Updated: NHL Needs a Year Pass With PC Release – The Model That Out-Earns HUT

KidShowtime1867​ 

Man, you’re acting like I don’t understand the business side of this. I literally said NHL is EA’s lowest-selling sports title. That’s exactly why this is the franchise where they could afford to try something different. It’s not Madden or EAFC where the machine prints money. Playing it safe is exactly why NHL is stuck as the smallest sports franchise they have.

Yeah, subscriptions aren’t magic, but pretending the current yearly resell and HUT reset is the only way forward is lazy thinking. Live service models already drive most of EA’s revenue. FIFA, Madden, Apex… all of them prove that people will spend more when the game feels alive. NHL could be more than a niche product if they stopped treating it like one.

And don’t twist what I said about offline. I never said customizable hair was going to sell millions of copies. I said offline immersion, storylines, commentary depth, franchise drama, and customization all build stickiness. You hook new players by making NHL feel like a living hockey world, not just rosters plus ice. You keep subs alive by giving people reasons to log in every month.

Mods and PC? Sure, EA is risk-averse with licensing. But pretending it’s impossible is nonsense. They already do it with Sims, Battlefield, and Skate. Mods drive engagement everywhere. Gate NHL behind a subscription and you control access while still letting the community fuel buzz. That’s revenue, not risk.

As for the chart, of course it’s illustrative. Nobody is claiming it’s an official EA projection. It’s called making a business case. You can nitpick the numbers, but the reality is clear. Live services already account for more than 70 percent of EA’s revenue. Adding a subscription model and finally putting NHL on PC would add money, not lose it.

You can call it fantasy all you want, but the bigger fantasy is believing NHL will ever grow past niche status if EA just keeps pumping out seventy dollar roster updates forever.

I’ll give credit where it’s due. Gameplay has definitely improved this year and I’m glad they added AI generated face scans. It shows they are listening and making progress. But there are still so many missing features that fans have been asking for.

We all know HUT and microtransactions are always going to be their primary focus because that’s where the money goes. That’s fine, but if they ever want NHL to grow beyond a niche sports title, they need to expand. A PC launch, ultimate customization, deeper offline modes, and franchise immersion would pull in way more players.

The problem is if they add all those features under the current model, a lot of people would just buy once, customize rosters, and never spend again. That’s where a subscription makes sense. It safeguards EA’s revenue stream while giving players a reason to stay subscribed as the game evolves with new content, real-time updates, and off-season events.

So yeah, I’m glad the series is moving forward, but NHL is still behind Madden and EAFC in terms of depth and reach. If they really want to break through, this is the path.

Bigtimetimjim wrote:

Man, you’re acting like I don’t understand the business side of this. I literally said NHL is EA’s lowest-selling sports title. That’s exactly why this is the franchise where they could afford to try something different. It’s not Madden or EAFC where the machine prints money. Playing it safe is exactly why NHL is stuck as the smallest sports franchise they have.

 

Being EA’s lowest-selling title isn’t an invitation to take big, costly risks — it’s the opposite. NHL doesn’t have Madden/FC’s cushion to survive a failed experiment. “Playing it safe” isn’t why NHL is small — it’s because hockey is a niche sport globally compared to soccer or football. No model change fixes that fundamental scale problem.

Bigtimetimjim wrote:

eah, subscriptions aren’t magic, but pretending the current yearly resell and HUT reset is the only way forward is lazy thinking. Live service models already drive most of EA’s revenue. FIFA, Madden, Apex… all of them prove that people will spend more when the game feels alive. NHL could be more than a niche product if they stopped treating it like one.

Subscriptions aren’t “lazy thinking” — they’re a high-risk bet that only work at scale. FIFA and Madden thrive because they have millions of active users sustaining live services. NHL doesn’t. Without that size, a sub model risks rapid churn, leaving EA with fewer yearly sales and no sustainable subscription base.

Bigtimetimjim wrote:

And don’t twist what I said about offline. I never said customizable hair was going to sell millions of copies. I said offline immersion, storylines, commentary depth, franchise drama, and customization all build stickiness. You hook new players by making NHL feel like a living hockey world, not just rosters plus ice. You keep subs alive by giving people reasons to log in every month.

 

Offline immersion is nice, but it’s not a recurring revenue engine. Commentary depth, franchise drama, and customization don’t translate into monthly spend the way HUT packs do. EA isn’t ignoring those features out of laziness — they’re cutting them because they don’t drive revenue. Subscriptions won’t magically change that math.

Bigtimetimjim wrote:

Mods and PC? Sure, EA is risk-averse with licensing. But pretending it’s impossible is nonsense. They already do it with Sims, Battlefield, and Skate. Mods drive engagement everywhere. Gate NHL behind a subscription and you control access while still letting the community fuel buzz. That’s revenue, not risk.

Comparing NHL to Sims or Battlefield misses the licensing issue. Mods work there because EA controls the IP. NHL involves the league, players’ association, and team brands — all tightly managed. Letting the modding community experiment with NHL assets introduces risks those licensors won’t tolerate, subscription or not.

Bigtimetimjim wrote:

As for the chart, of course it’s illustrative. Nobody is claiming it’s an official EA projection. It’s called making a business case. You can nitpick the numbers, but the reality is clear. Live services already account for more than 70 percent of EA’s revenue. Adding a subscription model and finally putting NHL on PC would add money, not lose it.

 

If the chart is only “illustrative,” then it doesn’t prove anything. A business case needs grounded projections based on NHL’s actual player base, not a generic bar graph that assumes “subs = more money.” Without hard data, it’s just wishful thinking dressed up as analysis.

