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Sports Games Toy With Pay To Play

Posted by simoniker on from the professional-madden-players-ahoy? dept.

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."

4 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Can you say interactive seasons? by JohnLi · · Score: 4, Funny

    I knew you could.

    Being a New Orleans man, I would like to see the teams stats updated when they are kicking ass in the first part of the season so at least i get some good feelings before they roll over and die around week 9. :)

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    The / in /. would be more accurate if it leaned to the left. http://www.metricnut.com
  2. match entire teams? by prichardson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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    Help I'm a rock.
  3. Objective Commentary by Tarivus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not much of a sports gamer myself but I'll try to break this down the way I see it. Back in the dark ages, when Blizzard of America knew what they were doing, I played Diablo2 on Battle.net. This is, of course, free but is plagued by cheaters of all types. Why? Becuase there is simply very little or no incentive for Blizzard to work hard on moderating it. They are not being paid to run these servers and one could even say that they are bleeding cash through them. If a hack comes out, they release a patch and that is even more than they are legally obligated to do. Blizzard could start charging a monthly fee to play on Battle.net but that would drive away a large share of customers that want only online play.

    That is Blizzard, let us focus on these sports games now. After beating the computer AI 50,000 times, one may wish to find other players to test their mettle against. Friends are good, online is good when such friends are not around. My point is, unlike these computer based games that would bomb without online features, console based sports games can be played alone or with a local friend and be very enjoyable. If one can have a perfectly good time playing by themselves or with a friend, why not make online play an extra feature?

    Now I admit, there are people with no friends, or no friends interested in such games and those people may have to turn to the online realm. The plan proposed here caters to them perfectly because they can play spot matches for free but if they wanted to face the real challange of online tourneys, they have to fork over the cash. While this plan may appeal to the customers quite well, I fear that it would not generate very much revenue. If you check out Yahoo games, you will find that they have a very similar system of "You play free but if you want to play seriously, you have to pay," also, you will find that NO ONE has subscribed to this service.

    So what would be the solution? Cash prizes? Online kudos? A sophisticated rating system? No. Those may gather a few people but in the end, the one thing that will really generate cash would be forced payments from everyone who wishes to play online, and this would be unethical in my opinion because the service has set its own precident as a free to play gathering place. Returning to the Blizzard example: there does NOT HAVE to be a server for everyone to play on. It is a gift and complaining about something as minor as paid tournaments is just wasting your breath.

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    Thinking outside the box is so big now that doing so is really putting youself back in the box. There is no box.
  4. How about two-tiered playing? by whitefox · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If I was in charge, I would do it this way: free head-to-head playing and an entry fee to compete in tournaments.

    For head-to-head play, no stats are kept. You just play against your friends or whomever. This allows new players to learn how to play against real opponents. If expert players are willing to help novices learn, all the better. After all, I won't willingly pay to get my ass handed to me time after time.

    But for tournament play (monthly charge), stats are kept on each player along with their rankings, games are scheduled between players with a choice of equal calibar or unbalanced matchups, and the occasional super-tournament can be set up.

    I think something like this would be fair to everybody (novice players, expert players & the game companies alike).