Industry Analyst Matt Piscatella has reported a stagnation in growth for Xbox Game Pass, PS Plus and other game subscription services.
Matt Piscatella, Executive Director & Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana (NPD), took to Twitter/X to share his views on the growth of game subscriptions, such as Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus. According to him, subscription growth has flattened, and subscription services on console and PC platforms account for only 10% of total video game content spending in the US.
Piscatella stated that he understood some people want to “protect” their preferred model, but the idea that subs will become dominant is not supported by data. He claimed that game subscriptions have been more additive than cannibalistic, and offer players, developers and publishers more choice in how to play or market their games.
He appears to be taking a jab at Baldur’s Gate 3 director and Larian Studios CEO, Swen Vincke, who had merely expressed his concern over the possibility of the subscription model becoming the dominant method of game distribution in future. Matt termed Vincke’s views on the matter as “fear mongering”, and called them “quite unnecessary”.
Piscatella directly referenced one of Vincke’s statements, where he had stated that Larian Studios’ games will not be available on a subscription service. The analyst found this to be “weird”. The head of Gameindustry.biz, Christopher Dring, responded by pointing towards Starfield’s sales performance, and how he could see where Vincke was coming from.
We feel that Vincke was merely expressing his personal concern, and the decision to not put Baldur’s Gate 3 on a subscription service is entirely up to him and the higher management at Larian Studios. We also feel that a harsh and overly defensive response from the industry analyst was quite unnecessary.
To read the Larian Studios CEO’s full statement, follow the link here.
