New subscription service would offer discounted DLC, exclusive DLC, and presumably other things not relating to DLC.
EA has long been the leader in finding new, progressive ways to charge people for content. One need only look to last year's introduction of the EA Online Pass--a one-time use code that prevents used game buyers from getting online without paying a nominal fee--as a shining beacon of their groundbreaking work in the field of charging people for things. Many imitators have since come along, but few have displayed such capitalistic verve.
The document in question. Now, according to a consumer survey acquired by PastaPadre, PlayStation Universe and other sites EA allegedly has hit upon an entirely lucrative methodology of getting your money every single year. The document dictates plans to introduce a yearly subscription service that would tie into all EA Sports titles. For a yearly price--the cost is currently being bandied somewhere between $14.99 and $34.99--users will gain access to a number of exclusive offerings, including: == TEASER ==
Discounts on DLC
Exclusive DLC
An in-game and website-based "Digital Badge"
Ability to transfer paid content from older titles to newer titles
Early downloadable access to new feature titles
In practice, this actually sounds a little like the PlayStation Plus model for subscription-based gaming. Those who just want to buy a copy of Madden NFL 12 and not futz with all of the extra perks and downloadables and whatnot can do so, their enjoyment only encumbered by the need to enter a code to play online and an aural assault courtesy of Young Jeezy and Ozzy Osbourne. But were you the kind of hardcore player to take advantage of things like multiple DLC downloads, these discounts and exclusives could prove a legitimate enticement.
EA, for its part, declined to comment on this story.
"We have no announcements at this time," said a company spokesperson this morning.
If this is a real thing, we will undoubtedly be hearing more around E3 2011.
@CosmicQueso: I don't feel entitled. Frankly, I don't give a shit about sports games. Also, my problem isn't with value-added content or the like. I just feel that a company with the clout of EA can easily begin to use such a service to strong arm its customers into purchasing a subscription to access features that would have traditionally been in the box. Again, I have no feeling of entitlement to value-added content, but it's a slippery slope toward feature reduction.
Also, the main point (high-road or not) is that even if those outspoken gamers abstain from purchasing, the majority will, and this can still affect them. Thus, they bitch.
" But you're deliberately straw manning my argument. And I think you know it. My argument is not 'this is how it is'.
My argument is that games are consumer products. If a consumer product is not a good value, it should not be purchased. Or at least, it should be purchased at a price that makes it a value. If a product is released that is a poor value, you have lost nothing. And I don't understand why people get upset when they have lost nothing. Marvel Capcom 3 came out, it had the game itself, 36 characters, I thought it was a good value, I purchased it. They released Jill and Shuma as DLC for five bucks a pop, that wasn't a good value, I did not purchase it (actually I purchased Jill, but I like Jill). But I did not lose anything by them offering a bad value to me. My MvC3 purchase has not been devalued. I still got what I wanted from my 60 dollar purchase. Maybe they'll pack up all the DLC characters in a bundle that offers a decent value, but I'm not upset that they're a bad value now. "
I apologize, that last part was actually me just ranting at the entire situation of these consumer "deals" and how they have a tendency to become commonplace and a normal part of the consumer system. Unfortunately, the commercial consumer idiots outnumber those of us who are careful with these kinds of purchases, so usually our calls fall on deaf ears.
I do agree with you, but I guess that the issue for me is that a deal can sometimes not be worth the purchase amount. The content itself can be worth it, but the price isn't always, and normally, these two things don't coexist in harmony, which makes it frustrating from a consumer standpoint because there is content you want, but the price isn't always agreeable.
I'm simply stating these things need to be watched closely, and normally, they are not which ends up leading to bad practices by companies, as I mentioned, preorder bonuses and the likes. As a community, I feel these things have the possibility to be reversed, so that's why I prefer to talk about and debate this stuff rather than just accepting what it is, you know?
"
Oh, I agree. There are plenty of things out there that I would buy at a certain price point but not at their current one. As I said, I had to eat that 5 dollar price because I really wanted to try out Jill in MvC3. And it turned out maybe it wasn't worth the price, but that's on me as the consumer. I could get mad about it, but there's enough information out there on everything video game related, we're living in an information redundancy, that I could have easily vetted my purchase with reviews and opinions. I didn't... oh well.
This EA Sports thing, I barely understand what's on offer, considering this rumor is so information-sparse as to be a joke, so I'll reserve my feelings until I actually know what they're offering me. Probably won't buy it because of the content, but if they did the same program with Dragon Age III, I would look at it the same way. See what kind of value it's offering and either opt in or out.
