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EA Considers Service-Based Business Model For Sports Games
Andrew Wilson, head of development for EA Sports, spoke at the Develop 2011 conference about an unusual business plan the company is considering for future games:
"[Wilson] raised the subject of Amazon's Whispersync feature, which allows customers to download a digital book for one price and then read it on whichever format they like from PCs to smartphones and Kindle, without having to pay again for each platform. He suggested that eventually EA Sports may well move toward the same model with its own games, even providing all of its titles, from FIFA and Madden to Tiger Woods PGA Tour golf, for one fixed price on multiple platforms – all linked by the same social gaming ecosystem. 'It's about handing over control to the gamer,' he said. 'Ultimately, what we want to get to is this concept where we break down the barriers between the franchises. John Riccitiello, our CEO, says it seems like such a waste – we spend $20-40M making each of these games, but most gamers only ever play one, because the business model is an impediment. So how about we drive toward a model where every gamer can experience everything we make without paying that much more money. You've got to recognize that given the opportunity, the consumer will play and they will bring their friends.'"
Wouldn't this idea be immediately squished by the console manufacturers? I'd imagine they quite like the idea that people are reluctant to drop significant money on several versions of the same game since it more or less provides a nice market lock in. I think it's a good idea, I just get the feeling greed will kill it dead in no time though.
Pure marketing spin on this one, what they are really trying to do is roll out a subscription-based service where you pay-to-play. Stop paying your subscription? Sorry, you don't get to play our game anymore.
No thanks EA.
I don't want Madden or Tiger Woods servicing me!
How about making Madden games available on PC again
I seem to recall another software house doing some experimentation on price and finding that the $60 price point is pretty far from the revenue minimax point....
If most people only play your game once, then that is indication that the phrase, "fool me once..." is not working out in your favor...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
After a year of being 'the good guys' in comparison to Activision, looks like EA are going back to their old ways.
FFXI is platform independent: once you have your codes linked to an account, you can use that same account on any platform that XI will run on at a time. That facilitated people shifting between PS2 to Xbox to PC without ever losing their characters, and also means you can pay $20 for a brand new set of codes and borrow someone else's used installation disks for the older version (very critical for PS2, where a "new" set of codes for the 9 year old game will cost $150 off eBay.) Most PC folks eventually bought another modern version of the game to avoid going through 12 hours of patches every time we installed or re installed, but that was OUR decision to give SE the extra month, and we could always give away the spare codes to a friend.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
From the article:
These pieces of shit are so transparent it's not funny.
Most people will still only play on one platform, but they'll have to pay $100 instead of $60 because they'll now be part of some "social games ecosystem".
In other words, all this pretty language is about how they want to raise prices.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Strange. Games cost 100 times more to make than 20 years ago, yet they are not 100 times as fun to play .....
I actually think this kind of model makes sense for sports games, which release new content yearly. The problem is, I can already see the game companies extending this to other genres where it doesn't make as much sense.
gameDB
Even though I never played sports games I knew a lot of people in college who did. They all complained that it was just a big racket since it was just roster change 20xx. Granted every few years there would be AI or graphics updates, but it was mostly just changes in percentages, stats, and rosters.
Time to offend someone
I hope that MS says if you do this then YOU MUST MAKE A PC / Windows ver of the game.
"It's about handing over control to the gamer"
Funny, most of the market seems to be heading in the opposite direction.
If EA is serious about this, I'll start buying their games they do this with just to make a point.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
EA is better off putting out roster updates. They practically own a monopoly on sports games (particularly the Madden series), and whenever they put out a new "feature", it's usually more-or-less something that benefits them and hurts the consumer. I'm sick of buying half a game, and EA is one of the biggest offenders IMO.
How about amazon provide ebooks in a format that works already on many more devices, then they wouldn't need to come up with a name for some technology that circumvents a barrier they themselves created?
SURELY NOT!!!!!
I don't believe I'm going to say this about EA but This can be win win if done right.
Say the subscription is $10 a month. That's the same as buying two games a year. Less actually if you include tax at retail. If you play 2 or more games you break even. If you play 3 or more you come out ahead.
That's great for the player but how does it help EA?
Opponents. It's all about multiplayer. There's an old add for GEnie that was perfect and I will always remember. It had a picture of a CPU and a crazy looking gamer person. The caption under the CPU was "This opponent is programmed to beat you." The caption under the gamer was "This opponent wants to tear your heart out." Computers do not make good opponents. They're boring. Beating them is simply an algorithm. After the learning curve they never surprise you. They rely on efficiency, perfect timing, and perfect situational awareness.
With a human you get innovation. You have moments where you are genuinely surprised by something that happens. It's on the whole a richer more engaging experience.
By working the subscription they get the football people to try hockey in the off season thus exposing people to new games and providing more opponents to the players of those games.
I find being offended by me offensive.
It sounds very good for EA to be able to sell a game once and have the user able to play it on any platform. But in order to sell a game on any platforms, the platform owner tends to demand a price. There is no issue if the platform is PC or Mac or Linux. But Apple demands 30% of all iTunes store sales. There are licensing fee's to be paid for each console (Wii, Xbox360, PS3, 3DS, the PSP), the cost of which I am not sure of. Even if each platform holder was able to get its rights fees for the game, how the hell do they split it?
I also do not see Sony being all that willing to go along with a plan that can let their own users easily migrate to the Xbox.
I think that the best that they will really manage will be to allow the user to get the Console + PC version.
END COMMUNICATION
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Fantasy football is popular, the graphics for the sports games aren't all that bad, and the NFL is on strike. If the strike doesn't settle, EA might just broadcast their own games. They'd probably be better than the exhibition games anyway.
"Amazon's Whispersync feature, which allows customers to download a digital book for one price and then read it on whichever format they like from PCs to smartphones and Kindle, without having to pay again for each platform."
That's some sort of selling point? A feature? That used to be called *copying a bloody file*, and could be done between ANY two machines of any type. That sort of copying is the *default thing*, not some new feature they developed.
well, console licenses would need to be paid to everywhere where it's played
Not on PC, not on Mac, not on Android, not on Caanoo.
unless they make the games html5 shit. which they very well might, with core logic parts residing on their servers.
HTML5 video games will be 2D (and therefore undesirable to visuals-addicted gamers) until web browsers are upgraded to support WebGL. Or perhaps EA plans to offer them through OnLive.
links 386 etc which were hugely time consuming to make didn't even cost that much, for one platform.
Was it endorsed by PGA Tour? The rights to use professional sport leagues and players under trademark and right of publicity law are expensive.
I imagine that if EA declined to make PC ports, it was due to disappointing sales that were not enough to outweigh the headache of making sure games are compatible with all variants of both homework-and-Facebook PCs (old Intel CPU, Intel graphics) and gaming PCs (newer CPU, AMD or NVIDIA GPU). Part of the problem might be that EA Sports games are intended to be enjoyed by multiple players in a single living room, and I've been told (citations available) that not enough people have a PC connected to their TV.