Mega publishers like EA are always planning for the future, and CEO Andrew Wilson says that the company is looking at various rather interesting business models going forward. Speaking to Bloomberg, the exec ponders whether we'll eventually see subscription-based gaming instead of more traditional models like annual releases.
"There’s a world where it gets easier and easier to move that code around -- where we may not have to do an annual release," Wilson comments. "We can really think about those games as a 365-day, live service." Yep, it's that old "games as a service" thing again. "There’s a world not too far away from now where video games move from being a discrete, conscious experience to an indiscreet, subconscious experience," the CEO concludes. Bit of a weird quote, that one.
Of course, EA already has EA Access, a subscription-based service which allows users to play a bunch of different titles from its back catalogue and gain early access to new games. You can bet that EA isn't the only publisher looking into these kinds of business models, though.
What are your thoughts on a future where you subscribe to a service in order to play games rather than buy them in traditional fashion? Try not to get too dystopian in the comments section below.
[source bloomberg.com, via xboxtavern.com]
Comments 50
I can kind of see this being the future but I think they need to see how the whole subscription services are turning out because it is widely believe that there is a subscription bubble being created (some economists are worrying about the fact that you have Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO, upcoming disney service as well as several others and that is just video streaming - add in music, gaming etc. and people will struggle to afford.
Sad days but I can't see that happening for some time.
If they do this I’ll treat it the same way I do Netflix and HBO Go. Wait until something I want is available in full, binge, then cancel.
The next step, I guess.
How can i hate EA more wow they somehow get it done everytime. I bought 2 games its going be less everytime im happy I cancelled the Starwars Battlefront 2. Its smart to they make you pay more. No more different games and you only pay and get no value back for it.
This is one of the reasons I was against EA access on PS4. Once Sony give in- which they will eventually, subscription based gaming from big publishers will take over.
EA likes to create their own trends and others will follow.
Nope. Netflix and crunchyroll are the only ones that I pay, because of the vast content and are among the oldest the first.
HBO GO, FOX+ anything related to only one studio (even Disney) or EA etc etc I'll skip or pay a month than cancel.
Also the internet around the world still not fast enough.
This was the future 5 years ago, now it's just a dumb dated idea.
If done correctly it can work, ie: Elder Scrolls Online.
The "Base" stuff needs to stay free or tied to the annual release.
NOT "Pay to Win" either . .
Unfortunately, the Gaming Industry as a whole is not in a great place from the Gamers perspective, Games not finished, Way too many DLC cash grabs, Make great games, people will play & pay, CoD model ruined the industry with rinse-&-repeat of old content and "Loot-Box" is now a four letter word !!
Games should be 1. Fun 2. Challenging 3. repeatable 4. Sociable .
EA & Activision once were my favorites... then they changed, now they are too corporate, the Board rooms or non-gamers ruining the Fun for some IP or stock-split.
Good. I hope EA try this first, it dies on it's arse and they go out of business. Their corpse can be hung at the door as an example.
Won't happen of course, but a man can dream. Word up son.
I am not terribly interested in subscribing to even more things. Between Amazon, Netflix, PS Vue, and whatever else, I feel like I am more likely to remove some of these as opposed to adding more.
For me at least, I don't really have the time to justify a gaming subscription service, let alone several if more publishers adopt this approach.
yeah and then just watch as their sales and thus the money they earn drop faster than a penny thrown off the empire state building
streaming my work for things like Netflix where there is a HUGE amount of content but MANY have tried a game streaming service before and NONE have worked and lets be honest not even EA has a big enough library of titles to make a streaming service work
The only context in which I'd accept a games as a service model (other than with traditional MMORPGS) is with sports games, as sports games are based on the configuration of real life sports teams, and the rosters change regularly. For that, it makes sense. In addition, it makes sense for retro gaming I suppose, where the media for the games can be hard to find for reasonable prices, if at all.
Otherwise, I hate the as a service model and hope it doesn't take off.
Its definatly the future the other two major entertainment sectors already do it tv/movies and musc. Its a logical step. The pricing would be interesting.
No thanks unless its an rpg type game that has continuous content and updates. The sports games need this though. Pay a monthly fee for patches and roster updates, no need whatsoever for an annual fifa.
