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Big Fish brings first game subscriptions to Apple's App Store

November 23, 2011 — 3:03pm ET | By Sandhya Raman

Game subscriptions are finally coming to Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store. Digital gaming company Big Fish announced it will offer users the opportunity to stream most its catalog of games for a flat monthly fee. Big Fish will initially charge $4.99 per month for the service, and will move to $6.99 per month next year after it adds more titles to the service.

The service, available to iPad users, gives players access to unlimited game play, as opposed to paying $4.99 for a single Big Fish title. The company is also offering a free, ad-supported version of the service to users who purchase any $4.99 game. The ad-supported version limits users to 30 minutes of game play per day.

The games will be stored in the cloud and will initially require Wi-Fi access.

Paul Thelen, the company's founder, told Bloomberg that he sees the all-you-can-eat model working for the company due to the iPad's popularity and the ease of payment provided by Apple.

Big Fish is working on a similar version for Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android Market that is slated to debut in early 2012.

Apple has to date resisted subscription-based gaming. But the company recently announced subscription billing models for newspapers and other such services, and appears to be expanding its lineup of billing options for app developers.

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article