Recently, former VP of PR and Marketing at Bethesda, Pete Hines, spoke with dbltap. He shared his opinion on subscriptions.
He doesn't like this model of content distribution:
"I no longer work at either of those companies [Bethesda, Microsoft], so I don't think anything I knew from when I was in the industry is relevant today. At the same time, I'm involved enough in the industry to know that I saw what I thought was a short-sighted decision being made a few years ago, and it seems like my hunches are being proven out.
"Subscriptions" has become the new four-letter word, right? You can no longer buy a product. When it comes to a content-based subscription, if you don't understand how to balance the needs of the service and its administrators, with the people who provide the content - without which your subscription is worthless - then you have a serious problem".
During the interview, the case with Tango Gameworks studio was mentioned - Microsoft talked about the success of Hi-Fi Rush, but then the studio was decided to be closed.
Hines believes that developers and their projects are undervalued:
"It is necessary to properly recognize, compensate, and understand what it takes to create this content - just to create a game, but to create a product. This tension hurts many people, including the content creators themselves, because they are embedded in an ecosystem that does not value and reward what they create properly".