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The whole point of live service, as pointed out by someone here recently re: Adobe, is predictable fiscal outcomes. Bean counters and finance execs like predictable cashflow statements that come from subscriptions or regular cash injections. They'd rather make $20 every two months on a battlepass for the next two years than $60 up front, but if they could charge you $60 and then use the battlepass model as well that's even better.
Concord was a bad idea from the beginning because it was developed and designed by morons who internally steamrolled any criticism of the project and it was attached to the reputation and faith of Herman Hulst, who believed in it so much he didn't bother playing it. There's also rumors that the entire thing was a grift to get Sony to pay for the studio and in that essence it was very successful. Bloodborne is a bit of a special case, from what we know it's because Miyazaki doesn't trust Sony with it.
Subscriptions surely are nice and low-volatility when it works, but it seems like a case of "10% of the time, it works every time." Which is necessarily high volatility.
For Bloodborne, I was under the impression that Sony owned the rights and could just tell Miyazaki to pound sand? Are there weird rights issues surrounding the exclusive deal they made back then?
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