This story from Jim Sterling of Destructoid today got me thinking about subscription services as opposed to online passes and season passes. Modern Warfare 3’s Elite Service is in lieu of online pass, season pass, etc.. They certainly got slammed for this in the beginning; people felt it was a blatant cash grab. However, if your going to purchase the DLC for the game to begin with, it’s a good deal. Actually, the subscription service model is perhaps the only way to go. Certainly this requires people to have a love of the franchise and the franchise to be a known quantity. This would be an excellent fit for games like Madden, Fifa, SSX, Forza, Need for Speed, Gears of War, Battlefield, Halo, and even Bethesda games like Skyrim. I’m not talking about a monthly fee, I’m talking about a one time fee of under $30 that would cover a year of DLC, online pass, etc…
Considering the industry is so committed to adopting these crappy online passes. I think this would be a wonderful alternative. Also, considering all the crazy pre-order downloadable content garbage going around this would also get rid of that problem. For $25 you get a pre-order bonus of your choice, a years worth of DLC, and the ability to play online. Now that, sounds like a deal. They can certainly sell the DLC independently of the service to those people who don’t want it all or don’t know if they are invested enough in the game to do so.
While this doesn’t solve every problem for every game and some people will probably think that this is yet another cash grab by publishers. The COD Elite service does include game statistics, contests, and other advantages besides the early access to downloadable content. While most games not only don’t need this kind of support but will probably not want to make the investment to build it out. That would be the argument in favor of having a much cheaper service that covers whatever content the publisher and developer can cover. But not SO little, that it just becomes another season pass. If your game has a season pass option you should never have an online pass, for instance. Being that EA has a Sports Pass but still can’t figure out what they are doing wrong with their online passes, is pretty troubling.
These are half steps and ideas to try and get rid of the ridiculous online pass once and for all. While some people may feel that online passes are”no big deal.” if you only buy games new anyway. That isn’t really the point. Online passes are a symptom of the disease that finds its root causes in piracy, publisher mismanagement, and fans apathy toward an industry that is more interested in making money than supporting their products. Innovation and support after launch are really the only ways of getting rid of the used games market that publishers don’t like. If you want people to keep your game, make a good game and keep on putting out content after launch so people think it’s worth keeping. If you put your game out to die, it will; simple as that…
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