The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave

6 Develop Your First Experiments

In 2014, Electronic Arts (EA) was among the first movers in gaming to bring a subscription service to life with EA Access, a subscription offering available via Microsoft’s Xbox One console. While subscription business models seemed attractive to the company, the path to this future was unclear, given EA’s historical strength with individual games. Electronic Arts was one of the world’s blockbuster developers of video games. Players bought a game or two annually at about $60 each, usually the latest release of their favorite franchises. EA games ran the gamut from sports to shooters to strategy games, from FIFA to The Sims. These blockbuster successes were part of the problem though. Players waited for the ...