Stadia, Apple Arcade, and Game Subscription Services Could Be Bad, Industry Analyst Says
The existence of Apple Arcade and Stadia will help expand the popularity and reach of many games. but these systems could condition the games that exist and those that will be developed, based on how popular the games as a service are.
Subscription services for enjoying video games are becoming immensely popular. Google with its Stadia, Sony with PlaYStation Now and Apple through Apple Arcade will allow us to play dozens of games, which could be good but in the long run would be bad for the variety of games.
Games designed to be subscribed instead of played
Mat Piscatella is an analyst for the NPD group that is responsible for analyzing game sales in the United States. In the face of recent announcements from Stadia and Apple Arcade, he commented on the idea of paying developers based on player playtime. While these services will be good for expanding the market, the variety of titles they will offer will not be so.
He fears this will force game development to be online games as a service, like Apex Legends, Destiny, Fortnite, Anthem, and many more. Games made for people to play long hours on a regular basis, nothing to offer a good story or a short and well condensed experience.
Piscatella went so far as to say that this system would only allow Google or Apple to “take their share of the pie” of the popularity of their games. That, and that it will be a great opportunity for exponential click-based games like idle Champions, Clicker Heroes or Cookie Clicker, in which we can spend dozens of hours without wanting to. And the truth is, in this writer’s personal opinion, such a model would be unattractive for players, who would at most have time to play one or two of these games as a service, and very few games without multiplayer would be profitable.
Source: Twitter
