But not in the near future

Sep 22, 2008 22:11 GMT  ·  By

Tired of paying the same 60 dollars each year for an EA Sports produced game to just get the same core game mechanics with a coat of extra graphical polish and a roster update? Well, truth be told, the 2009 sports games from Electronic Arts seem to have some nice under the hood changes as well, but the company is thinking of creating a system where you get to play with the most recent teams and the best graphics without having to go out and buy a new iteration of your favorite game.

Peter Moore has recently conducted a set of interviews with newspaper The Guardian and, in the last installment that deals with the future of the division he is heading, said that there are plans already in motion aimed at disposing the physical disk as the main avenue of interaction between the videogame company and the consumer.

He says that, in the future, “We might give you the core game for free, but then you start buying downloads, micro-transactions, we'll sponsor some stuff, and start shifting the business model away from 'I need to get your £49 and then say goodbye to you when you walk out of GAME', I want to talk to you every day, I want to give you things everyday that keep you in contact with me, I want a relationship with you as a consumer 365 days a year”.

Most of the sports games, like the FIFA, the NBA or the Madden series, could be covered by such a system. In a way, the upcoming FIFA 2009 already has something like this in the form of Adidas Live Season, a paid subscription service which will allow EA Sports to update the database which keeps the statistics of your players so that they reflect real life performances.

Moore has no set dates for the introduction of digital download as the main way of delivering game content to players, but he believes that, in five to ten years, the current model of the game on a disk will be obsolete.