Subscription services in gaming are popular, and while they are very far from the only way to buy and play games, the profile of the business model is growing thanks in part to the backing of multi-trillion-dollar company Microsoft and its Xbox Game Pass service. Pete Hines, the longtime Bethesda marketing and publishing boss who retired after Microsoft bought his company, has now shared his thoughts on subscription services for games–and he has some issues.
In an interview with dbltap, Hines began by saying he doesn’t work at Bethesda anymore and is under no assumption that he what he knew when he was there still holds true today. That said, he believes he is involved enough in gaming still today to understand “what I considered to be some short-sighted decision making several years ago, and it seems to be bearing out the way I said.”
Hines said his main issue with a subscription service like Game Pass or others is that the economics might not always make sense–and that’s a critical point in a world with mass layoffs, studio closures, and game cancellations.
