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.”
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.
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.
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.
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 $10.
However, unlike movies and TV, no game has really become exclusive to Gamepass (some tried with Stadia, which thankfully died). There are shows that were exclusive to HBO Max that cannot be legally acquired anymore. Players that want some degree of ownership of their games can buy them on Steam/Epic, or if they want full ownership of their games they can buy them DRM-Free like on GOG. Those guys can keep on doing that through the rise of the “wow it’s genuinely a good deal” gamepass, the “more corporations want their own gamepass” phase, the “prices go up and quality goes down now that we’ve got an audience” phase, and the “service is going away forever” phase.
It’s game buyers that’ll keep indie games alive. Subscription models are a poisoned treat that benefit indie games right now but are already shifting to be a huge blow to the indie game scene.
A well thought out answer.
I see your points, which I mostly agree. I think at one point, but there are also Indies games that may hardly see any penny without the exposition of the subscription as well. There are games like Chain of Echoes that I bought after playing it on GP just because I like it so much that I want to support the devs and wouldn’t have buy it in the first place had it not included with GP, but this may be a rare case or just a matter of releasing a demo.
Rockstar had their games on GP for a short period then pull them from the platform repeatedly for a while, I guess they intended for people to use GP to demo their game. Not sure how that work out for them.
I think the games generaly wont go into subscription only simply beacuse of how much time they take. You speak as if 180$ 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 )
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”.
Yeah, no.
This we will own nothing and be happy for it is exactly what got the world into it’s current mess and it really makes to many investor groups salvate at the thought of it.
He has a point where eventually these companies that have merged and want to run their own subscription is gonna kill this and people’s wallet for most of the money to go to the major players and devs anyways.
I’m sure Epic would love to have a subscription bundle and it would absolutely dry up money for indie studios unless they have private cash flow
Capitalism only working well for the top dogs while the rest has to fight for the crumbs? Unheard of…
That’s simply the Pareto distribution in action, or sturgeon’s law.
Most games aren’t that good and will not make a lot of money.
Alternatively, small publishers that haven’t had a hit in a while are suffering.
Yeah i see some defense of the studios in the comments but Devolver hasn’t released something I’ve heard of since the first Good Neighbor outside of potion craft and I only know that one because an off-handed recommendation from a friend l. Not to say I’m some penultimate opinion on games, but if your stuff doesn’t make waves I’m assuming you won’t get money.
Like, everyone wants a Stardew Valley, but only 1/10000000 indie games will receive that kind of love and only 1/100000 indie games would even deserve it. Some are legitimately awesome and present unique gameplay you can’t find anywhere else, and the rest, is shit. It’s poorly designed or implemented, it’s dated, or it’s another super generic RPG Maker level of game and those were NOT going to sell well anyway.
I dont know what the alternative is, but what it is now is shit.
Devolver has their hands on a ton of indie games. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of Loop Hero, Deaths Door, Trek to Yomi, or Cult of the Lamb. Out of the Indie studios, they seem like the most likely to be able to push pass this.
*push past this
Turns out I didn’t scroll down long enough. I felt like it had been 5 minutes of flying through and didn’t get that far.
Yeah, if they’re not getting paid well for those hits, then absolutely that’s horse shit for them.
All they gotta do is make a cult of the lamb 2 and they’ll be rich
The problem is publicly traded game companies.
I believe in Volvy. He will handle this.
