EA Access Exclusively On Xbox One Available Now

[ariakon]

Originally Posted by ReverendSlim

I don't really see the negative here... other than it's EA, so everyone's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Right now, all I see is that for $30, I can get 4 games that I probably won't want to play again after that year is up... and Battlefield 4 alone would run you about that much. There's a pretty big contingent of people who wait until the prices drop on these games anyway, so I can see this being attractive to them. Plus, the try early before you buy feature for future games and the 10% discount for digital purchases could easily pay for itself. I also see that if there are games in the vault that you own on disc, your membership keeps you from having to put the disc in to play that game because your system sees a temporary license as part of the membership. And I've seen reports that this is working for people who game share by setting the other person's system as their home console, so that's an even bigger savings for them.

All things considered, this isn't vastly different than what some publishers do on PC with Steam sales - milking extra profit from games that are no longer selling well. It gives EA a secondary income source and potentially disrupts the used games market for physical copies. Pretty smart move on EA's part and gives them a jump on the move to the digital paradigm that Microsoft first pushed when they introduced the system.

All that said, I have no interest in the games in the vault except Peggle 2, which I already own. But if they started rolling more games into the vault in maybe 6 months time, I could see this being interesting. Still... it's EA... and that's disconcerting. If you told me Ubisoft was doing this, I'd probably be more quickly on board with it. I got the beta and installed the app to check it out, but I'm not spending money on it yet.

I agree, there's nothing really negative on the surface. I think we're all just wary of EA. I don't think they're sinister by any means, simply profit-driven, but I do worry, just a bit, that this will lead to more premium DLC packs (only for Access members!) or some such nonsense in the future. That being said, I would definitely have tried it for a year if it had been on PS4.

[Steelmaker]

Originally Posted by ariakon

I agree, there's nothing really negative on the surface. I think we're all just wary of EA. I don't think they're sinister by any means, simply profit-driven, but I do worry, just a bit, that this will lead to more premium DLC packs (only for Access members!) or some such nonsense in the future. That being said, I would definitely have tried it for a year if it had been on PS4.

The negative is the potential precendent this could establish. Who's next? Ubi Soft? Activision? Pretty soon you've got 5 or 6 major companies 5 dollaring us to death for subscriptions to services that I don't consider to be all that much of a value. We dont' need 3rd party publishers going down this path. All of this needs to be under either the Live or the PSN umbrella. We don't need a bunch of splintered services. Also, who's to say companies won't start leveraging these subscriptions to get exclusive DLC?

[ariakon]

Originally Posted by Steelmaker

The negative is the potential precendent this could establish. Who's next? Ubi Soft? Activision? Pretty soon you've got 5 or 6 major companies 5 dollaring us to death for subscriptions to services that I don't consider to be all that much of a value. We dont' need 3rd party publishers going down this path. All of this needs to be under either the Live or the PSN umbrella. We don't need a bunch of splintered services. Also, who's to say companies won't start leveraging these subscriptions to get exclusive DLC?

Yeah, that exclusive DLC is what worries me too. I can also see game features (such as MP) exclusive to subscribers, if we want to go even further down the rabbit hole.

[UK_fan_05]

Originally Posted by Steelmaker

The negative is the potential precendent this could establish. Who's next? Ubi Soft? Activision? Pretty soon you've got 5 or 6 major companies 5 dollaring us to death for subscriptions to services that I don't consider to be all that much of a value. We dont' need 3rd party publishers going down this path. All of this needs to be under either the Live or the PSN umbrella. We don't need a bunch of splintered services. Also, who's to say companies won't start leveraging these subscriptions to get exclusive DLC?

Exactly and that's why, even though it might be a good deal, I'm not going to purchase this subscription. The last thing we need is the other companies doing this. A year subscription to Live/PSN is enough.

[Grim Reaper]

current list of games on the hub.

battlefield 4
ea sports ufc
fifa 14
madden 25
nba live 14
need for speed rivals
peggle 2
plants vs zombies: garden warfare

[littlepooch21]

Originally Posted by Grim Reaper

current list of games on the hub.

battlefield 4
ea sports ufc
fifa 14
madden 25
nba live 14
need for speed rivals
peggle 2
plants vs zombies: garden warfare

i don't think you can download all those games. i think only fifa, madden, peggle, and bf4

[Hayabusa85]

FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, Peggle 2 and Battlefield 4 are confirmed for the beta period. Beyond that all they have said is more coming soon. I get why they wouldn't include games like Titanfall and UFC which will still be selling but I am shocked something like NBA Live 14 isn't being offered. Unless they just want to pretend that doesn't exist

[Elandyll]

Just a fyi as i've seen some people say they were going to sell their physical copies.

