Devolver Digital Believes in “Selling Games First” Over Game Pass Subscription Day One Launches

The co-founder of indie game publisher Devolver Digital, Nigel Lowrie, said that the company believes in “selling games first” over releasing them from day one in subscription services such as Game Pass and PS Plus.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz in an interview, Lowrie talked about his stance on the current state of the industry and revealed that the growth of subscription services is slowing down. He also noted that deals for indie developers to be included in such offerings are getting worse. 

Lowrie described that large-scale game developments are “crushing under its own weight a little bit”.

Talking about subscription services, Lowrie said “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.”

While Lowrie acknowledged that subscription services may provide a great deal for consumers, he noted it is harder for developers to convince people to purchase their games over Game Pass or PS Plus.

“On the [developer’s] side, then you have to convince people to put down money for your game rather than this service with 100 or 200 games to play,” Lowrie says. “That does cause a little bit of a problem.”

He then talks about Devolver Digital’s strategy, which is to sell the games initially before adding them to subscription services later.

“We still really strongly believe in selling games first, because over the past 15 years, we know there’s an audience to buy these games,” Lowrie said. “And we’re looking at subscription more for the longer tail, the people on the edge of things who were never really going to jump in at $40 or $30 or $20. But they’re willing to try it, maybe buy something cosmetic or something like that? We’re looking at it more as a long tail thing now, and my hope is that’s where the industry is going.”

That said, he noted that Devolver Digital isn’t “ruling out day one subscription service”, but added that “it depends on the kind of game it is and the audience you’re going for”, and uses Fall Guys as an example of a successful day one subscription service launch.

In the interview, Lowrie also compared the major platforms and acknowledged Nintendo as the better choice for indie developers compared to Xbox or PlayStation.

“They’ve created an ecosystem – and therefore a user base – that is really open to interesting concepts and gameplay ideas,” Lowrie said of Nintendo. “The PlayStation and Xbox user, for as long as I’ve been doing this… there’s a lot of people that still like indie games, don’t get me wrong. Cult of the Lamb has done very well on those platforms. But I think the large majority of those people buy those platforms to show off what they can really do. They’re looking at Destiny. They’re looking at Helldivers. They’re looking at Starfield. They definitely push those.”

“I think the platforms themselves all are really strong believers in indie games. They really do push them. I think on the other end, the consumers – as big as they might be – there’s still a smaller portion than we would like on Xbox and PlayStation that are open to looking at a pixel art platformer and going, ‘I’ll give this a shot.'”

Devolver Digital is a publisher that specializes in publishing indie games, and some of their most notable releases include Cult of the Lamb, Carrion, GRIS, and many more.

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