JinjoUnchained
Member
The imminent launches of PS Now and EA Access got me thinking about how "our new streaming overlords" would compete in a 100% digital, "games as a service" future.
Physical distribution and the non-subscription version of digital distribution (as used by indies) have been conducive to multiple suppliers. In those models, consumers only have to worry about the price of a given game and can spread their spending around to multiple games from multiple studios. There's no incentive to keep buying from a particular supplier other than preference and good old fashioned customer loyalty.
Subscription models look to change that dynamic by having customers invest in each supplier. That subscription charge is essentially a sunk cost that gives consumers some "skin in the game", the idea being to convert the consumer to a recurring income stream and dissuade them from using a competing publisher's "service". Consumers are discouraged from letting their subscriptions lapse and losing access to all of their former games, even if newer games aren't as appealing and are no longer worth the subscription in the consumer's eyes. Locking you into that long term investment just means that there are only so many subscriptions you can pay at once, whereas before consumers could just spread around their gaming budget on titles from multiple studios.
That restriction makes me wonder just how many of these subscription services could exist at once. If you buy into EA Access one year because you like that year's offerings and then invest for a couple of years, but then the offerings go downhill, you'll still want to pay the $30 annual fee to keep access to your older games. $30 might not sound so bad to some, but multiply that cost by the number of competing subscription services in the future and it adds up very quickly. If Activision, Ubisoft, EA, Microsoft, Sony, Valve, and God knows who else all do this, then we're talking about hundreds of dollars in yearly subscription fees, essentially the price of a new console every year. I just don't see consumers signing up for more than 1-2 subscription plans at a time, but wouldn't that then mean that only the top 1-2 suppliers could use this model? Sure, gamers could spread around their subscription money to the 1-2 suppliers they prefer, but my experience with most console gamers is that they like to have access to everything, not be fenced in to a couple of publishers.
So what do you think? For the reasons outlined above, I don't think suppliers can convert gaming to a 100% digital subscription service in the future as many have alluded.
TLDR: Some publishers are trying to convert gaming supply to a 100% digital/subscription based service, but I don't see how this model will work for all publishers because most consumers won't buy more than 1-2 subscriptions at a time.
Physical distribution and the non-subscription version of digital distribution (as used by indies) have been conducive to multiple suppliers. In those models, consumers only have to worry about the price of a given game and can spread their spending around to multiple games from multiple studios. There's no incentive to keep buying from a particular supplier other than preference and good old fashioned customer loyalty.
Subscription models look to change that dynamic by having customers invest in each supplier. That subscription charge is essentially a sunk cost that gives consumers some "skin in the game", the idea being to convert the consumer to a recurring income stream and dissuade them from using a competing publisher's "service". Consumers are discouraged from letting their subscriptions lapse and losing access to all of their former games, even if newer games aren't as appealing and are no longer worth the subscription in the consumer's eyes. Locking you into that long term investment just means that there are only so many subscriptions you can pay at once, whereas before consumers could just spread around their gaming budget on titles from multiple studios.
That restriction makes me wonder just how many of these subscription services could exist at once. If you buy into EA Access one year because you like that year's offerings and then invest for a couple of years, but then the offerings go downhill, you'll still want to pay the $30 annual fee to keep access to your older games. $30 might not sound so bad to some, but multiply that cost by the number of competing subscription services in the future and it adds up very quickly. If Activision, Ubisoft, EA, Microsoft, Sony, Valve, and God knows who else all do this, then we're talking about hundreds of dollars in yearly subscription fees, essentially the price of a new console every year. I just don't see consumers signing up for more than 1-2 subscription plans at a time, but wouldn't that then mean that only the top 1-2 suppliers could use this model? Sure, gamers could spread around their subscription money to the 1-2 suppliers they prefer, but my experience with most console gamers is that they like to have access to everything, not be fenced in to a couple of publishers.
So what do you think? For the reasons outlined above, I don't think suppliers can convert gaming to a 100% digital subscription service in the future as many have alluded.
TLDR: Some publishers are trying to convert gaming supply to a 100% digital/subscription based service, but I don't see how this model will work for all publishers because most consumers won't buy more than 1-2 subscriptions at a time.
! The 360 and X1 don't have as much legs as PS+ does yet, so EA and potentially, Ubisoft, Activision and Square try doing something like this, then they could get lots of 'free' games alongside other solid deals with the many services. 
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