In the small text, EA specifies that the Access given to games is up to them and what they want to make available at any given point in time. They will rotate games in and out, and even if you downloaded it before, if it's gone its gone once removed from Access by EA, unlike services like say PS+ or GfG.

Also, reading their Tos, its clear that this is a joint venture with MS. The Sony comment was moot.

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

[Icemage]

There's some tinfoil hatting going on here.

EA's goal is a lot simpler than most of you are trying to suggest. They see that used game sales decimate the sales of their games, particularly annual franchises like Madden and FIFA.

So they looked at what Sony was doing successfully with PS+ and Microsoft was doing with moderate success with Games with Gold, decided they wanted a slice of the pie AND take a bite out of those used game sales at the same time.

Bear in mind that these are last year's titles, not new ones. This is not in any way equivalent to what Sony is doing with PSNow (game streaming/rentals). It's only vaguely similar to PS+ in that the games are only active while you maintain the subscription.

However, what's made PS+ Instant Game Collection so wildly successful is due in part to how unpredictable the games have been. Sometimes PS+ IGC games are older but popular titles, sometimes they're relatively new titles that flew under people's radar, and sometimes they're brand new titles right out of the gate.

With EA's Vault, I'd wager that you'll never see a new or "newer" game in the Vault (hence why it's called a "vault" in the first place, right?). Particularly in the case of the annualized games, those tend to have decreasing amounts of value to everyone as the rosters become out of date, and - remember this is EA we're talking about here - they typically have their online mode servers shut down within two years in any case.

TL;DR
Pro to consumer:
+ If you don't mind playing older games that you wouldn't otherwise have bought when they were new and full price, this is a reasonable option.
+ Digital access has its perks (you're safe if your machine dies, no worries about lost/broken discs, etc, can use games on any machine if you're logged in without bringing discs with you).

Con to consumer:
- You don't own the games
- A lot of the games will eventually become unplayable online.
- No resale value to defray costs, if that's something you like to do.
- If this sort of business model becomes common we're going to see a cable-like fragmentation of the digital game market, especially if at some point someone decides that the only way to access a game is through the subscription service (this is basically how anti-virus software works now, and Microsoft Office 365 is headed in the same direction).

Pro to EA:
+ Cuts down on used game sales while creating a new source of revenue.
+ Builds some brand loyalty.

Con to EA:
- What cons? Unless there's backlash, they have nothing much to lose.

[Icemage]

Oh, and as for Sony (yeah I know this is the XB1 forum but it's been brought up in passing), I'm sure the reason it's not on the PS4 is because Sony objected, regardless of what their PR may say. It would partially devalue the Instant Game Collection if one of the largest publishers withdrew game support from PS+ IGC.

I'm sure Sony also doesn't want to see other publishers follow suit either; if this takes off on XB1, what's to stop Ubisoft or any of the other bigger publishers from following suit with their own specialized packages? Instead a single annual fee (which I'm sure most of us would prefer be kept to a minimum), we could end up with a nasty situation where you're juggling a bunch of different subscriptions just for access to the games you want to play. Even worse, because each publisher has a different catalogue of games that aren't necessarily annualized and sequelized like EA does, the terms and conditions might vary wildly between each subscription.

That's a bad outcome for consumers. I'm not about to praise Sony for doing something that's in their best interests anyway, but if the side effect is that we, as consumers, are less likely to end up with this potential future, then I'm pleased.

I'm a bit surprised that Microsoft even allowed this idea; I know, I know, slice of the used game pie, etc. Still, they surely must see the potential fallout if this business model proliferates. Perhaps they don't consider the other publishers to have enough of a catalog to make it worthwhile for end users to even contemplate an annual fee, but again - just how many add-on packages can you buy for a cable/satellite TV subscription these days?

[dyne]

Originally Posted by Icemage

There's some tinfoil hatting going on here.

EA's goal is a lot simpler than most of you are trying to suggest. They see that used game sales decimate the sales of their games, particularly annual franchises like Madden and FIFA.

So they looked at what Sony was doing successfully with PS+ and Microsoft was doing with moderate success with Games with Gold, decided they wanted a slice of the pie AND take a bite out of those used game sales at the same time.

Bear in mind that these are last year's titles, not new ones. This is not in any way equivalent to what Sony is doing with PSNow (game streaming/rentals). It's only vaguely similar to PS+ in that the games are only active while you maintain the subscription.

However, what's made PS+ Instant Game Collection so wildly successful is due in part to how unpredictable the games have been. Sometimes PS+ IGC games are older but popular titles, sometimes they're relatively new titles that flew under people's radar, and sometimes they're brand new titles right out of the gate.