Bigtimetimjim wrote:

You can call it fantasy all you want, but the bigger fantasy is believing NHL will ever grow past niche status if EA just keeps pumping out seventy dollar roster updates forever.

The “fantasy” isn’t $70 roster updates — it’s believing NHL can transform into a thriving live service ecosystem on par with FIFA or Madden. The sport’s niche audience caps its ceiling. The realistic path forward is improving gameplay, expanding to PC, and steadying the product — not chasing a risky subscription model that could sink it entirely.

KidShowtime1867​  EA_Aljo​KlariskraysNHL​ 

I updated the post please review. Thanks! 

1. Risky Economics and Market Size
EA NHL is a niche franchise with an estimated 1–1.5 million annual buyers at best—far smaller than FIFA/EAFC or Madden. A $99 “Year Pass” counts on nearly every current buyer converting and staying subscribed, but sports titles routinely lose lapsed players each year. If only a fraction balks at the higher up-front price or subscription requirement, total revenue could drop. Forecasts in the proposal (e.g., 1.2–1.3 million full-price subs) assume near-perfect adoption and ignore regional price sensitivity and currency swings.

2. Consumer Perception & Platform Realities
Many players still prefer a one-time purchase they can own and trade or gift. Requiring a persistent license check—and selling “installer discs” with no standalone play—risks backlash similar to always-online DRM controversies. Console marketplaces (PlayStation/Xbox) take a 30% cut on all recurring fees, so EA’s net may shrink compared with annual boxed sales, especially when retailers push back over lost physical revenue.

3. Development & Update Burden
Delivering the ambitious, always-fresh feature set described—weekly patches, three major drops, deep franchise/BaP overhauls, and authentic year-round events—requires a live-service infrastructure and dev team budget more like Apex Legends than the current NHL staff. The proposal assumes EA will pour significantly more resources into a series that already trails other sports titles in profitability. Without guaranteed extra investment, fans might just get the same small updates stretched across a year.

4. HUT Cannibalization and Monetization Uncertainty
HUT is EA’s primary profit center for NHL. A Year Pass could unintentionally cannibalize HUT spending if players feel their $99 already “covers everything.” Projected add-on revenue from cosmetics, creator marketplaces, and partner packs is speculative and unproven in this franchise. If those micro-markets underperform, total revenue could be lower than the current model.

5. Preservation and Player Autonomy
Today, someone can buy NHL 24 used in five years and still play offline. Under a Year Pass with server validation, once EA turns off authentication servers the entire product disappears—even for purely offline franchise mode. That raises consumer-rights and game-preservation concerns and could draw regulatory scrutiny, especially in regions with strong consumer-protection laws.

Bottom Line
A Year Pass sounds enticing for continuous updates, but the economics, infrastructure demands, consumer backlash risk, and preservation issues make it far from a guaranteed win for EA or its players. The safer path is a hybrid—keep annual releases while adding optional live-service elements—until EA proves it can deliver and sustain the ambitious, year-round content this model promises.

KidShowtime1867​KlariskraysNHL​EA_Aljo​ 

Really appreciate you taking the time to lay that out — this is the kind of constructive breakdown the community needs. Respect for putting thought into it.

You’re right on a lot of things. NHL is a niche compared to Madden/FIFA, and expecting a perfect conversion rate on a higher upfront price is risky. Dev resources are also a huge factor — no way the current size team could pull off weekly updates and full year-round drops without EA actually investing more. And the preservation angle is legit too, once servers go dark there has to be some kind of legacy mode or else offline guys get left behind.

Where I still think there’s a window is:

• PC growth + crossplay — even a couple hundred thousand extra players there changes the economics a bit, especially with how hockey’s growing in non-traditional markets.
• Marketing synergy — tying the game into the real NHL calendar (Draft, Free Agency, training camp) with NHL/PA support could keep buzz alive and give EA more hooks to sell subs.
• HUT protection — if marketed right, a Year Pass doesn’t have to cannibalize HUT, it could actually boost engagement. People paying in every year are more likely to stick around and dabble in HUT because they’re already “in the ecosystem.”

On your hybrid point — I get why that’s a safer approach for EA, especially with how niche NHL is compared to their other titles. It might even be the best bridge until EA shows they can deliver true year-round content. My only pushback is that NHL has been “playing it safe” for decades now, and the game still feels like a side project. At some point EA has to swing big if they ever want NHL to grow beyond the same 1 million buyers.

And honestly, I’ll give EA credit too — the last two years have been some of the best strides in a long time. The number of player likenesses added (even AI-generated) has been great, and gameplay both offline and online hasn’t felt this good in years. That’s exactly why I think now is the time to push further — they’ve shown they can improve, but a Year Pass model would finally let them build on that momentum instead of resetting every September.

And to me, that’s the real key. If EA actually pushes immersion the way 2K did at its peak — cutscenes, storylines, NHL Network/TSN-style shows, off-ice events, a true career story in Be A Pro, in-season tournaments, and authentic drafts/trades/locker room moments — then NHL wouldn’t just be “better than it is now.” It would be on the same level as the best sports games ever made. With gameplay trending up and face scans improving every year, if they cover all that, it has the chance to be the best hockey game we’ve ever seen.

Bottom line, your points are fair and the risks are real. I just think the potential upside is also bigger than what we’re getting now. But credit where it’s due — this was a well thought out response and I respect you for putting it together.