EA Subscription for Xbone

[KarmaTheAlligator]

You know what tho, that thought also occurred to me. Not the EA month, that's a horrid thought, but paying $5, playing your fill and breaking off cleanly at the end isn't a bad thing.

That's really want I meant. Imagine a few years down the line, Mirror's Edge 2 is being released. A month before the release date you sign on for a month, spend one week each playing through Dragon Age 2, Need for Speed Rivals, Titalfall, and Battlefield Hardline (which are all now free and which you haven't yet played because you've been planning this for a while), claim your 10% discount on Mirror's Edge and then cancel. You get to play through 4 games for 5 dollars (providing you're dedicated enough/not bothered enough about completing them)

I didn't mean an official EA month, just a month you'd set aside to milk this deal for all its worth.

I'd imagine the "contract" is for a few months/a year minimum, or there is some kind of penalty to avoid this.

 

[Twinrehz]

Right off the bat, I see a problem with this. EA's backlog consists primarily of massproduced sportsgames and battlefield. It seems to me that it hasn't occurred to EA yet that practically nobody likes them anymore. Sure they're in the business to make money, but the moneymaking is all for its own sake. It seems that for EA it's never been about making decent products, it's always been money first, let's deal with the shitstorm when it appears.

A while back I didn't look at EA as bad, just boring. Pushing out one sports-franchise game after another, seeing no point in buying all these games that look like dross to play, made for people with completely different interests than me. Now the internet is starting to get to me though, I feel I dislike EA more and more, the more bullshit they try to pull. This whole subscription thing obviously is optional, because it would be committing business suicide to force all new players of a game to subscribe.

But subscribe for what? The privilege of playing "a bunch" of their games? I don't remember EA having that many games worth playing. Unlimited access to Peggle 2, well that about sells it doesn't it! It is obviously not me they're marketing towards, otherwise I would be excited. I suppose it's great for those hoping that some BioWare-games will be thrown in the mix, but the only franchise I truly liked that came out of EA was axed years ago, because apparently "nobody wants games about crashing cars". At least make the FUCKING Big Surf Island-DLC available for PC, you shits. (Actually that can be opened up with other methods. I don't know if they're legal or not, I think the Big Surf Island is supposed to be included in The Ultimate Box, but I'm not sure).

 

[LaoJim]

Somehow I doubt there will be an easily accessible cancel button for this signing up is probably easy canceling yeah theres a few hoops to go through because less people cancel if theres some effort involved.

I think there are quite firm rules about exactly how difficult you can make it for one of your customers to unsubscribe. Sure you have to remember to do it in time and the button to do it might be tucked away somewhere difficult to find, but it should basically be the same process as Netflix (That said, EA is the game that made it impossible to give Dungeon Keeper any score but 5 stars so we'll see).

Nothing more than a rebranding of the three year old "Season Ticket" which was $25 a year. EA raised the price by $5, extended the early access time from 3 to 5 days, dropped the discount 10% and tossed in some year old rentals to sweeten the mix. This seems like nothing more than a move to broaden the audience of Season Ticket.

I wasn't aware of the Season Ticket, yeah they do seem similar, the difference seems to be that the season ticket is just for Sports games whereas this seems to be FPS (i.e. Battlefield) + Sports games. Possibly EA will include lots of their other releases in it as well, probably they won't. I don't really know how EA sports games work these days (last one I had was FIFA 09) but there seems to be a large pay-to-win and get it before your friends focus on it.

I'd imagine the "contract" is for a few months/a year minimum, or there is some kind of penalty to avoid this.

I had a look at the terms and conditions and no, you can cancel it anytime you want. I think that's par for the course, people are more wary of getting locked into things. The onus is EA to provide a service that has enough content that people don't want to cancel. Given that the year contract is half the price of 12 monthly payments, I guess the idea is people will tend to go for the year.

Its kind of sad just how rabid the anti EA mood is here, and how much it bleeds over into contempt for people who enjoy EA games.