With EA's Vault, I'd wager that you'll never see a new or "newer" game in the Vault (hence why it's called a "vault" in the first place, right?). Particularly in the case of the annualized games, those tend to have decreasing amounts of value to everyone as the rosters become out of date, and - remember this is EA we're talking about here - they typically have their online mode servers shut down within two years in any case.

TL;DR
Pro to consumer:
+ If you don't mind playing older games that you wouldn't otherwise have bought when they were new and full price, this is a reasonable option.
+ Digital access has its perks (you're safe if your machine dies, no worries about lost/broken discs, etc, can use games on any machine if you're logged in without bringing discs with you).

Con to consumer:
- You don't own the games
- A lot of the games will eventually become unplayable online.
- No resale value to defray costs, if that's something you like to do.
- If this sort of business model becomes common we're going to see a cable-like fragmentation of the digital game market, especially if at some point someone decides that the only way to access a game is through the subscription service (this is basically how anti-virus software works now, and Microsoft Office 365 is headed in the same direction).

Pro to EA:
+ Cuts down on used game sales while creating a new source of revenue.
+ Builds some brand loyalty.

Con to EA:
- What cons? Unless there's backlash, they have nothing much to lose.

The really short version of this is that they're simply kneecapping the used games industry.

[Tony208]

Gamestop is dying a slow death. Couple more of these could put them away.

[Decepticon07]

Originally Posted by Tony208

Gamestop is dying a slow death. Couple more of these could put them away.

I know their tactics are used to make them profitable by preying on uninformed consumers, but I will be glad to see them go!!

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by Icemage

Con to consumer:
- You don't own the games
- A lot of the games will eventually become unplayable online.
- No resale value to defray costs, if that's something you like to do.
- If this sort of business model becomes common we're going to see a cable-like fragmentation of the digital game market, especially if at some point someone decides that the only way to access a game is through the subscription service (this is basically how anti-virus software works now, and Microsoft Office 365 is headed in the same direction).

There is one other big con potentially - no guarantee that you will not lose access to games.

With PS+ and GwG you basically "purchase" the game on the online store. The original publisher has little or no power to revoke a game any more than they would with someone who bought digitally and paid the MSRP.

With this it is unclear if or when things may exit the vault. With EA's habit of shutting down servers we have to consider the real possibility that you may lose access to older version of Madden & FIFA at some point. While those may not be a huge loss it may open up the possibility that it could happen for other games too.

At least with Sony and MS even when things have happened that take a game off the store for purchase, those that have it in their download list from purchasing it earlier still have access to re-download in the future.

[timbobarry]

More information about how the pre-release trials will work

"each game is different, so each game's trial will be, too. In some titles you'll be able to play one of the game's modes for a limited time, while other times you can jump right into the full game. And since you'll always be playing the real game, any progress you make will carry over so you can pick up where you left off on launch day.

"Unlike demos, which are stand-alone chunks of the game meant to give you a taste but don't provide the full experience, when you play a trial through EA Access, you're playing the real game for a limited time, five days before the release date," it continues. "If you buy the game once it releases, you don't need to download or install anything; you can just pick up where you left off and keep playing."

[Tony208]

Originally Posted by timbobarry

More information about how the pre-release trials will work

If some trials are the full game, can't u just blow past them in a couple days and not buy the actual game?

[Itputdallotion0n]

Its just a ploy to get people to buy more digital games by offereing them 5 days early and giving 10% off. Win win for them they give you little to nothing and if you bite you cant trade the game in. Just a way to cut into used sales

[timbobarry]

Originally Posted by Itputdallotion0n

Its just a ploy to get people to buy more digital games by offereing them 5 days early and giving 10% off. Win win for them they give you little to nothing and if you bite you cant trade the game in. Just a way to cut into used sales

I'm still going to buy games physically. I get more back selling the used game than the 10% off. You don't have to buy the game to play the trial so it's a nice way of seeing if the game is good.

[Itputdallotion0n]

Originally Posted by timbobarry

I'm still going to buy games physically. I get more back selling the used game than the 10% off. You don't have to buy the game to play the trial so it's a nice way of seeing if the game is good.

yes true but it is a ploy for those not smart enough to realize it, to eat into the used.

[UNCMT9]

I can see this easily being catalog titles that are 9-12 months old. This starting list of games is subpar and I've played most. The real value will be if they can give gamers somewhat recent games or complete throwback classics like Battlefront. Even if it is a good price value, if you have no desire to play old games, I don't really see the value, no matter how good it is on the surface.