Bandai Namco Sees Subscription Services As A “Threat”

The subscription model for services has seen an explosion in our industry in recent years. From the likes of Xbox Game Pass and Stadia – both of which are going to be major players in the market in the coming years – to publishers like EA and Ubisoft opening up their own subscription based services, the business model is clearly one that a lot of companies in the industry seem to have great affinity for.

One company that doesn’t fall in that camp, however, is Bandai Namco. In fact, Hervé Hoerdt – who bears the long title of Bandai Namco Europe’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, Digital, and Content – sees these subscription as threat, owing to the low value they provide in his view.

“Subscriptions are more of a threat, that’s for sure,” said Hoerdt while speaking with MCV UK. “Because the business model behind subscriptions will be based on two things: the number of hours played on your game compared to the total hours people played, and the number of games played compared to the total number of games. So, in the value chain, we see a lot of cascading and the value in the end is too low for us to be able to invest further in the content. So that’s a threat we see. But otherwise, generally speaking, it’s exciting, it’s appealing, it’s more opportunities going forwards.”

Hoerdt, however, also clarifies that those criticms of his are reserved for subscription services, not streaming services, which Bandai Namco themselves plan on supporting as well.

“I think there’s a misconception: streaming doesn’t mean subscription,” he said. “It’s not mandatory. And we’ve put some games there, we’ve made some tests, we have Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 [coming to Stadia] but we also have more projects in the pipeline. Not on the first wave, but there will be three or four waves in the coming years so we’ll have some titles then and I think this is important for us to make this bet and to see how it reacts.”

There have been conflicted reports about the advantages subscription services – particularly Game Pass – bring to developers of late. Though some have seen major boosts, others find it lacking in its business model. Read more about both through the links.