At the moment this hardly strikes me as being the best deal in the world, it doesn't seem like a total rip-off either. For fans who buy a certain number of EA games a year it represents value, for others it doesn't. If EA support the service with decent free games (not just nearly outdated sports titles) it might be worth doing, maybe not. I'd probably wait at least 6 months to see how its going. As you say there does seem to be this huge assumption (not unfounded) that everything EA does must be evil.

 

[Elijin]

Did anyone even read the article? Its not gating EA titles behind a subcription service, its more or less like a netflix deal or such. Sure right now the library is rubbish...or is it? I mean for $30 bucks you can play all those games, how much do they cost individually? Guess thats subject to your region.

Plus, discounts on the content you purchase for yourself, while the subscription is active.

I mean it doesnt interest me in its current form as those titles dont, but if they expand on that library well without increasing the price, and this will be an excellent service.


Whoops sorry, we're on the Escapist. Urrr! Arrg! EA BAD! Grunk hate EA!

Better?

 

[Mr Fixit]

Hmm if they improve the selection of games that's not a bad deal at all. I do play a few EA games, but I always wait until they have dropped in price or buy them used, so that would actually be a cheap way to play these games when they are new.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Uhm, $30 a year and you get to play whatever they release for XB1? Not a bad deal really, and its not mandatory read the whole article, instead of knee-jerk reacting to it. If you don't play EA games, it doesn't affect you. If you do but can't afford to buy new ones when they come out, hey this actually saves you money. What a concept!
No you don't get to "keep" the games, but then PSN has the PS+ service which lets you download free games and play them as long as you keep your subscription current, and PS+ is more expensive yearly.
I don't see what the problem is here folks.

 

[Something Amyss]

So....EA has an optional service that will let people play from a number of games at their leisure for a discounted price at the cost of not owning them. And it's completely optional, cheaper than the cost of a single game, and completely optional.

Somehow, this is horrible, awful, EA shooting themselves in the foot, etc. Can someone explain how? Because this looks like digging for any excuse to complain about EA.

The next video game collapse can't happen soon enough

As much as I want the hobby I enjoy to suffer greatly and risk complete collapse, it's not likely to happen.

 

[kasperbbs]

So you get whatever EA decides to stick inside their so called vault, considering the price i doubt that there will be anything good in it, probably last years sports titles and maybe some old titles that are already dirt cheap. But if you plan on buying a bunch of games made by EA and their dlc's that 10% discount might be worth it.

 

[Verlander]

Subscription is the future, EA are just leading the charge. A cursory glance at things like Netflix will tell you that.

The panning of XBone only delayed the inevitable.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Microsoft and EA, huh? A marriage made in hell. I'm not even surprised.

 

[Eve Charm]

Ok how about look at it first before getting the pitch forks out because, hell if you buy EA stuff digital, You'll like this.

"Additionally, EA Access will also net subscribers 10 percent discounts on all EA digital content, which includes full games and DLC, as well as access to trials of new EA games nearly a week before they come out (with saves that copy over to the final game, should you choose to purchase it later). Games that will be eligible for early access and save copy-over are Madden NFL 15, NHL 15, FIFA 15, NBA Live 15, and Dragon Age: Inquisition."

So say you buy 1 copy of an EA game for 60 bucks, if you have the 5 dollar sub, you save a dollar. Now say you do it at a time like madden day 8/26 and you want NHL, and Fifa, Well that 5 bucks saves you 18 dollars, Plus you get that dumb play the full game first that they did last year, and someone probably likes Dragon age and they'll throw the DLC at you to.


So if you like digital games, This actually helps you and saves you money, If you don't, Ignore it.

 

[Andy Shandy]

If only internet hatred could be turned into a renewable resource. EA could solve any energy crisis alone. Which of course, the internet would find a way to blame them for.

Anyway, at the moment, consider me cautiously optimistic. I'd have to know more about it before putting my money towards it, but as someone who plays a good amount of EA games - and not always immediately when they release - this definitely piques my interest.

 

[Lightknight]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/29/ea-announces-subscription-service-on-xbox-one-ea-access

Heard that correctly folks, EA is making a subscription program for the Xbox One. Monthly $5 or Annually $30 to play the games that EA says you can play. And it's on top of the $60 yearly Xbox Live Gold subscription. So now you'll be paying a few hundred for the system, $60 a year for online, and now an extra $30/$60 for EA games (If you don't buy them separately).