" What's the point of getting mad about something you don't plan on purchasing? If it's a bad deal, you don't buy it, and then it goes away. If you don't buy it, they change it until the value is such that you do buy it.Video game players seem like they have no control over their money. Whenever a company makes some low-value product, they bitch and moan like they don't have the option to just not purchase it. If a game isn't a good value, you don't purchase it, you don't really have any reason to be upset. "
The problem is that the people who frequent forums and bitch about these things are a small minority. Even if they don''t purchase the product, a large number of players who are less concerned with business tactics will. And, unfortunately, this will affect players who choose the high-road of opting out, since EA will surely begin to hide "should-be-boxed" features behind the subscription, leaving those players between a rock and hard place.
The market does vote with the dollar, but that does not mean it votes intelligently or for its own good.
"
"Choose the high-road of opting out"... that would be from your opinion, based on the fact that you don't think this is good value for the money. For others, the "high road" is paying a bit more for perks. Some people like PSN Plus, some like free to play games and buy extra gear, some people like to subscribe to Giant Bomb. Some don't. It's not up to you to force your value judgment on another person's decision to choose.
It's only "unfortunate" that it will affect players who have a false sense of entitlement that they deserve everything for free.
"
I might not have said it as roughly as that, but yes. There's this wide swath of people who look at a game and any DLC released for it, and invent a fantasy world where all that DLC would have been included with the retail game. The reality is the DLC would never have been invented unless it could be sold. Just like the game would not have been invented unless it could be sold.
And any company who weakens (and thus lowers the sales of) their 60 dollar product to get a couple 5 dollar sales is not exercising smart business tactics. Has nothing to do with the morality of 'they should give us this for free', a company attempts to create a 60 dollar product that will get you to buy it every time. They would never risk the 60 dollar sale for a 5 dollar sale.
" @CosmicQueso: I don't feel entitled. Frankly, I don't give a shit about sports games. Also, my problem isn't with value-added content or the like. I just feel that a company with the clout of EA can easily begin to use such a service to strong arm its customers into purchasing a subscription to access features that would have traditionally been in the box. Again, I have no feeling of entitlement to value-added content, but it's a slippery slope toward feature reduction. Also, the main point (high-road or not) is that even if those outspoken gamers abstain from purchasing, the majority will, and this can still affect them. Thus, they bitch. "
That's a valid concern, but the truth is still in the product-value transaction. EA has no ability to 'strong arm' anyone, because if they release a product that does not deliver 60 dollars of entertainment, less people will make that initial purchase, which greatly lowers their ability to make secondary sales. Feature reduction truly isn't anything you have to worry about, because when it actually happens, you can just choose to not buy it. When a game does not deliver a value, as the consumer you always have the final say to not purchase it. No publisher can ever rip you off unless you can't control your spending.
@FireBurger: Sorry, I didn't mean to come off as such a jerk. Apologies. I get your point, but for every instance of something like this working, many more failures have occurred, especially when it comes to DLC and even things like Xbox faceplates. The truth of it is that developers and publishers are struggling and with the next gen looming, iOS charging $.99 for everything and things like cloud gaming coming, the AAA business has to find money somewhere to keep making games other than the perennial best sellers. So if this helps EA fund other things like new IP, and no one gets hurt by it, it could be a very good thing.
Of course, PSN Plus also seemed like a great idea for the same reasons until about a week ago.
@Brodehouse: I already addressed the "entitled" thing in my previous post. Also, what you says make sense, but that doesn't mean they won't do it. Companies are run by people, and people do some stupid things. If recent history demonstrates anything, it's that executives can become very short-sighted and make some poor business decisions.
Anyway, I don't feel entitled to any value-added content (I'm a defender of paid DLC), nor do I think this will bring about any sort of apocalypse. However, I'm not as confident in EA's ethics or business direction as you may be.
EDIT: I think we were all writing at the same time. :) Anyway, it seems we see each other's points.
" @Brodehouse: I already addressed the "entitled" thing in my previous post. Also, what you says make sense, but that doesn't mean they won't do it. Companies are run by people, and people do some stupid things. If recent history demonstrates anything, it's that executives can become very short-sighted and make some poor business decisions.
