Former Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines wonders whether subscription services like Xbox Game Pass are selling developers short.
The industry veteran, who spent 24 years at The Elder Scrolls and Starfield maker before retiring after the latter launched, was quizzed by DBLTAP about the rise of subscription platforms and the impact they’re having on the people who make video games.
The vital context is that Hines helped Bethesda publish several titles, including Redfall, Hi-Fi Rush, and Starfield, that debuted on Xbox Game Pass.
When asked what success looks like for developers on those platforms—don’t forget, Hi-Fi Rush was heralded as triumph by Microsoft’s VP of game marketing Aaron Greenberg before the company shut down developer Tango Gameworks—Hines suggested it has become even harder for studios to generate returns because platforms like Xbox Game Pass don’t adequately value or reward their work.
“I’m not working in any of these companies anymore, and so I don’t assume that everything I knew while I was in the industry still holds true today. At the same time, I’m involved enough to know I saw what I considered to be some short sighted decision making several years ago, and it seems to be bearing out the way I said,” he said.
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“Subscriptions have become the new four letter word, right? You can’t buy a product anymore. When you talk about a subscription that relies on content, if you don’t figure out how to balance the needs of the service and the people running the service with the people who are providing the content—without which your subscription is worth jack shit—then you have a real problem.”
Hines says devs are being bundled into an ecosystem that doesn’t value their work
Hines said companies looking to make subscriptions a cornerstone of their business must properly “acknowledge, compensate, and recognize” what it actually takes to create products for those platforms. Right now, he feels there’s a “tension” between the investment studios are making and the returns they’re seeing off the back of those subscription deals.
“That tension is hurting a lot of people, including the content creators themselves, because they’re fitting into an ecosystem that is not properly valuing and rewarding what they’re making.”
Microsoft launched Xbox Game Pass in 2017 and said the service would offer day one access to all Xbox Game Studios titles. The company eventually dialled back on that promise by introducing a new “standard” plan that only includes access to select first-party titles at launch.
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That pivot came after Microsoft spent $68.7 billion acquiring Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer said the merger demonstrated the company’s ongoing commitment to video games. Since completing the deal, Microsoft has shuttered multiple studios, cancelled a litany of projects, and made significant redundancies.