Subscription services like Xbox Game Pass turn developers into 'wage slaves', says former PlayStation boss

Former Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shawn Layden thinks subscription services like Xbox Game Pass are a "danger" to the industry, and that the model risks turning developers into "wage slaves".

In a wide ranging Games Industry interview on the state of the industry, Layden compared gaming subscription services unfavourably with music subscriptions services. While products like Spotify and Apple Music have dramatically undermined physical music sales, musicians—so Layden contends—at least have touring and merchandise as alternative income streams. "The problem with gaming is all we have is launch," Layden said. "That's it. No one wants to pay money to come into the studio and watch people code."

The financial impact of subscription services isn't the only drawback of the model, according to Layden: it may also have an adverse effect on developers and creativity, not to mention that its profitability remains vague.

"You can do all kinds of financial jiggery-pokery for any sort of corporate service to make it look profitable if you wanted to. You take enough costs out and say that's off the balance sheet and, oh look, it's profitable now. The real issue for me on things like Game Pass is, is it healthy for the developer?"

Subscription services risk turning studios and developers into something akin to a "wage slave". "They're not creating value, putting it in the marketplace, hoping it explodes, and profit sharing, and overages, and all that nice stuff," he said. "It's just, 'You pay me X dollars an hour, I built you a game, here, go put it on your servers'."

Developers have started to criticise the Game Pass model too. Founder of Arkane Studios Raphael Colantonio condemned the model in the wake of Microsoft's catastrophic mass layoffs in July. "I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidized by MS’s 'infinite money', but at some point reality has to hit," he said. "I don’t think GP can co-exist with other models, they’ll either kill everyone else, or give up." Colantonio left Arkane in 2017, four years before Microsoft acquired it as part of ZeniMax Media.