Game Lacks ‘Majestic’ Interest

Subscriptions for Electronic Arts Inc.’s ambitious online game, “Majestic,” have fallen far below expectations, forcing the video game publisher to switch strategies and sell the game instead as a CD-ROM through stores.

“Majestic” was a $20-million gamble to attract a broad audience to EA.com, the company’s online subsidiary. The game seeks to draw in players with a conspiratorial tale in which players solve a series of mysteries using clues that EA delivers via phone calls, e-mail, instant messages, faxes and Web sites.

The game was suspended temporarily in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Although the game received kudos for its inventive approach, it has been a financial disappointment. After a late launch this summer, “Majestic” attracted 13,500 subscribers, substantially fewer than EA had hoped, according to sources familiar with EA.com.

Players pay about $10 a month to subscribe to “Majestic,” which was designed to unfold over four monthly episodes.

In an attempt to boost revenue from “Majestic,” EA is planning to sell a CD-ROM version of the game within the next six to eight weeks, said Stan McKee, EA’s chief financial officer.

“It’s not a big product and never was expected to be,” McKee said. “The financial impact is very immaterial. It’s always our view that this was a product that is experimental. No one knows how it would have done.”

EA executives hope the CD-ROM will lure gamers deterred by “Majestic’s” cumbersome online sign-up routine and by the time it takes to download programs needed to play the game.

McKee did not say whether EA would pull “Majestic” offline.

EA expected “Majestic” to jump-start EA.com, which cost more than $200 million to build. Other games are still planned for the site, including “The Sims Online,” “Earth and Beyond” and “Motor City Online.”