Well you have a point. However as a consumer this is very bad. Also if Activision charged say 5$ a month to play Call Of Duty online. That is 60$ not being spent on new games, thats one new release that consumers are not buying, good for Activision but very bad for the other publishers and smaller developers. If that happens other publishers will take note and follow the leader. Pretty soon we will be paying subscription fees for all the big games leading to lower game sales.

With online subscription fees eating up at least 60$ a year, publishers will inturn cancel or turn down risky new IP's. Its bad enough right now but if every big game starts charging subscription fees that will mean a heck of alot fewer sales. In turn developers and publishers would begin to compete with one another more online seeing as a bulk of their profits would be coming from online. This would mean less content on each disk, shorter campaigns and less features. Because the publishers would be so focused on making their title the best online.

Then remember the consumers. Would many of them pay for X-Box Live anymore? Many would be upset and cut their memberships. It may work alittle on PSN where consumers don't pay for their online it may even work abit on Nintendo but doubtful. A decline in online users would probubly occur.

Also developers and publishers would be anxious to get consumers to upgrade their games as much as possible. Example somebody is paying 5$ a month to play W@W but CoD:BlackOps costs 5$ a month too. The consumer either has to pony up 10$ a month or stop playing the older title. Publishers would be constantly trying to get you to upgrade from one game to the next. They may start closing servers early once they are no longer making a mint.

So a decline of online users might still bring in a decent profit but less online users can't possibly be seen as a good thing. Imagine a game that right now has a million users online. After subsription fees their might only be 200K meaning longer wait times. Publishers would begin competing inturnally and externally to get your online buisness which would harm the single player campaigns and offline content. Then as people spend that 60$ a year they no longer have that money to spend on other titles leading to lower game sales.

I can't see how any of this can be beneficiary for the games industry!

Dumb choice. I vote no to fee's, but it doesn't piss me off at all. I just wouldn't buy it, couldn't care less what they do. Their franchise to kill, and FPS games are a dime a dozen.

I don't feel the need to get angry with a man who simply states that an already decent business model can become superb for the developer. Its strange this hasn't been implemented already.

The heads at infinity Ward James West and Vince .... and an bunch or seniors left because of a few reasons, strick time line, creative fatigue and wanting to pursue another IP but one of the main reasons was that they refused to make an game that will charge subscription base online play.

If Activison do bring it in and they will. They will do it in the next game, sales for that game will drop 50-75% and sales for BF3 will rise the other way. 

See what is happening isn't that we are getting too much free stuff its that the Yearly franchies, and consumers getting smarter and the internet has seen an Decline in the number of sales for heaps of games that aren't one of those huge franchises.

I think that the only game that could get away with it is COD. I think that it would alienate many of their fanbase though. It's not like they don't make enough money anyways, and then they charge $10-20 for map packs that should have been included in the first place. Whatever. I could see it happen though. Nothing surprises me anymore.

Carl? you are my hero.

COD's "popularity and longevity" would have dropped severely if a subscription fee was put in place. There would be outrage followed by everyone fleeing to free alternative games.

Wii HD would not sell to the expanded audience nor would the hardcore crowd be so readily willing to abandon their current HD consoles.

The Wii's recent drop in sales is due them trying to cater to the hardcore gamer and ignoring the expanded audience (hence we got CD-i Metroid when we should have got Wii Sports 3). 

I pay a subscription fee to WoW each month. If someone else wants me to pony up, their game has to have at least that much content.

It has nothing to do with user generated content. It has to do with the fact that

1) They saw record sales and profits based on new technology and innovation branching into new kinds of gaming and opening the market.

2) That avenue declined when they started a) reaching saturation, and b) not releasing any other kinds of new experiences. Mainly, this is due to the fact that most of the expansion already occurred. There is some other stuff they could, and should be doing, but at this point, the enfolded the biggest demographics; social gamers and fitness geeks.

3) Lacked any real foundation of traditional core gaming. It took 4 years to see a real Wii Metroid. They stopped making mario party. Still only one Zelda. etc etc. To be fair, the third parties didn't help at all. The third parties believe that games need to have polish and a certain level of development to sell well, and all they've been doing is seeing how little they can do either of those things and get away with it.

It had nothing to do with UGC.

They shoudl've had a wii fit every year.
They should've had more franchise games
They should've had less stringent piublishing policies.

(that last one is a big one. Had N not had such amazingly aggressive publishing criteria, they would have had a lot more indie games and support from third parties.)

But keep in mind that I'm not chiding them. They knew what they were doing, and I really don't believe they will be regretting it any time soon. Everything they've been doing is fine, financially. The only loser here, is a gamer who expected more from their support. Many millions more are greatly satisfied with the wii.

On topic:

acti makes enough money as it is. However, I believe people would still pay for a fee of say, 30$ a year or something, with a 5$ monthly plan 1 free month included at purchase.

I actually agree with him.

Sure on a personal level it would suck having to pay extra money, but I can totally understand it from a business perspective and I think it would be good for the entire industry for a 2 key reasons.

Multiplayer heavy games (Halo, COD etc) would get more and better content additions if there was a subscription free.  Right now there is no extra income coming in from a released game aside from the occasional DLC.  So what is the incentive for a developer to keep working on content for a game after it's release?  There is no reason.  So what happens?  They rush out another sequel, COD I'm looking at you, so that they can get another infusion of cash.  A lot of people were disappointed in MW2 compared to MW1.  Wouldn't it have been better if instead of working on MW2 they just added missions and multiplayer content to the first one?   Right now people are spending 60 bucks a year on each new COD, that's already 5 bucks a month.

The second reason is it would help games that DON'T have a multiplayer component, or a really poor one.  I think one of the downfalls of this generation is that all games seem to be pressure into including some sort of online component, even if the game doesn't suit or require it.  That means dev time is taken away from polishing the single player game to slap together some sort of online content and neither benefits.  If developers don't they risk losing sales as, like he said, why would someone buy a 10-15 hour game like Enslaved which has no multiplayer instead of COD which they'll play for 200 hours due to the multiplayer?  They see the first game as not "getting their money's worth".

My 2 cents.