http://www.computerandvideogames.com/31 ... ion-based/

Erm, piss off. The consumer will be on to an absolute loser in almost every way

+1 To that.
1) I'm currently playing games from the late 90's that I like. There's no way they'd still have the servers on if they were subscription based games.
2) The games should be free if yoy have to pay a subscription to play them. Why should I have to pay twice? Especially as you can't play if you stop paying.

I can see why they think it might work, but it will not because they do not offer enough to justify it. The thing with a digital TV service you get loads of channels for a basic fee. So you can always find something that you want. Then for a game service you need uncapped broadband to download. Well most people in the UK have services which have data caps or throttling if you try and use it during peak hours. Then unless you everything that a game studio produces you will be over paying for it. Unless it is really cheap and that means a lot of games on offer. Though many games studios have only one or two games that many would consider.

I'd want to be really sure I was going to play a game frequently before splashing out on a subscription.

If I could subscribe to say a dev/publisher and access certain games in a group (e.g. Fifa games, COD games) and get the new one that way... would I?

Probably not

If I could do it and access games I like I might, but the price would have to be comparable to all the games I buy in a year as I rarely pay RRP for a game

Exactly. Then what if you only had the time to play it rarely? No point in a subscription then.

I also rarely pay RRP for games because I get them off eBay or Amazon months after launch.

The only subscription I will pay for is Xbox Live and thats it. Try and make me pay extra just to play a game, well my response is kiss my sweaty ass!!!!!!
The last subscription game I played was Ultima Online back in 2000!!
Currently my most played game is Counter Strike Source (and Ive been playing counter strike since the beta days (1999!!!). Youd think Id be quite good by now )

I can top that. Never paid for a games subscription even Xbox Live has not managed to get a penny out of me.

If they bundle the products, marketing them, and have a compelling technology, it will succeed. And most people would be happier with the product.

If you pay say Virgin or Sky to bundle a few channels of streamed games, with options like FPS channel offering a bunch of runny-shooty games, and the Sims channel offering its virtual flower arranging and digital anorexia experience. Get a basic service going for £10 a month, people will buy into that, especially given that all the real hardware work can be done on a rack of virtualised servers, so you don't have to buy an X box or Playstation ever again, you would just need a web capable device with a screen and a controller. Then you make your extra bucks with whatever premium goodies you can come up with.

EA, Activision, Blizzard etc can just become monster entertainment vendors, competing to maintain the popularity of their channels. So they become more like Channel 4 and NBC; less like a movie studio.

The economics of the industry would swing towards products that keep the maximum number of people attached for as long as possible to their screens. Massively hyping what turns out to be a rubbish game becomes commercial suicide rather than what it is today - an awesome idea that makes you a pile of quick cash.

I'd stop gaming too if it came to it and fire up my old games. I might even get a chance to make my own realistic cockpit at home so I could play fightsim games like F16.

People pay to play some really dumb games. And they pay a few quid every month, which quickly adds up to more than the cost of the best games ever released.

There would have to be a really compelling reason to sign up. I doubt that I would ever sign up unless it was cheap enough to justify my low usage. There might be different levels of subscription which would make a huge difference between different users. That said I am picky when it comes to my games so am happy to play them for a long time.