Just a few months ago, EA revealed its new subscription service, EA Access. The service sounded very akin to Netflix instant watch, allowing subscribers to instantly play any number of EA games on demand for about $5 per month. Well, it looks like they won’t be the only one with this kind of service for long. Last Friday, it was revealed by The Escapist that Warner Brothers had trademarked the name for it’s own up and coming games on-demand service, WB Play.
The trademark filings seem to include (but are not limited to), “Downloadable virtual goods; downloadable electronic strategy and instructional guides for computer and video games; computer game software; video game software; audio and video recordings in the fields of computer and video games; downloadable multimedia files containing artwork, text, audio, video, games, and Internet Web links relating to computer and video”.
With all of this in-mind, it’s a safe bet that EA will soon have a decent competitor in this newly emerging subscription model for the gaming industry. Let’s not forget that in addition to games like the Batman Arkham Series, Injustice: Gods Among Us, and the Mortal Kombat Series, WB Games will also be boasting The Witcher 3, Dying Light, and the soon to be released Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. On top of this, the latter of these newer titles is already sporting “WB Play” in the upper left corner of its official website.
Personally, I think this promises to be a fairly decent move on WB Games’ part. Once again, their only real competition is EA Access, which is currently exclusive to Xbox One. If WB Play can score a spot on the PS4, there’s cash-money to be made there. Plus, assuming they pull off competitive pricing for the service, $5 for a month of practically free triple-A games is something that plenty of gamers I know can get behind. Now, the actual release date is still up in the air, but using Shadow of Mordor (launching 9/30/14) as an indicator, I can safely bet that WB Play will be coming out sometime either late September or early October. Until then, it’ll be interesting to see how EA (and even other publishers) react to this new service on the block.
