Revenue from gaming subscriptions hasreportedlybarely increased in the last two years in the US, which might help paint a clearer picturearoundMicrosoft‘s recent studio closures.
Video game industry analyst Mat Piscatella took to social media to report that “non-mobile video game subscription spending was only up 1%” compared to this time last year. Compounding that, subscription spending in April 2023 was only 2% higher thanit wasin April 2022, meaning revenue generated from PlayStation Plus, EA Play, Xbox Game Pass, and similar services saw narrow growth.
Revenue shouldn’t have to balloon annually for an industry to remain healthy, but giantgaming companies have been chasing and investing toward unsustainable growth for years, which makes the above news a littleworrisome. Microsoftinparticularhas gone all out on its Game Pass initiative by launching all its published games into the service and spending $69 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft shut down four Bethesda subsidiaries yesterday after having acquired themfour years ago. Tango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush, The Evil Within, GhostWire: Tokyo), Arkane Austin (Redfall, Prey), and Alpha Dog Games (mobile spin-off Might Doom) were all canned, while Roundhouse Studioswas foldedinto The Elder Scrolls Online stewards ZeniMax Online.
Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Bootysent an email to staff, seen by IGN, explainingthat the studio closures allowed the mega corporation to focus on “prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games.”
Xbox’s strategy at one point seemed to focus on filling out genre gaps in Game Pass with niche games like Hi-Fi Rush, meaning that even if a game didn’t break even via sales numbers, it could stillbe deemedsuccessful as long as it kept a subsect of players subscribed. Hopefully, that line of thinking isn’t completely dead at the company since its buying spree only began less than a decade ago. But dropping more than $70 billion on countless studiosbeforeGame Pass saw substantial growth was, at best, a premature decision.
