As soon as Netflix started to find huge amounts of success, companies everywhere started asking themselves “How can we do this, but for video games?” There’s only company that’s demonstrably found any success in that regard, i.e. Microsoft and its Xbox Game Pass–though whether or not the massive amount of revenue that subscription has brought in has translated to profit is another question entirely. If you ask former PlayStation boss and Sony Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden, he’s not so convinced that a Netflix-style games subscription will work out in the end.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Layden shared that he’s “not a big supporter of the ‘Netflix of gaming’ idea. I think it is a danger.” Layden went on to compare the idea to what happened to the music industry, and how many people think music should be free. “Spotify, what is that? It’s 15 bucks a month or something, but virtually no one buys music anymore,” he said.
He notes how at least the difference with music is that bands and artists can go on tours, meaning there’s ticket sales and merchandise as another form of revenue. “The problem with gaming is all we have is launch,” Layden continued. “That’s it. No one wants to pay money to come into the studio and watch people code.”
Layden also argues that those questions around profitability aren’t the right ones to be asking, and that what should be the concern is whether or not subscriptions services work for the developer. He says how developers become a “wage slave” for these subscription models, noting that the companies that run them aren’t “creating value, putting it in the marketplace, hoping it explodes, and profit sharing, and overages, and all that nice stuff. It’s just, ‘You pay me X dollars an hour, I built you a game, here, go put it on your servers.’ I don’t think it’s really inspiring for game developers.”
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