EA Games Considers Subscription Fees for Future FPS Games

Speaking to VentureBeat, EA Games head Patrick Soderlund said that the company was considering subscription fees for its future first person shooters like Medal of Honor 2 and Battlefield 4.

"I think it's fair to say that we're looking at that," he said. "Like all other companies, we're looking at how we can maximise our investment in this and get the most out of our investment and get more people playing this product.

"That may take us to different places, but we're not really talking about where that is yet."

Soderlund said that the company regards Battlefield 3 and its accompanying BattleLog as a "service" rather than a standard product. His views are very much in line with the industry's shift towards services, away from products.

"We look at it as a 24/7 service," he said. "We have people in Stockholm and North America and other parts of the world that are on this every single hour of every single day. 365 days a year. We have an operations team at DICE to look at telemetry data.

"How are people playing the game, how can we improve the experience? Are they having problems? Are servers down? Are they up? All that stuff?"

You can read the rest of the interview at VentureBeat.