Electronic Arts Updating Its Online Content Structure

With the poor performance of many of EA's massively multiplayer PC projects, a lot of people have been waiting to see when the company will begin to leverage its hugely successful console titles for revenue. EA has long maintained free servers for its Playstation 2 online titles and all of their games will soon be playable through the XBox Live service. Next week Madden NFL Football 2005 is released for multiple platforms. In addition to the regular online gameplay, there will be a "package of paid subscription-level features." These include boosted online reputation points, highlighted names, personalized career pages, bigger leaderboards, a customized interface, exclusive medals and special access to tournament options. This will be free "by way of sponsorship by Dodge." Although they don't bill you, a credit card number is required to sign up. People without credit cards can pay $19.99 for the services via Paypal or similar methods. There are subscription based games and some XBox Live games offer premium download content available for a small fee, but this service differentiation is something kind of new. I find it the least appealing of the three fee based programs, but I have a feeling EA will find many paying customers in the years ahead. Madden alone is a guaranteed five million base sales, so only a small percentage of players need to take advantage of this $20 service pack to make it worth EA's while.