Nigel Lowrie, one of the founders of indie game publisher Devolver Digital, has shared some thoughts on the difficulties that the gaming industry is currently facing. He highlighted the impact of subscription services and the growing competition for players’ time. It’s a pretty smart discussion, to be honest.
During an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Lowrie thinks that the popularity of live service games, which often require a lot of time from players, makes it harder for smaller indie games to succeed. He says, “Players are so involved in these great live service games,” which means they have less time for other games. This affects all games, big or small, as they compete for players’ limited free time. Call of Duty has a way of taking up most of your console space and tends to be your only option because of this.
While subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass were initially attractive, Lowrie has noticed a decrease in the quality of deals available to developers and publishers. He also has concerns about the transparency of subscription service usage. This perspective reflects the overall slowdown in the growth of subscription services across the industry.
Lowrie believes that subscription services can hurt traditional game sales, especially when games are available at launch. He explains, “You have to persuade people to buy your game instead of subscribing to a service with 100 or 200 games to play.” Devolver Digital prefers to sell games first and then use subscription services later to reach a wider audience. However, Lowrie is open to trying day-one subscription service launches on a case-by-case basis, as shown by their partnership with Fall Guys’ initial release on PlayStation Plus.
It’s true that subscriptions are no longer the empty space they used to be. There’s a lot of competition around these services, and it’s only growing.
“A lot of it seems a little obtuse on how many people are actually [using them]. Every once in a while you hear how many subscribers these services have, so you don’t really know. And you don’t know how active they are. Are they part of a larger service? Some of these companies have multiple things outside of games and their subscription service also encompasses music or movies and things like that.”
Nigel Lowri
The co-founder of Devolver also discussed the varying market environments of different gaming consoles, noting that the Nintendo Switch platform is more open to diverse indie games than Xbox and PlayStation. On the other hand, Xbox and PlayStation tend to cater more to larger, visually stunning AAA titles. Discoverability is a significant challenge, especially on consoles where paid advertising and building connections with platform holders are critical for success.
To be fair, Nintendo Switch isn’t anywhere near as powerful as a PS5 and Xbox Series X|S because they’re not trying to compete in that area. So, instead of trying to get bigger games, Nintendo goes for the smaller ones, which won’t show how weak the console is comparatively.
Lowrie insists that despite becoming public in 2021, Devolver Digital will continue to publish high-quality indie games. Indie developers, in particular, are facing new pressures from various sources, causing them to adjust their approaches to stay competitive.
Comments