Bethesda Veteran Pete Hines Criticized Subscription Model for Devaluing Game Developers
Subscription services are gradually spreading, but not everyone approves of using this approach to content delivery.
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».