"There’s a world not too far away from now where video games move from being a discrete, conscious experience to an indiscreet, subconscious experience," WTF does this even mean? Must've spent weeks coming up with that line of BS.
I guess I'm not understanding how this would be different than releasing games and continuous support of the games. There would still be release dates, etc. EA just wants you to pay for something you haven't played or purchased yet. Really? F-off EA.
And so it begins....
Lol. I never stick with one game for too long, so I for one, won't be paying any subscription fees for anything I play.
Jesus this is depressing reading.
"There’s a world not too far away from now where video games move from being a discrete, conscious experience to an indiscreet, subconscious experience"
I think he's referring to moving from consciously buying a copy of FIFA each year to a situation where EA indiscreetly shaft you by signing you up to a 4 year subscription without you even knowing.
Nope, not for me. The day it becomes "industry standard" for subscriptions being needed to even play or buy games is the day I stop buying games.
Absolutely the next step im afriad for some. Gone are the days of owning software soon.
SAAS is happening all over tech from consumer products right through to business, take Netflix, Spotify, Office 365 and Azure cloud services. Gone are the days of a small business running a server for exchange and a SQL database that can go belly up at a drop of a hat when it can all be done offsite with guaranteed uptime.
All these services are based on subscriptions to maximise turnover, give a constant revenue stream and lock the customer in.
Lots of titles are now either yearly iterations, MP open worlds so it makes perfect business sense to go the way of WOW and use a subscription model.
Fifa, BF, GTA, COD could easily go this way. Its essentially another extension of DLC.
For it to work over the industry though publishers would need to team up and share revenue which would be the biggest hurdle as no one is going to subscribe to 20 different content creators to play certain games they enjoy.
Watch this video, replace "Krusty Krab" with "EA", and "Mr. Krabs" with "Andrew Wilson". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_Ovq80buA
If they want me to keep paying over the top for a monthly subscription for a game, then I'll go and game elsewhere.
Absolutely not. All this will achieve is encouragement to finish my vast backlog as I wont be buying into this type of model
Would it mean EA sticking to PC, though? The consoles have or are gearing up for their own subscription services, after all.
All I can say is vote with your wallet. I won't ever be playing FIFA or Madden again if it goes subscription based. I'll gladly put my money elsewhere.
I'll rent NFS Payback for 6 hours please.
@Wesker
I used EA Access on PC for reasons like this...play a game for a little while over a month for $5, then unsubscribe.
Most of their games are so bloated and grindy that I don't even want to touch them in the first place (don't have that kinda time)...and I figure that that's the only way to make a subscription-based service viable, and that's very unappealing for me.
Regardless of what happens, we'll always have indies to fill the void.
Games like FIFA, Madden and NBA all lend themselves hugely to this model as all EA would need to do is keep the data updated, and then they can call it a service.
Cheap and easy for them to run.
hmm.. not convinced. it's easy to see how the EA sports games might lend themselves to this model, but there's still a lot of consumers would rather pay the one-off £40 fee once a year.. call me cynical, but i bet EA wouldn't hesitate to place it behind some kind of 'EA Sports' service, to bolster less popular franchises like NHL.
i think the whole thing could end in a mess. it's the same way tv is going imo. for premier league in the uk, you already need subs to SkyTV and BTSport. when the next round of packages are up for auction, there are strong rumours that the likes of facebook, amazon and netflix are interested/intending to bid. what happens when you need 3 or 4 subs to watch the premier league live?. how would existing sky/BT customers feel about paying the same fees for less matches?. i don't subscribe to any of them, and going forward, i can see even less reason to become a customer. it would be the same for games..
EA deserve to crash and burn more than anyone, hopefully that happens before this does.
This is not good...
My beloved gaming past time is slowly turning to sh*t... (the economics not the games)
The problem is people support this crap so they're going to push it. It's more money for them.
Imagine ten years from now, Amazon, Ubisoft, Netflix, Apple Music, Hulu, EA, Activision, PS+, Sky/cable, Xbox Live, Take Two, Nintendo, Spotify etc all having monthly subs? Balls to that.
I had EA Access on Xbox and really enjoyed it. Inexpensive way to play a load of games. I'm guessing it would have come to PS4 but they felt it would detract from Playstation Now which had recently launched. Can't see how single game subscriptions would work though. I wouldn't be interested in that.
