A wholly subscription-driven games industry would be "savage", says Larian CEO
Swen Vincke rebuts Ubisoft exec's claim that players need to "get comfortable" with not owning their games
Larian CEO Swen Vincke has been reading Ubisoft director of subscriptions Philippe Tremblay's thoughts from yesterday about how players need to "get comfortable" with renting their games as a package, rather than "having and owning" an individual copy. His broad takeaway is: that ain't it, chief. In a social media thread today, Vincke wrote that "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". He feels that "direct from developer to players is the way". As such you shouldn't expect Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity: Original Sin 2 or any other Larian RPGs to join the Game Pass bandwagon anytime soon.
Where Tremblay made a case for why consumers should be at ease with purchasing access to an evolving blob of videogame releases, Vincke addressed things from more of a developer's perspective, arguing that subscription models give platform holders too much creative authority and will inevitably breed conservatism.
"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," he wrote. "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," Vincke added. "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."
It goes without saying, then, that "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," Vincke went on. "I don't have an issue with that. I just want to make sure the other ecosystem doesn't die because it's valuable."
To editorialise a bit more than I did in yesterday's post on Tremblay, I have extremely mixed feelings about the subs model. I can't deny that I've stumbled on some fascinating games by means of Game Pass, and I've heard from a few developers that subscription services have helped their stranger projects find an audience.
Other developers, however, have said that they increasingly feel they have no choice but to embrace the subscription model if their games are to be played at all, however unfavourable the terms (it's worth remembering, here, that Microsoft once deemed Baldur's Gate 3 a "second-run Stadia PC RPG", according to leaked documents, estimating that it would cost a relatively tiddly $5 million to secure it for Game Pass).
The more widespread these services are, the more power the platform holder has to be picky about odder, more adventurous projects. And while you can, of course, argue that the idea of "owning" a digital copy of a game is already a fantasy, there's a difference between purchasing a license to download and play one from Steam and buying access to an ever-changing catalogue. I feel the overall effect of the subscription model is to train us out of the habit of being curious and actively searching for intriguing work, while also further normalising digital rights management practices and the corresponding strangulation of modding scenes. It also has dire implications for videogame preservation - games that exist only via subscription services move in and out of availability by default, and may disappear entirely when the service is shuttered.
Lots to dig into there, but right now I'm most interested to hear from developers who've had their games rejected by subscription services such as Game Pass. If you're among them, do you agree with Vincke's assessment above?
Disclosure: Former RPS deputy editor Adam Smith (RPS in peace) now works at Larian and is the lead writer for Baldur's Gate 3. Former contributor Emily Gera also works on it.