Sports Games Toy With Pay To Play

Thanks to CNN Money for their article discussing videogame plans for the forthcoming football season, particularly focusing on the fact that "publishers are interested in discovering exactly how dedicated electronic football fans are to the online element." EA president John Riccitiello explains: "The online connected console is a brand new concept. We do not want to set a long term precedent that it's a free benefit, but we don't think we can get paid for the simple act of matching two consumers to play against one another. So what we've been doing is looking at alternatives." According to the article, EA will be trying pay-to-play tournaments (but only in NBA Live for now, not Madden), and the opportunity to purchase downloadable content, as EA learns "what the consumer is willing to pay for."

Comments

match entire teams?

[prichardson]

How about instead of matching two players, match two teams entirely made up of players. You could also have a coach player. This brings many more possibilities, maybe even a cooperative game play (run through whatever single player there is with a team made up of real people). Then you could a have a football sim that simulated individual players.

You could even have it almost me MMO like. Have coaches organize teams of real players based on their records. I've never been a fan of sports games myself but I might buy into that. Even better, simulate even more, a sports caster, water boy, but have AI backup for whatever people won't do.

Madden wants your money

[August_zero]

Really people, don't get mad, just don't get the game. If nobody is willing to pay the price than they will give up and go back to free.

Sports games fans are a bit looney anyway considering the fact that they pay $50 a year for new rosters and for what is basically the same game as they bough last year. Whats more, the resale value on sports games are terrible.

Now If I was a hardcore Madden fan, and EA offered me a $60 a year subscription to Madden football, that included regular roster updates, add ons and online play. In other words, instead of me having to buy a new version every year, I buy it once and the game gets upgraded/updated continously. That seems more reasonable.

Wait a second, this is EA? forget it they have never been reasonable why should anyone expect them to be now?