Smaller subscription deals and the underperformance of certain titles have had a severe impact on Devolver and TinyBuild, says stockbroking firm Goodbody.

Both companies floated at the peak of the games business in 2021 and have seen their share prices plummet over the past two years. Devolver has seen its share price drop 92% since its peak in January 2022, while TinyBuild's has fallen 95%

"We have seen from Devolver and TinyBuild that subscription is under pressure at the moment," says Patrick O'Donnell, technology and video gaming analyst at Goodbody.

"The cheques coming from Sony and Microsoft are just not as big as they were. And that creates problems if you're concentrated on that side of the market.

"TinyBuild, of all of them, was most exposed. Devolver was exposed, but not quite as much."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Neato@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are in a no-win situation. If they aren't making enough from subscriptions they can pull their games, but then they lose a massive amount of marketing and visibility. Much like Spotify and other streaming services, smaller artists just aren't making much from these. And with the way that contracts and subscription fatigue works, it's unlikely a competitor is going to be able to offer better deals while also attracting sufficient customers.

[–] pory@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The win comes later once gamepass gets netflix'd. It'll only go on like this for so long before there's UbiPass and EAccess and Sony Prime and so on and so forth. Then a few years after that, when the services finally get pushed back against and die, everyone who just kept buying games on steam/gog/itch/whatever (or pirating) just keeps on not paying sub fees. Like nothing ever happened.

[–] learningduck@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My impression of this comment read like us vs them (subscribers vs buyers) to me which I don't think realistic. They aren't mutually exclusive.

There are games that may be too short or don't have much repeatability that people better off renting than buying.

[–] pory@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Subscriptions and those that use them are a worse deal for indie devs, and it only becomes an even worse deal as big name publishers put their new AAA games in the subscription and demand a proportionate slice of the pie.

My opinion / analysis of the situation is that it's only going to get worse for non-AAA and non-backed indies as "$180 a year gets me aaaaallll thiiiiiis, why would I spend a whole month's of gamepass on your one game" becomes more and more common.

Furthermore, there was never a world where Netflix stayed as "$15/mo for everything". Other corps want their own Netflixes. So they pull their content and put out another subscription. There's no world where MS Gamepass stays the only subscription-based game service in town, and when users are paying for three gamepasses, they're even less likely to buy a cool game that's lacking AAA polish for $10.

However, unlike movies and TV, no game has really become exclusive to Gamepass (some tried with Stadia, which thankfully died). There are shows that were exclusive to HBO Max that cannot be legally acquired anymore. Players that want some degree of ownership of their games can buy them on Steam/Epic, or if they want full ownership of their games they can buy them DRM-Free like on GOG. Those guys can keep on doing that through the rise of the "wow it's genuinely a good deal" gamepass, the "more corporations want their own gamepass" phase, the "prices go up and quality goes down now that we've got an audience" phase, and the "service is going away forever" phase.

[–] szczuroarturo@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the games generaly wont go into subscription only simply beacuse of how much time they take. You speak as if 180$ is a good deal but a lot of pepole do not play enough to justify spending 180$ on gamepass ( of course if you play online on consoles the equation works a little diffrent beacuse of their shitty practice of paid online but thats another matter ). Its not music that is consumed repetivly in massive amounts or to a lesser extent tv and film industry. Games take an awful lot of time amd many of the best ones are free to play already( Path of Exile )

[–] pory@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

i say $180 a year because it sounds like less of a "good deal". More people are willing to write off "$15 a month" than they are "$180 a year".