This morning the guys at FIFASoccerBlog brought to the community’s attention plans from EA SPORTS that could revolutionise the distribution of future titles, updates and downloadable content.  You can read what they had to say about EA SPORTS’ plans for a Subscription Service here.

The source of the information appears to have come from PastaPadre.com who seem to have managed to get there hands on some rather revealing documentation:

What Does This Mean

It means that there’s a good chance that you’re going to have to put your hand in your pocket again before the release of FIFA12 or risk losing out on various features and add-ons.

“I fork out £40 a year already and pay for Xbox LIVE / PSN+; why should I have to pay more???”

Well, who doesn’t want an exclusive membership recognition badge?  Seriously though, it’s value is going to depend on how much it costs, how much of a die hard player you are and how many EA SPORTS titles you plan on playing.

For the casual offline gamer that just owns FIFA and plays it once every couple of weeks then this isn’t going to be for you.  But come on…  Who only plays FIFA one every couple of weeks???  I know people that ONLY play FIFA.  It’s the only reason they own an Xbox!

I’d imagine that the lure of exclusive content and the thought of playing “inferior” titles to their member counterparts will prove too much for most.  Speaking from personal experience, if I buy a game I want to play through the most that game has to offer!  I don’t think I could cope playing through Career Mode knowing that someone paying an extra £30 a year (that’s just one estimate that’s flying about by the way…) could be having a much more feature enriched experience to me.

It would feel like I was driving a Porsche Boxter whilst all my friends were driving Carrera GTs…

The Future of the EA SPORTS Subscription Service?

For me this marks the beginning of a new era of console gaming.  (The following is just my opinion as to where this could take us…)

The EA SPORTS Subscription Service will start off voluntary but I wouldn’t be surprised that once most people have accepted paying a bit more a move to a compulsory Subscription Service will be on the cards.

According to reports EA SPORTS President Peter Moore has plans for single social profile for each user that will connect experiences on all EA Sports titles, cross-platform and even carry over into the next game in the series.  In his own words it he wants “consumers (to) start paying a continuous subscription fee for games that are regularly updated online.”

OK, we can all see how this would benefit EA.  But before you form an angry mob and head over to EA Canada brandishing your pitchforks let’s think about the benefits that this could bring to us…

• With games that are regularly updated online there will be no need to revolutionise the game year after year.  If you’re anything like me you’ll love most of the drastic changes in the next in the series but there’ll be some you’ll hate.  With regular online updates developer will be able to make subtle ongoing changes to make our experience better deciding what works and what doesn’t based on feedback along the way.

• There’ll be no HUGE yearly deadlines!  No huge deadlines mean less rushing and less errors and it get’s rid of the chance that you’re buying an unfinished game.  This in turn means less bugs and less need for patches.  All in all we’ll get a far more robust game that can be developed on the fly.

• With Subscriptions come Service Levels.  Depending on what’s offered in the subscription you’ll finally have a level of service that you can expect and will have some come back if those levels aren’t maintained…

I know the EA Forums will probably have a field day with this one (good luck mods!) but if it’s done properly and will improve the standards that we can expect then I’d probably put my hand in my pocket and pay for EA SPORTS Subscription Service.

I just hope server side that they get it right and don’t try to run before they can walk…