EA to take up Subscription Model for Online Gaming? Here’s a Piece of Advise from WATBlog
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It seems the success of World of Warcraft is getting onto the nerves of some of the other pronounced game publishing companies. Now, it’s Electronic Arts (EA) planning to come up with a subscription based online gaming model. Popular games from the EA stable, that I can figure out and that might be playable online, are Need for Speed, Crysis, FIFA, The Sims, Rockband and BattleField. I also remember EA planning to come up with the subscription based model for its mobile version too. The question here is, how would they structure the revenue model? 
In a way, I agree with Rajiv that online gaming is more about virtual items’ sale than the subscription itself. Although Blizzard doesn’t sell any “virtual item” for hard cash for a game like World of WarCraft, I think EA has a lot more options than Blizzard did. Here, I shall try to list out a few positions that might help EA to generate a minefield of revenue.
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The very first thing that hits my grey cells is the advertising hoardings that line up around the football grounds in FIFA. Since CTRs will never be possible for in such a case (okay, it was a joke), the advertisers could be charged on a monthly basis and can even be made contextual on the basis of the players’ loacation, the teams that are playing and also according to a player’s gaming habits.
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Talking about Need for Speed, the most pronounced way is to use actual brands for every component that a player uses to customize his/her car. What more, since NFS features a virtual city in almost every version, at least tracks, they could also come up with real time advertisements and banners on those routes! -
Need I mention how The Sims’ environment can be used to generate revenue? All I’ll say is “Take a leaf outta Second Life’s pages!”
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Now, all this was about advertising and conforming to Rajiv’s ideas.Talking about subscription based models, EA can think about charging players on the basis of number of games they play as compared to monthly basis. I think, such a strategy can help them include the community who do love to play hardcore games but do not manage to be so regular, thanks to their jobs and other commitments. Charging them on the basis of a period might seem too steep for them
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Talking about change in subscription model, here is another idea, specifically for FIFA, EA could also have the option of charging players on the basis of the number of seasons that they play.
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With games like Crysis and BattleField, I feel MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming) is the way to go.With deathmatches and campaign specific gaming environment, it makes sense to turn it subscription based ‘coz fragging always keeps trigger-happy gamers entertain, whatever the cost.
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What more? They could also integrate all the EA gamers onto one platform, irrespective of them playing on a Nintendo,XBox or Play Station!
Well, that was all that I could think of, at the spur of the moment. I believe, if subscription and dynamic advertising can be merged properly then gaming is going to be one of the most profitable business in the online industry!
Ohh, by the time EA does manage to come up with their subscription model’s details, here’s a list of free multiplayer online games to keep you busy!
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Its mentioned as electric Arts in Excerpts of main story on Home page ..correct it ..Thanks
@ Neeraj
Thanks a lot for pointing out the aberration, took care of the same.
Neat analysis. I think u forgot to mention Cricket which is extensively being played all over the world by cricket lovers. If EA plans to come up with multiplayer feature in Cricket. I guess it will take the entire experience to the next level. People will be competing with each other all day and nite which at the moment is not possible. This will surely encourage more people to come and join the subscription especially in a country like India where cricket is considered as a religion.
WAT Say?
@ Rushabh
Well, although I do agree to the fact that Cricket happens to be a religion for many countries, especially India… but if you consider the gaming scenario, how many people actually play EA’s Cricket on the comp or console?