Anyway, I don't feel entitled to any value-added content (I'm a defender of paid DLC), nor do I think this will bring about any sort of apocalypse. However, I'm not as confident in EA's ethics or business direction as you may be.
"
Ultimately, I know I get the last laugh. EA can release Mass Effect 3 with 6 hours of single player content and no extra modes or multiplayer for 60 dollars, and then additional 2 hour episodes for 7 bucks, and it doesn't matter if they start counting all that 'extra' money because I'm not buying that game at full price. I always have the upper hand, because I choose where my money goes. We all have huge backlogs and uninstalled Steam games, no one can strong arm us into buying something we don't want.
I wouldn't care about this, but SSX is in the list of games, surely they're not including that among the EA Sports range of games? It just seems out of place. Back on the PS2 it was under the EA Sports BIG imprint, but that's folded now in favour of EA Sports Freestyle, the only game for which I can think of is Facebreaker, which was not a good game.
" @Brodehouse: I already addressed the "entitled" thing in my previous post. Also, what you says make sense, but that doesn't mean they won't do it. Companies are run by people, and people do some stupid things. If recent history demonstrates anything, it's that executives can become very short-sighted and make some poor business decisions.
Anyway, I don't feel entitled to any value-added content (I'm a defender of paid DLC), nor do I think this will bring about any sort of apocalypse. However, I'm not as confident in EA's ethics or business direction as you may be.
"
Ultimately, I know I get the last laugh. EA can release Mass Effect 3 with 6 hours of single player content and no extra modes or multiplayer for 60 dollars, and then additional 2 hour episodes for 7 bucks, and it doesn't matter if they start counting all that 'extra' money because I'm not buying that game at full price. I always have the upper hand, because I choose where my money goes. We all have huge backlogs and uninstalled Steam games, no one can strong arm us into buying something we don't want. "
I know, it's just that even if the dollar votes these systems away in the long-term, the consumer still shoulders the weight of the experiment in the short-term. In your example, EA's episodic experiment may ultimately fail, but you still didn't get to enjoy Mass Effect 3.
You know If it was always offered as and update kind of thing like an MMO I might be down with this. I mean that way they can roll out features slowly and more polished instead of rushing for the yearly cycle.
The only part that interests me, would be the carrying over purchased content. RIght now I have $35 of DLC courses that i'd like to bring along, should I decide to buy a Tiger game again. I do wonder though, if say there was a new console.. would it still apply? etc.. I'm guessing there will be some blackout dates and restrictions etc.. so my reaction to this is that it's feeling just like a credit card company.
Don't play sports games much regardless of the inclusion of online-passes and subscriptions. So even without these extra barriers on content they aren't enticing enough to keep me buying them each year; at least from past experience and criticisms they seem to make good games, despite hiring a rather obtrusive marketing team.
I play almost all EA Sports games. I own a ton of EA games. I would have no problem paying for this service considering the amount of money I spend on their games and DLC. I definitely see the opposite sides POV but if I have to spend a little to save a little I'm down like me on a skittle.
" This is a pay for additional content model. It's pretty close to the Whiskey model of subscribers paying for content that it pricey to create in addition to the main content, but has a smaller user base. If anyone gets snarky about this at Whiskey media, or writes condescending things about charging people looking for additional content, while not taking anything on offer away from their previous release list of content, I'll be pretty upset. This is a legitimate business model for providing additional content their hardcore audience wants, but would otherwise provide no additional financial returns. "
I was just about to complain about it, but you make good points. I don't have to buy it, so I shouldn't care.
I rented a couple EA games and keep getting emails from them about it. I wish they'd leave me alone, but I don't want to block the emails in case I actually end up buying one of their games someday, as unlikely as that may be.
" And the Death Knell sounds at EA. People are soon to be fired. :/ "
Seriously? What's wrong with subscriptions? For games I'm really into, in my case that would be Battlefield, I'd rather have a one-time yearly subscription fee for access to all DLC, instead of buying everything individually. Something like a 'Season Pass'.Now if a subscription model for DLC would be the only way to obtain it, that would have a lot of upsides. It only splits the community between subscribers and non-subscribers, instead of further breaking the community apart with every subsequent piece of DLC.In such a world, we could also have stuff like DLC weapons and other 'unbalancing' content, because it's been a clean split form the get-go. Non-subscribers never play with subscribers (unless by invitation).Then again. I know you to be a hater. So whatever. "
Umm. OK. Look, sit down, you'll want to be sitting down when I say this so are you sitting down? Good. Good.
