I heard with the itch thing that it may be more related to people setting their payment percentage (Creator : Itch) to 0%. This effectively means that itch loses money if they act as an intermediary. There was some news of non-porn games getting hit by this as well, although I've not confirmed it myself. Similarly I haven't changed the percentages and I have not gotten the email, but i wont know for sure for a while, I imagine they are working through a very long list.
As for subscription models...
At a certain stage there is just the realities of the situation. The vast majority of developers can't afford to front load the cost of making a game. My initial calculations had me finishing Cabin by the Lake in a year... So that came and went 6 months ago, while the end is in sight it isn't weeks away, it's still potential a year away. That's not me dragging it out, that's the realities of development, I needed to develop new systems to make the game better, refactor old code and as it turns out every week isn't the maximum output week I planned on.
If I was waiting to release a completed project and then selling it, my funds would have run out last year and the game would have died so that I could do something that puts food on the table.
Although I could just sell it as early access while I develop the content... There is a problem with that though.
So going back to Itch, The general statistics is that people make hundreds to thousands of dollars on itch. That's nice... but as far as cost of living goes, it's chump change. I've released Fun Times at Fuckmore 2 on there under payment only. It's doing quite well, also feeding back into people purchasing the first one. It's made several hundred dollars. Which is nice, but not sustainable. If I somehow made one of those a week I might cover rent. Assuming they sell, and they do not always sell.
This is of course also a problem caused by having the subscription model and how if effects how people expect to support developers.
At the end of the day, I do love making these games, and I want to continue doing it for a living. The main thing that subscription provides is a number that says "Don't worry, you can afford your bills this month". That number has its fluctuations but in general I would have several months warning if any of this started to become untenable. I could push that out with savings and such but you know what I mean. It is definitely a more onerous system for supporters, which is objectively bad... but at the scale of money we are working with it's necessary for us to continue working, even if the goal is to get large enough to grow out of it.
The subscription model gives me peace of mind in life, I then have the staggered releases and public build. I can't compete with piracy and I'm not going to try. So that kind of leaves me with nothing to actually sell as a product? Not unless I make something else as well. I've got something like that happening but it's not there yet, and it could only happen because I was being supported thus far.
So that's a wall of text on why subscription is not only good, but necessary. That being said, the fact that you contribute any amount financial makes you part of the elite club that allows your favorite developers to eat. Also, just because something is good, doesn't mean you have to like it. Subscriptions do have issues, several of them very serious. I'm not trying to convince you that you have to like subscriptions (or start subscribing), but hopefully they move down from intense hatred to moderate distaste.
Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
