For a long time, sports gamers have imagined a model where sports games weren’t released every year but rather every other year to allow for more innovation from edition to edition.
The reality though, is that sports games have long been moving towards a 365-day live subscription model where the game is updated slowly over time.
And it seems EA CEO Andrew Wilson agrees with that idea, Bloomberg has the interview:
“There’s a world where it gets easier and easier to move that code around — where we may not have to do an annual release,” Wilson told Bloomberg TV host Emily Chang on her show “Studio 1.0.” “We can really think about those games as a 365-day, live service.”
The 365-day streaming subscription model for sports games would look a lot like EA Sports Madden Mobile, which has regularly updated itself over the past three years since being on the market. Wilson cited that game specifically for its user growth as a successful test of the subscription model.
Another thing Wilson envisions is mixing augmented reality in with sports gaming in the future:
“There’s a world not too far away from now where video games move from being a discrete, conscious experience to an indiscreet, subconscious experience,” he said.
“There’s a world where it gets easier and easier to move that code around — where we may not have to do an annual release,” Wilson told Bloomberg TV host Emily Chang on her show “Studio 1.0.” “We can really think about those games as a 365-day, live service.”
Certainly its an interesting concept.
Wilson seems fixated on rethinking the business of gaming much like how Spotify and iTunes both turned music upside down. Moving the companies flagship sports titles away from annual releases to an always-on and consistently updated service subscription certainly seems a bold step into that type of innovation.
But what do you think? Do you think an annual subscription model for Madden or FIFA would be preferable over the current model? Let us know in the comments!
Published: Nov 9, 2017 12:26 pm