Larian Studios founder and CEO Swen Vincke has claimed that his studio will never allow any of its games to be released on a game subscription service, seemingly crushing any hope that Baldur’s Gate 3 might appear on Xbox Game Pass. Vincke, 51, made the statement in response to recent remarks from Philippe Tremblay, director of subscriptions at Ubisoft, who told GamesIndustry.biz this week about how gamers may have to get “comfortable” with not owning games due to the advent of Ubisoft+ and other subscription services.
Vincke’s thoughts on game subscription services:
“…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. I don’t have an issue with that. I just want to make sure the other ecosystem doesn’t die because it’s valuable.”
Ubisoft’s Tremblay on the “consumer shift that needs to happen”:
“One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That’s the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That’s a transformation that’s been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don’t lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That’s not been deleted. You don’t lose what you’ve built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it’s about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.”
Vincke shared a different thought:
“Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king. But 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. Direct from developer to players is the way.”
Source: @LarAtLarian
Discussion (9 replies)
Join Discussion →Smart man. Honestly how dirty subscription services are is what bothers me. Hot new game on the sub service... great after 3-6 months we pulled it. Oh you wanted to play it more. Congratulations your progress is saved and will translate across when you buy the game. Or.. the other one I REALLY like. Play game,. buy expansions as they are not on the sub, or DLC.. Game is pulled from Sub. No refund because if you BUY the game now you get all of your DLC and Expansions as well isn't that great!
Unless you buy the game at a different storefront - then … you are screwed
Playstations digital only DLC for my physical games is something I'm not a huge fan of.
I'd like to drink with Swen. Bought my copy from GoG. Diminishing trend but I'll support it when I can find it!
That's where I bought my copy. I was so happy to see they had it.
On the note of Swen's statement, he's said this before in regard to Game Pass or other services, I've done a couple of posts on it, but I'm sure it's coming up again because of the Ubisoft thing. All the more credit to him and the rest of the company though for being so consistent.
Personally on the subscription front in have no issue as long as I can continue to buy standalone.
Too true. To each their own as long as it doesn't remove choices.
But, but, but ... what if the choice is to remove choices?
Puts on his eye patch.
Arrrrrrrr