Subscription service for indie games gets a rough reception

There’s a new subscription service on the block: Indie Pass, which promises access to “a curated catalog of games from indie developers” for $6.99/month.

Indie Pass is set to launch on April 13 with 70 games, most of which are unfamiliar to me—they come from the catalog of publisher indie.io, the company behind the service, which aims to recruit more developers to the platform over time. Those who do bring their games to Indie Pass will earn revenue based on how much time subscribers spend playing their games.

It was probably inevitable that someone would try a cheaper, indies-only version of Microsoft’s Game Pass, but the reception to the idea has been less than stellar.

The prime complaints being aired on social media are:

• Compensation based on time played discourages games that aren’t optimized to keep players in an endless loop
• Indie games are already relatively cheap, so why not support developers with a direct purchase?
• It’s another way to not own the games we play
• Oh great, another launcher

Or, as 3D Realms co-founder George Broussard put it, “this sort of thing is poison for game developers and a net negative for gaming.”

The reactions aren’t entirely hostile. “If the split to the devs is solid and it helped me find titles I otherwise wouldn’t or would be on the fence about… Maybe there is something there?” speculated one commenter, as an example.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Indie Pass director of growth Jess Mitchell emphasized discoverability as a reason for developers to join the service.

“Candidly, one of the biggest challenges indie developers face right now is the sheer number of games out there,” Mitchell said. “That number seems to be growing by the minute. If you don’t have a huge splash on your launch, then you might not have another discoverability moment for three, six, even 12 months after release.”

The company is “confident that Indie Pass will not damage games’ sales performance,” according to GamesIndustry’s report, but even if it could guarantee that, I wonder how many developers would bother. It struck me recently that Mega Crit could have launched Slay the Spire 2 on the Epic Games Store if it had wanted to, and is probably leaving money on the table by not getting in front of the Fortnite audience, but presumably launching only on Steam simplified things.

Publisher Devolver Digital doesn’t appear to be taking the idea seriously, joking on X: “If you send us $100,000 we will give you an Indie Pass to play all of our games.”

Given that the response I’ve seen has mostly been ‘no thanks,’ Indie Pass clearly has an uphill battle ahead as it tries to convince developers to sign up, and us to put yet another recurring charge on our credit cards.

It may also not be a great sign for Indie Pass’s chances that a Google search for its name currently autocorrects to “indy pass,” returning results for a ski pass usable at independent ski resorts around the world.