Are Game Subscription Services Bad for Indie Games?
Reading Time: 4 minutesIndie games have always been at a disadvantage when it comes to budget and promotion vs. AAA titles. But do subscription services hurt them further?
Indie games will rarely ever get the spotlight or even a large player base like big titles that come from large companies. AAA titles have plenty of marketing and budget to be known worldwide.
If online game stores stop becoming mainstream, indie games will have to rely on a small portion of the subscription fee from these platforms. Will this be enough to keep the developers, and therefore the games, afloat?
What Are Indie Games?
Indie games are developed by small teams or even by just one person. The term ‘indie’ or ‘independent’ is defined by self-reliance. They are not financially backed by a large publisher, and their funds come from their own pockets.
If you like playing indie games, we’re sure you know that the developers are often quite approachable and very passionate about their work. They rely on the game sales, their own salaries from their day jobs, crowdfunding, and even donations made by the players to allow them to keep working on their game.
Indie games are unique; they can provide intimate experiences that you’d rarely find in big-budget games with hundreds of people working on them and publishers pressuring developers on a near-impossible deadline.
Check out the difference between a AAA game and an indie game if you want to learn more about the topic.
Game Subscription Services Can Damage Indie Games
Game subscription services have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Expensive games you may have wanted to play but didn’t have the budget for can now be played for a small monthly fee. Many big titles are even released on Xbox Game Pass on day one at no extra cost.
With so many games to play and many of those games having huge marketing budgets from the investments of their publishers; indie games are easily overshadowed, especially when they’re all trying to take a piece of the same pie.
In stores like the Epic Games Store or Steam, indie game developers can name their price according to how much they think the game is worth. You’re buying what the developer thinks is fair to them. However, with subscription services, they’re all competing for a percentage of the subscription fee.
This can distort what games are worth and could prove incredibly difficult for indie games. Now suddenly, the worth of their work is correlated to how many people play their game and not how much each player values the work of the indie developer. On top of that, they’re fighting against giants.
Game Subscription Services Can Also Benefit Indie Games
While it’s going to be a hard battle for indie developers to make money once subscription services become mainstream and put online game stores out of the spotlight, all hope is not lost.
There is a pretty big market of gamers who love indie games. You’ve probably ended up playing an indie game because it reached you in some form or another. We have no doubt that when an indie game catches the eye of the indie gaming community, they will share it with their friends, so the game can keep being supported.
Since you’re already subscribed to the platform, there is no need to buy the game; and you can just play it immediately. The resistance is immensely lessened with no additional financial commitment. All you need to do is try it out. If it isn’t for you, you can simply move on.
Can Indie Games Capitalize on Game Subscription Services?
We don’t exactly know how game subscription services will affect the industry as a whole. One way to see it is that it might even the playing field. Of course, there is still a huge gap in marketing budgets, but technically, every game becomes the same price.
MagnaPlay is a subscription service dedicated solely to indie games. MagnaPlay is still quite small and new but is keen on keeping the indie scene alive by making its platform all about it. There are no giant publishers to compete with, just other indie games. With a similar philosophy, a dedicated section for indie games on the front page of subscription services will help keep them from being overshadowed by giants.
What can indies themselves do about this, though? Well, the basics of getting a game known are always true. You need good marketing. The game needs to reach the right people in the right way. Otherwise, nobody knows that your game even exists. And, of course, good gameplay to keep their support.
Check out how much indie game developers make if you’re curious about the job itself.
Not all games are destined for success, that much has always been true, even before subscription services became a thing. The real question is: will they make it harder for indie games to succeed?
Traditional Game Stores Won’t Die So Soon
As long as publishers aren’t willing to go fully subscription-based yet, game stores won’t die so soon. The creators themselves want to be able to name their own price and assign a fair value to their creations, so their work won’t be taken for granted.
However, if subscriptions fully take over, everyone is eventually going to need to hop on board unless they want to get left behind.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/are-game-subscription-services-bad-for-indie-games/
Ref: makeuseof
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