Sony Online Entertainment is altering their subscription services for the MMO games they offer. Now there are separate pricing plans for their games in place, but this will soon change. For a fixed monthly fee of $14.99, this will give PC gamers access to all of the developers MMOs currently available. CEO John Smedley said that "That's a benefit most companies simply can't offer because they don't have our portfolio of games."
In a lengthy post on Reddit, Smedley outlined: "if you subscribe to one of our games you are a subscriber to all our games". This scheme is going to build on SOE current All Access deal, which currently offers access to some of their titles. This would allow gamers to pick one item for each game they play.
"Some of you might say, 'Well who cares, I only play Planetside 2. How is that a benefit to me? My answer is simple - we've got a great lineup of games, some of which aren't announced yet that cater to a lot of players." Smedley says.
Two games that are mentioned to benefit from this new scheme are EverQuest Next and EverQuest Next Landmark. These are the upcoming MMO and its Minecraft inspired creative mode counterpart. Europe will not see this plan yet, as SOE has to deal with outside companies like ProSiebenSat1 to run operations for DC universe, EverQuest 2, and Planetside 2.
"We need to discuss with our partners," Smedley Wrote. "We have a pretty good idea on this though. Give us a bit of time to suss this out." If the plan does emerge, then existing subscribers will be offered a refund, and given a new three, six, or 12-month option, and be for PC Gamers only."
"We can't do the same kind of promotions as easily on the PS3 and PS4," Smedley admitted. "We're a lot more limited because we can't use [SOE currency] Station Cash on there. So when we have a 3x sale on SC we have to do something different for our console titles. It's a pain in the neck to deal with this."
While this is good, some things to take into account are that EverQuest and Planetside 2 have been free-to-play for quite a while. And are some of the back titles that are going to be included worth paying for? This could be a great scheme for popular, current titles but also a way to make money on older titles.
