EA Access, Xbox One - $5/mo, $30/yr

[Scott_Arm]

EA Access, Xbox One - $5/mo, $30/yr, Netflix for games?

http://www.ea.com/news/ea-announces-ea-access-on-xbox-one

It sounds like an expansion of EA's Season Ticket. You get access to a library of games as long as you pay your subscription, you get early access to some games and you get a 10% discount on digital content, including full games.

http://www.ea.com/eaaccess/

I'm assuming the library of games that you can play for free will be older titles, though the beta is Battlefield 4 and some newer sports titles. 10% off on the sale of new games is pretty good. $30 could be a very nice price. EA publishes a lot of games. Depends what the library looks like.

http://www.ea.com/eaaccess/faq.html

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It actually sounds like it might be a pretty good deal for some. Having said that I own zero EA games. That'll change with Shadows of Mordor - probably, if they don't screw it up.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's the subscription service I've been expecting. Dependable money per month offers stability that the current hit-led model can't offer. Curious why it's XB1 only though. I guess MS are helping with the beta and setup, maybe hosting?

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'd have to think about how many EA titles I buy in a typical year. They do publish a lot of games. I always buy at least one sports title, so that's $6 out of the $30 I'd spend for a year. Then the question becomes how often a game I'm interested in pops into the vault for me to play for free. Is $30 better than waiting for games to go on sale or hit the bargain bin?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'd have to think about how many EA titles I buy in a typical year.

Exactly. I don't play sports games and Dead Space - the closest EA franchise to appeal to me during the last generation - I was happy to skip.

Now if this was a Ubisoft, that'd be a different story!

EDIT: oh no wait, I bought BF4 - my first Battlefield game since 1942 on the PC! And having bought BF4 I obviously won't be buying any imminent BF games Oh and Crysis. Wow.. EA have truly shit brand awareness for some of their games!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Actually, $30 is really cheap, so these will have to be old games given away. It's more like PSN+ (not sure how Live differs now!) in that it's mostly a discount service offering money off and perks, with some games available. Probably like Netflix then in being filled mostly with dross.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Actually, $30 is really cheap, so these will have to be old games given away. It's more like PSN+ (not sure how Live differs now!) in that it's mostly a discount service offering money off and perks, with some games available. Probably like Netflix then in being filled mostly with dross.

Yah, I'm guessing the back library won't be huge, and there probably won't be anything newer than 1 year old. It'll be interesting. Will they throw in all the old versions of Battlefield as the new ones launch? It will also be interesting to know if they will remove games from the vault. PSN and Xbox One offer you a game for free for a limited time. If you don't grab it during that window, then you have to pay for it. With this, it sounds more like a library. If it keeps building over time, the value proposition becomes much better for late adopters. You can suddenly get a console with a cheap library of EA games. For me, I already have FIFA14 and Battlefield 4, so initially the vault isn't much good.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

An EA-only "gold" subscription?
I guess this should be the most interesting choice for those who purchase a new McSports game every year (FIFA/NHL 13, FIFA/NHL 14, FIFA/NHL 15, etc.). Once they have the new title, they rarely go back to the older games with outdated rosters again, so it doesn't really matter if they're keeping "lifetime" copies or not.
That would be a yearly fee of $30 for McSports games, instead of the typical $60.

It remains to know if the new games come out instantly or they make the subscribers wait over half a year to get the new game. I'd bet on the former.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The first games are Battlefield, Madden, FIFA and Peggle. So it won't just be a list of sports titles for the vault. It also gives you a 10% discount purchasing new games digitally, so if you're a person that expects to buy Battlefield, Dragon Age, Mirror's Edge, Need for Speed, Star Wars and whatever else they have, it could work out to be a good deal since you're also getting the 10% discount on the DLC etc. It really depends on what you're interested in.

 

[Scott_Arm]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...-catalog-games-discounts-early-play-time.aspx

EA has no plans to remove games from the vault, so the library will grow over time. It will be an actual library, not a free game offered for a limited time like PSN and Xbox Live.

