In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Outer Wilds‘ Loan Verneau says subscription services like Xbox Game Pass “unlock the market to weirder things.”
“We’re on Game Pass for Xbox, and it’s been really awesome becuase I think it’s brought a lot of players to the game who would not have known about it otherwise,” says Verneau, who’s the co-creative lead at Mobius Digital. “So I think that’s been a big shift. The same way it’s changed the TV and movie worlds, the subscription system is also going to impact the game industry very significantly. We’re starting to see that, and starting to see it maybe unlock the market to weirder things and more original things that would have been more risky beforehand.”
In addition to exposing the market to more unique experiences, Verneau thinks subscription services find their value in innovative content that grabs the users attention that the consumer might want to try but not buy as a stand alone.
Among the other things Verneau talks about in the interview is crunch in the games industry. While he was a software enginner, he learned crunch adds more bugs in the game as the developers exhaust themselves to reach deadlines.
“One of the things we pride ourselves on [at Mobius Digital] — and I think it’s important to talk about it — is work conditions,” Verneau continues. “We pride ourselves on not crunching and really trying to keep healthy conditions at the office, keeping everyone in a nice work-life balance. I think it’s served us tremendously, and I wish it were something we heard more of.”
Outer Wilds launched last May and received several positive reviews, including from DualShockers’ Ricky Frech. A couple months after its launch, the game came to the PlayStation 4 in October. More recently, a VR mod with motion controls is in early development.
Outer Wilds is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. The game’s VR mod is available to try on NexusMods.
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