Looks to me that EA's trying to force "Games as a service" onto their consumers fully, with the Xbox One as the test bed.

What? It's an option. They're offering a sort of plus membership as an option for people to buy. So it's something they're going to have to make worth the individual's time. Right now the four games is laughable. Maybe if they opened up their entire library or something then it would be a steal.

Maybe "force" means something different where I come from. Don't get me wrong, EA has bastardized enough of my favorite franchises to make me hate them but I'm not going to go all out lying about them. They do enough shitty stuff to make that entirely unnecessary.

Heck, even if this were the only option to buy games "force" is still the wrong word unless they're reaching into your wallet and taking the money themselves.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The panning of XBone only delayed the inevitable.

I always thought it was the Always Online bullet that MS fired into its own foot regarding the Xbone, not subscriptions.

 

[Verlander]

The panning of XBone only delayed the inevitable.

I always thought it was the Always Online bullet that MS fired into its own foot regarding the Xbone, not subscriptions.

You're not wrong, that was definitely one of my biggest issues. I reckon it was a mixture of everything though, but generally speaking the reaction seemed to me to be people unhappy with the console's reliance on online. I remember shortly after the PS3 was released, Sony mentioned that the PS4 would probably have no physical drive, and there was outcry against it (internet isn't good enough). Same thing happened when OnLive was launched in the UK, and the whole thing died (through various reasons). People don't like streaming games or subscriptions, but everyone else does, so I reckon it's going to seep in one way or another.

 

[Something Amyss]

So you get whatever EA decides to stick inside their so called vault, considering the price i doubt that there will be anything good in it, probably last years sports titles and maybe some old titles that are already dirt cheap. But if you plan on buying a bunch of games made by EA and their dlc's that 10% discount might be worth it.

Maybe, but why not wait for it to actually leave beta and evaluate it on what is actually does have?

Microsoft and EA, huh? A marriage made in hell. I'm not even surprised.

Hell only does domestic partnerships.

 

[COMaestro]

I think a lot of people are making a mistake here.

This isn't a separate subscription for online play on EA games.

This is EA saying "Give us $30 a year and play your fill of as many of our games as you like without having to pay separately for them. Also if you want to buy the DLC we'll give you a discount on it".

Also Early releases of some of its games so you can play before the official release.

This is EA giving you all it's games to rent for $30. If anything that's going to kill the game rentals business at least for EA games. I mean who's going to compete with that really ?

You are not interpreting the article correctly. Let me translate. For $5/mo or $30/yr, you have unlimited access to whatever games EA chooses to put in their "Vault", which is currently Battlefield 4, Peggle 2, FIFA 15, and Madden NFL 25. They will add games in the future, but there's no indication of which games, how many, or how old they will be. They are not going to add new release games to this vault, at least not until the normal sales of the games fall below a certain margin.

By subscribing, you will have access to a "almost week long" trial (probably 5 days) of upcoming releases, in which the save data can transfer to the full version of the game if you purchase it later. Additionally, you will have a 10% discount on all of EA's digital games and DLC. So if you try out, for instance, Dragon Age Inquisition as an EA Access member, you will get to play a trial 5 days before the game's release, which will most likely end at some predetermined point maybe an hour or so into the game. If you choose to purchase it digitally, you will save 10% of the cost, so you'll pay $54 rather than the full $60, and you won't have to replay that hour you put into the trial.

A year or more down the road, EA may add Inquisition to their Vault, at which time you could play it all you wanted while you are a subscriber to EA Access, but that means you waited that year or more to play the game. Or, you already bought the game and having it available through this subscription does nothing at all for you.

The reason this service seems pointless is because of how iterative most of EA's catalog is. Madden? FIFA? Any sports game? Nearly all sales of these games stop as soon as the next year's version is released, so when Madden 27 comes out, they'll throw Madden 26 into their vault because it really won't be making them any more money. As someone else mentioned, most of their FPS games are multiplayer focused, and the players often move to the newer game, so when Battlefield 5 comes out, Battlefield Hardline will probably be put in the vault since less people will be playing it. Wash, rinse, repeat.