"There’s a world where it gets easier and easier to move that code around — where we may not have to do an annual release,"
Stop doing annual releases then, you greedy bastards!
There are games which require subscription now, and I don't play any of them. Nor do I know anyone who does.
The problem with this idea is that it will lead to too many subscriptions required, so people will become more selective about what they play, and it will be the death of many games, publishers, and developers.
It might - MIGHT - work if an (affordable) subscription lets you play ALL of a particular company's games, but if it's a game-by-game thing, then the industry may well hang itself.
I don't mind paying £40 per game. I won't pay £30 a month to play that game, even if it offers the opportunity to play many others I may have no interest in. That's why I no longer subscribe to Sky Sports - I want to see my team's footy matches, but I'm not interested in all the others, so for me it's poor value.
As I've said before on a similar subject (streaming games), I've been a gamer since the late 70s, but if this is the way it ends up going, it's likely I'll look for another hobby.
That being said, if EA do it, it won't be that big a deal for me. FIFA18 is the first EA game I've bought since Battlefield 4, and that's was only because their's been precious little worthwhile in the tail end of this year.
EDIT: @leucocyte I Completely agree with you. Football on TV now has reached the point where it's too expensive to bother. What we need at this point is not more 'packages' clamouring for our money, but rather what was originally promised at the advent of digital TV - that we could buy a 'season ticket' for our team, to watch all of their matches, home and away.
Well if the games EA produce are good don't see why not. Just don't force me to micro transucktion to progress the game forward!
I hate the whole 'games as a service thing.' But all companies will probably move to it eventually. I won't say it'd make me stop gaming but I'd be very particular about which services I subscribe to.
I'm not paying for non of that s***
I can’t ever see myself subscribing to loads of different games publishers, paying them monthly subscriptions when 90% of their content doesn’t interest me.
My son without my permission, subscribed to Apple Music for $10 a month! I immediately called Apple and cancelled it. I download a ton of music but I want to purchase at my own pace and I want to OWN my music. Why should I pay $10 a month if I don’t need to buy anything for say 2-3 months?? Also don’t subscribe to Playstation Now nor Xbox game pass. Only thing I subscribe to is Netflix and amazon prime. Don’t have the space for 400 DVD’s anymore. Rather collect retail games! Sorry EA- i love Battlefield but you will lose me as a customer!
To be honest i see a subscription system with games just like netflix but for games. It will be like the PsNow but might not be streaming or maybe it will be. But will probaly be the big game companies that through ps4 n Microsoft under the bus with this.
@Rudy_Manchego agreed but go past that n u see an company doing an umbrella effect , purchase 1 item for tv gaming n music etc , then after that a movement back to consolea cause its retro or acn pull off super realistic gaming by then (fun speculation here lol)
My god, just when I thought EA was getting better, every day now they give me a reason not to buy their products.
I'll just play older games, especially if this becomes more wide spread. I would rather pay for games that release traditionally. I don't want to be drowned in subscriptions if more companies go to this model.
@Rob_230 My thoughts exactly
@Johnnycide Cant agree more.
Can you imagine all the direct debits people are going to Have? It's already splintered and to an extent spoiled traditional TV in that we don't seem to get more quality programming but now we have to dig through mountains of channels and subscriptions to find it.
Look through your gaming collection and see how many different publishers are making these. If this becomes the future many will have to sell out to these larger companies and we all know what that means for the quality of games produced. It's obvious that Microsoft are already positioning Xbox for this type of future and PlayStation may be thinking that way with PlayStation Now
If this is the future, I'll stay in the past. Never paid a subscription for a game and never will — my gaming time is all over the place, I don't wanna fell I'm throwing money away by paying a monthly fee and actually playing a few hours a month.
I can see myself playing more and more older games 10 years from now with all these (at least for me) negative changes on the gaming scene. I'm still bugged by the fact that Final Fantasy XV for instance is basically a neverending update fest. I don't see this as value for money, but as a hassle instead. Give me complete games on the box anyday.
It's a simple equation for me really: Hours of fun per dollar of expense. Subscription models tend to have a bad ratio, so I don't buy them.
It seems like this is an inevitable move for EA, and I expect other big publishers will eventually follow suit.
Bad. Future bad. I'll live in my backlog bubble I guess....
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