 

[DieH@rd]

This early trial thing sounds like that recent Titanfall promotion on Origin. You can download free game, and when you start it, countdown timer starts to tick. At the end of it, your licence is revoked. Here they will most probably put "demo locks". I cant see them giving away DA3 for 12-48hr, without any other restrictions ["you can unlock chapter 3 and rest of the game by purchasing full game"].

It actually sounds like it might be a pretty good deal for some. Having said that I own zero EA games. That'll change with Shadows of Mordor - probably, if they don't screw it up.

You will continue to own zero EA games. Shadow of Mordor is WB game.

 

[Davros]

So you take out years subscription do the games you get stop working when your subscription ends ?

 

[Scott_Arm]

So you take out years subscription do the games you get stop working when your subscription ends ?

Any games you buy would keep working. Any games you play out of the vault would stop working, but you'd keep your saves.

 

[babybumb]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...-catalog-games-discounts-early-play-time.aspx

EA has no plans to remove games from the vault, so the library will grow over time. It will be an actual library, not a free game offered for a limited time like PSN and Xbox Live.

The actual fineprint says they have the option to remove anything with 30 days warning.

It remains to know if the new games come out instantly or they make the subscribers wait over half a year to get the new game. I'd bet on the former.

When FIFA 16 is on retail this service will have year old version that has no value for EA. EA is looking the make more money here not less.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The actual fineprint says they have the option to remove anything with 30 days warning.
...

I'm sure they could, and probably will remove some things, but building a library is what will attract people to pay the subscription fee. It won't be like PSN or Live where you have a one-month window to download the title or miss out on it. I imagine games will stay in the library for a length of time.

 

[BRiT]

They may have just made $30 from me that I otherwise would not have given to them. I currently do not buy or play sports titles, but if the vault includes recent versions I just might give it a go.

 

[Rangers]

$30 is really cheap in monthly terms. $2.49 per month when you look at it that way. Less than a sandwich. Hell a pack of cigarettes is $6.

Yeah the price is right. As a practical matter, of the four launch titles, I'd only be interested in one, BF4, except I just bought it a few days ago. So, I dont see a reason to sub currently. I think this might particularly appeal to sports games fans as sports titles make a lot of EA's lineup.

The 10% discount is also interesting because it's only on digital. Sort of a first incentive to make digital more appealing? It reduces new releases from $60 to $54 if you want to put numbers on it. Another way to say it is it pays for itself in 5 games, assuming of course you already planned to buy 5 (digital) games at 59.99.

Trial games is also pretty interesting, and to me possibly a bigger potential paradigm shift here. I like that progress carries over. That was one of my qualms when playing the Destiny beta, any time spent in it was "wasted" and I knew I'd have to play through those portions again in the full product, which was a bit discouraging and made me not want to sink too much time into it. But the idea of trial games is also a bit almost dangerous because, portions of highly touted titles being playable days before release I think could cause various unintended consequences, and at the least will be very different. But since you have to pay, unlike a demo, I think there's less downsides. I always though demos were mostly a bad idea, it's kind of not surprising they mostly went away this gen, and last gen if you noticed all of the biggest selling titles (except sports I guess) tended to avoid demos. But again, paying for it negates most of the downsides to publishers I think.

Overall the idea is intriguing, though. I'll say that.

I also wonder why only on X1, my first thought was MS must have been more forward thinking about the idea, but then I even wondered if Sony saw it as threat to their PS+ model. Anyway with PS4's success this gen one wouldn't expect Playstation to be out of the loop too long.

 

[orangpelupa]

but EA only have small selection of games for X1... most of their games were on last-gen or PC

 

[Scott_Arm]

but EA only have small selection of games for X1... most of their games were on last-gen or PC

How many games does EA publish in a year? Over the lifetime of the console, it's going to be a lot of games.

 

[expletive]

Gamestop must hate this. It promotes digital purchases directly on the console and makes the EA 2nd hand games market practically obsolete over time. I really wish i didn't buy BF4 and FIFA 14 digitally otherwise I'd sign up on day one.