EA won't be losing any money on this deal, and in fact will have the opportunity to make more money by getting games that some people chose not to buy out to them, and if they get hooked they might purchase the DLC for said games. For instance, I've never played a Battlefield game and have no interest in doing so, but if I had the option to play it for essentially free, I'd give it a shot. If I suddenly got hooked on it, I might purchase the DLC, and also be interested in the future iterations of the franchise. EA Access is essentially advertising for EA that is being paid for by the consumer.

 

[Something Amyss]

Ok how about look at it first before getting the pitch forks out because, hell if you buy EA stuff digital, You'll like this.

Hell, at a monthly fee cheaper than a rental, this might benefit even people who are largely indifferent to EA.

If only internet hatred could be turned into a renewable resource. EA could solve any energy crisis alone. Which of course, the internet would find a way to blame them for.

Considering they're giving away free games on Origin and getting hate for it, I'm inclined to agree. It would proibably be something to the effect of "OMG. EA created sustainable, renewable energy, thus securing our future. But they put a bunch of people out of work by doing so! I hope they go bankrupt and their power source is lost forever!"

I do say this as someone who is by no means an EA fan.

You're not wrong, that was definitely one of my biggest issues. I reckon it was a mixture of everything though, but generally speaking the reaction seemed to me to be people unhappy with the console's reliance on online. I remember shortly after the PS3 was released, Sony mentioned that the PS4 would probably have no physical drive, and there was outcry against it (internet isn't good enough). Same thing happened when OnLive was launched in the UK, and the whole thing died (through various reasons). People don't like streaming games or subscriptions, but everyone else does, so I reckon it's going to seep in one way or another.

It's kind of sad that for a lot of people, that internet issue is the same complaint as it was when the statement was first made in...2005, I think?

But more to the point, I think a larger part of it comes from the way these things are handled. There was a time when streaming music was a joke, and a time when music downloads were unfeasible. There was a time when streaming video was slow and of poor quality.

The thing is, you also never had BMG or Warner Brothers decide they were going to go digital only, or require an online connection just to play your music or movies. Hell, you can still buy CDs if you want. YouTube was still in its infancy when it was suggested that the next console might be physical media free. And you have to consider that we were talking about this from the company that had 50 GB discs.

games are still kind of there, because a good chunk of the US (and let's face it, the US is a huge consumer base) still has the same issues with broadband service they did in 2005/06. Hell, in some cases it's worse now. These larger game sizes limit the download options of a good chunk of the market. Always online is a similar boat, because any loss of connection can screw you.

Worse still, we're talking about consoles. The PS3 and 360 were not really future proofed. Hell, Microsoft's HDDs are ridiculously priced and still fairly small for digital. They had the chance to redesign it with the 360 slim, and they didn't. Now the Xbone has a larger HDD out of the gate, but also has larger games. Sony, at least you could upgrade with any HDD that would fit, but they've been ridiculously short-sighted with that capacity, too. The PS4 still has the sizing issue of the PS3, being slightly more generous but limiting it to a 2TB drive if you can find one that fits. That doesn't seem so bad unless you're designing a multimedia hub intended to last the better part of a decade with no external drive support. Which admittedly wouldn't be so bad if there was an infrastructure to redownload content quickly.

But I'm not sure this is so much an issue with an optional service such as EA's.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I have a question, because I'm incredibly lazy and didn't bother to read the article.
Is this just like a "buy in bulk, Online Pass?"
So instead of having to buy each individual Online Pass you can get the the whole shebang for a subscription fee?
Or is this just a "pay us and maybe we'll let you play that game you payed for... if you're good"

'Cause if it's the first one I don't have a problem with it.
But if it's the second one there's no way they'll get away with it.
so I'm sort of indifferent towards the whole thing, unless I have to pay a subscription to play Mirror's Edge 2...
That won't happen right! RIGHT!

 

[DarkhoIlow]

This just adds more fuel to the fire and another subscription to the pile that the consoles require to play games.

Also I agree that EA + MS doesn't bode to well if they get in bed together.