond the usual straightforward arguments about value, saying subscription services becoming dominant would reduce the vibrancy of the industry, as those who own the sub services would have a finger on what gets made. He doesn’t outright say it, but the implication is fairly clear – there’s a good chance Baldur’s Gate 3 wouldn’t have got made in a world where subscription services are king (recall how dismissive Microsoft once was of BG3).
“Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king. But it’s going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not. Direct from developer to players is the way.
Getting a board to ok a project fueled by idealism is almost impossible and idealism needs room to exist, even if it can lead to disaster. Subscription models will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximize profit.
There is nothing wrong with that but it may not become a monopoly of subscription services. We are already all dependent on a select group of digital distribution platforms and discoverability is brutal. Should those platforms all switch to subscription, it’ll become savage. In such a world by definition the preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made. Trust me – you really don’t want that.
TLDR ; you won’t find our games on a subscription service even if I respect that for many developers it presents an opportunity to make their game. I don’t have an issue with that. I just want to make sure the other ecosystem doesn’t die because it’s valuable.”
I can see arguments for and against Vincke’s point. On the one hand, Game Pass has freed Microsoft to let devs to experiment more with games like Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush. That said, the huge variety of stuff you see coming out on Steam, Switch and other platforms would certainly be reduced if everything had to be filtered through a subscription service. The verdict is very much out on whether services like Netflix have been good for the movie industry. Ultimately, I think the reality is, there would be winners and losers if a world where subscriptions become dominant.
That world may not be coming any time soon though. According to NPD/Circana’s Mat Piscatella, subscription service uptake has flattened, and currently only represents 10 percent of video game spending. As of now, most people use subscriptions as an additive thing – a low-commitment way to try out new games perhaps – rather than a replacement for buying games traditionally.
What do you think? Will gaming subscription services ever be dominant? And would that be a good or bad thing for the industry and the medium?
