In my opinion, I would think that things would need to change if this were to work. I'm already renting a lot of games because I'm not going to pay $60 USD for everything. I currently see little, if any interest in paying a subscription fee for any multiplayer game I want to play, especially if the cost of buying the game remains the same. Heck, subscription fee's will add up and I bet I'd be spending even more money to play games. I already don't play World of Warcraft and I doubt I'd be as interested as I am in playing multiplayer games if I have to pay a subscription fee for everything.
Apart from that, I would expect to see a hell of a lot of support and new content for the games. It's funny that Valve constantly tweaks and adds new content to a game like Team Fortress 2 yet content for other games goes for high prices. $15 for a map pack? $6 for some costumes? No thanks.
Going back to World of Warcraft, it might get expansions, but it's one big game world. If a game like Call of Duty or Madden go subscription based, are we still going to see yearly releases or will we see something similar to World of Warcraft with an expansion every few years adding more to the game, but the game is still tweaked and content is still added throughout the life of the game?
Frankly, I'd rather not have creativity and support stifled so the big companies can become lazy. I'm already concerned as it is.
