Community ManagerHey there. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Appreciate it!
Hey Aljo, appreciate you taking the time to keep these conversations going. Has the NHL team or other EA Sports titles ever seriously looked into a live-service or subscription model instead of annual releases?
Not asking for future plans — just curious if it’s been discussed before, and how those talks usually go between the dev team, the league, and the business side. I think the community would love to know more about what factors EA has to weigh when deciding how to release and update the game.
Well over 10yrs ago they were thinking about it then decided against it. We have EA Play is what ended up happening and it never became a thing again. They probably realized it would be more work adding and removing content and that people might not always sub so they would lose in the long run.
https://www.eurogamer.net/ea-sports-absolutely-a-time-for-subs
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and share that info — it really helps put things in perspective. That makes a lot of sense.
I’m just wondering now if, with the advances in AI programming, the model I’m suggesting might actually make more sense financially. If the game was built as the ultimate fan experience, couldn’t a lot of the ongoing updates be handled automatically — keeping things fresh without constantly relying on the full dev team? It seems like that could reduce the workload and still keep the content flowing year-round.
Really appreciate you sharing your insight!
You see you said the most sensitive word in the market of gaming, movies, drawing. AI while it can be a gamechanger is also something that is frowned upon by apparently consumers and also puts fear into employees thinking their jobs are lost. So companies are trying to be as careful as possible when it comes to that. Like I get people want AI to add facescans and we'd have all these players, but you also have to remember that the real NHL has rules and such in place. The team isn't allowed to just design and add faces they haven't scanned.
Trust me if EA knows there is more solid money to be made in the long run they will definitely take that avenue.
Community ManagerAs KlariskraysNHL mentioned, it's been investigated in the past. I would assume it's been looked into since as well, but don't have any information on that.
Community Manager