I wonder if this means they're going to stop releasing games yearly. It only makes sense since subscriptions would take care of roster updates - I doubt they can pull much gameplay/engine changes on a yearly basis at this point of time.
Nevertheless, doing yearly games still probably gets them easy money. Having that on top of a subscription service is only going to maximize what they're probably going to rake up, regardless of how counterintuitive it seems - I'm almost certain there are a lot of people out there who'll buy it anyway.
There is nothing here or there about a subscription for the actual games. Nothing wrong with asking for more money for, you know, more content. I'm sure real fans of Madden or FIFA (die hard, extreme fans that is) would be interested in a yearly fee for extra DLC and such in the games they love.
" Video games are getting too complicated for older casual players. All these services upon services are stupid. I just want to play a game! "
So "older casual players" are too stupid to understand that if you give EA money each year, they will give you DLC? "older casual players" must not be the brightest tools in the happy meal if you get what I'm saying....
"Ability to transfer paid content from older titles to newer titles"
So that means they're going to charge you for something you should be able to do for free considering that you're already paid for the DLC. Where I come from we call that "double dipping".
I'd be upset if this was a genre I cared about but it's troubling because I am sure it will be adapted to RPGs and shooters soon enough. Imagine if you want to use Kasumi in Mass Effect 3, you must have already purchased her DLC and then pay an extra fee to have access to the character in the new game. Anyone who bought the Kasumi DLC could add the character to Shepard's party, but only those who paid the additional fee would be granted that option. Or maybe you bought maps for Medal of Honor and if you pay the extra charge you get to use them in MoH 2. That's good for EA because they get to sell you the same content twice."
Double dipping, across two different games? Really? Is this where we are? How can you possibly believe that it's "buying the same content twice" if Kasumi was an add-on character in ME3? Would she have the exact same dialogue, character model, powers, quest? Extrapolate your position; it's the same as getting mad that you had to purchase Mass Effect 2 despite the fact you already bought Mass Effect 1. You would never make that argument about retail game, but somehow you feel it's different when it's an add-on?And what game have you ever had 'ownership' of maps for every title in a series? Buying Goldeneye didn't give you all those maps for use in Perfect Dark. Yet here we are with people getting mad when 'classic' maps from previous games are being released in new ones. "
Yes, the "Kasumi" example was a bad one, I admit. I realized it after I wrote it but didn't feel like changing it. I'm just disturbed at how so many people are okay with game publishers tacking on more and more extra expenses to each game while games are getting shorter and more alike. It's like some sort of corporate indoctrination which makes gamers say "more money? sure that's okay." Eventually in America games will cost $100 each (which means $200 overseas) and people will ask "how did this happen?" It will be because everyone just went along and thought "surely the game publisher wouldn't try and screw us?" I'm not saying that games need to be longer and I understand that building a unique experience is formidable, but I am frustrated by the trend and the audience's blind acceptance of it. As for the maps I was thinking more along the lines of using maps from Tiger Woods 2012 in Tiger Woods 2013. I think Links might have done that, but of course were going back a decade.
" Video games are getting too complicated for older casual players. All these services upon services are stupid. I just want to play a game! "
So "older casual players" are too stupid to understand that if you give EA money each year, they will give you DLC? "older casual players" must not be the brightest tools in the happy meal if you get what I'm saying.... "
No, us "older casual players" are too busy fucking your mom to give a shit about updated rosters. Keep making EA rich, kiddo.
To be honest, I do this at the moment - Madden, FIFA and Tiger are all annual purchases because they have no competition. You may not like EA (or sports games in general) but there is a definite reason why these games consistently sell in such large quantities. They are also unusual in keeping the audience playing throughout the season. This is intended to benefit fans - the hardcore who love the game. If that's not you, don't get your knickers in a twist about it. Are COD, Gears or even something like MotorStorm any different? How much have you spent on hats in TF2, songs in Rock Band or Halo map packs? We would all like the quality of WoW updates to continually enrich our games but those come at a substantial price.
If Mario went to a subscription model (base game + extra levels / free DLC each month) would it changed how you viewed the game or would you see it as an added bonus worth paying for?
So I paid for the system, then paid for the game, then paid for the online access (when I use my 360), and now EA thinks I'm going to pay to actually play the game that I've already bought? They must have some smart monkeys working around the clock. I wonder if they've considered removing save files and charging 25 cents everytime I want to start a new game, I hear that works really well...
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