EA producer predicts cheaper games ... more premium extras

EA Canada's Jason DeLong told Game Informer that he expects to see games become cheaper in the future, at least per initial investment. "I think that we're going to start to see — maybe not in the next year, but in the near future — games go down the route of smaller up-front experiences and lower prices at the beginning," DeLong said, "and then the ability to extend the game through episodic material or future feature material. I think that's a direction we're probably heading in."

So that doesn't mean that games will be cheaper, in the long run — it means that DeLong sees the potential total price of a game spread between a disc or initial download and follow-up expansions. It's sort of like what EA and BioWare are already doing with Dragon Age: Origins — except Dragon Age sells for $60 to start. DeLong added that keeping people playing in the current economy is "going to be an interesting creative problem for us to solve." So then, problem solved?