Larian Studios games won't be on subscription services, says CEO Swen Vincke

You won’t find any Larian Studios games on a subscription service, said its CEO Swen Vincke.

In a thread on X, formerly Twitter, Vincke shared his views on subscription models in response to yesterday’s news that Ubisoft is evolving its service. Ubisoft’s director of subscription Philippe Tremblay said players need to be “comfortable” not owning games when discussing the range of consumer behaviour.

“Whatever the future of games looks like, content will always be king,” said Vincke. “But it’s going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not. Direct from developer to players is the way.”

Vincke believes subscription models “will always end up being cost/benefit analysis exercises intended to maximise profit”.

He continued: “There is nothing wrong with that but it may not become a monopoly of subscription services. We are already all dependent on a select group of digital distribution platforms and discoverability is brutal. Should those platforms all switch to subscription, it’ll become savage.”

As a result, the “preference of the subscription service will determine what games get made”.

He concluded: “You won’t find our games on a subscription service even if I respect that for many developers it presents an opportunity to make their game. I don’t have an issue with that. I just want to make sure the other ecosystem doesn’t die because it’s valuable.”

TLDR ; you won’t find our games on a subscription service even if I respect that for many developers it presents an opportunity to make their game. I don’t have an issue with that. I just want to make sure the other ecosystem doesn’t die because it’s valuable.

— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) January 17, 2024

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Other members of the industry have also shared their opinions on subscription service.

In response to Tremblay’s view, Josh Fairhurst, CEO of Limited Run Games, said: “I absolutely hate this, but I think the unfortunate reality is that within the next ten to fifteen years, cloud streaming and subscription services will be the primary distribution method for games. We’ll continue releasing games physically until the bitter end, though.”