Smaller subscription deals and the underperformance of certain titles have had a severe impact on Devolver and TinyBuild, says stockbroking firm Goodbody.
Both companies floated at the peak of the games business in 2021 and have seen their share prices plummet over the past two years. Devolver has seen its share price drop 92% since its peak in January 2022, while TinyBuild’s has fallen 95%
“We have seen from Devolver and TinyBuild that subscription is under pressure at the moment,” says Patrick O’Donnell, technology and video gaming analyst at Goodbody.
"The cheques coming from Sony and Microsoft are just not as big as they were. And that creates problems if you’re concentrated on that side of the market.
“TinyBuild, of all of them, was most exposed. Devolver was exposed, but not quite as much.”
A well thought out answer.
I see your points, which I mostly agree. I think at one point, but there are also Indies games that may hardly see any penny without the exposition of the subscription as well. There are games like Chain of Echoes that I bought after playing it on GP just because I like it so much that I want to support the devs and wouldn’t have buy it in the first place had it not included with GP, but this may be a rare case or just a matter of releasing a demo.
Rockstar had their games on GP for a short period then pull them from the platform repeatedly for a while, I guess they intended for people to use GP to demo their game. Not sure how that work out for them.