
Electronic Arts is hoping to bring Battlefield Premium-like paid subscription services to other games in its library, according to EA Labels boss, Frank Gibeau.
While Mr Gibeau believes Battlefield Premium offers more than its closest competitor in Call of Duty Elite by Activision, the service wasn't created to rival that platform, but that the company did aim to improve on its competitors business.
"We've launched subscription businesses in our other categories," explained Mr Gibeay. "We had EA Sports subscription before Elite came out, so adding that component to the design is not a reaction. It's something we'd always been considering and we had been looking at."
He acknowledged and praised Activision's work with Elite, saying the publisher "did something really innovative", and that there was "no harm" in applying what the competition does to your own products.
"This is an industry where people have a lot of oneupsmanship and if somebody innovates, you match it or you exceed it," he explained.
"It's important that we don't get into a position where we're just milking the franchise and just mailing it in and shipping bad games."
As for the shooter genre, with Halo 4, Black Ops 2 and Medal of Honour: Warfighter all releasing in the same release window, EA thinks the competition is a good thing.
I think Halo shipping on the same day [as Call of Duty] is going to be a really interesting dynamic in the marketplace where the Halo franchise is beloved in the shooter category, especially for Xbox fans. And Medal of Honor is very differentiated from what they're doing, so it should be a fairly interesting dynamic," he noted.
Source: Games Industry
By Gaetano Prestia - Bio