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EA announces a subscription service for Xbox One

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Lil Frier said:
Who cares what the pricing model is? I mean, EA's monthly/annually, while PS Now is pay-as-you-go, but Access is cheaper for a month than PS Now is for 4 hours, in some cases (Access is $5/month, while F1 2013 is $6 for 4 hours and Deus Ex: Human Revolution is $5 for 4 hours).

They're better-off charging for the beta because it gives them a sample of "if X people are offered the service, Y% of those people will pay for it." Giving it away freely does two things wron,g potentially:

1. It doesn't reflect the interest in the paid subscription.
2. Stupid people (yes, there are people this stupid) will think the public service will be free, then cause a media poop storm when they have to pay for it later.

It's not ideal to charge for a beta, but it serves a purpose here, because giving it away freely will drum up more expectations for participation in the service than would happen when it went pay-to-play.
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The PR for charging people for a service (even if it is in beta) and it not worker is going to be far greater than the idiots who think the service is going to remain free (which will be maybe 3 people total).

The entire point of a beta is to test the feature complete build. I suppose, testing the payment system is part of that, but it is a paywall that is going to turn off a lot of would be testers (including myself). I had planned on trying to download all the games (even the ones I already have) and see what happens. But, I ain't paying to do that.
 
I don't think they're trying to test the functionality. I think they're trying to test consumer willingness to pay for the service, to create some kind of expectations as to what they can get away with, on the content front. If the interest level is low, offer better games. If it's high, offer the dregs of the libraries (year-old sports titles and older titles of the other franchises). It sounds like the thing is essentially together, so I imagine they're just going slowly with the rollout, putting it under the "beta" umbrella term.
 
EA's CEO has stated once a game enters the Vault, it will stay forever. Also stated they will have more AAA titles in the future, but no real formula has been announced (probably didn't want to admit it will be based on continued sales; once a game stalls in the market, it hits the vault type of thing).

Eh, not an awful thing for consumers.
 
The quote I read was something about "after thirty days, it's in the vault" or some such thing. I'm not sure if it meant that everything will be available in the vault thirty days after release, or that things are consider "in the vault" internally and then they can decide what to do with it.

If most EA releases are available thirty days after release, then I'm definitely in.

Edit: Nope, I misread what Petey said. Here is the full quote:
New game additions will be determined by franchise and timing," he continued. "We have to make decisions along that way, so there's no template, like 30 days after a game ships it goes into the Vault. I think one of the key things is that once a game goes into the Vault it stays there, it's not going to be taken out, that's a commitment we've made."
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So basically they will pick the poor performing products to end up there which is what I figured. Makes the most sense anyway.
 
ImpulsE69 said:
I always kind of assumed that's what PS+ did. Low performing or not selling much anymore.
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PS+ had a combination of high selling, high rate and indie titles. For example, this month is Fez and Crysis 3. We've had Uncharted, Saint Row, Dead Space 3, Hitman, Tomb Raider and a lot other the past year.
 
KentState said:
PS+ had a combination of high selling, high rate and indie titles. For example, this month is Fez and Crysis 3. We've had Uncharted, Saint Row, Dead Space 3, Hitman, Tomb Raider and a lot other the past year.
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To be fair, Tomb Raider hit PS+ after Square basically said "this game is a failure" because it only sold like 3 million copies and not 5 or some crap.
 
sze5003 said:
So there is no difference really in charging for the beta vs just releasing it. People can do the same things. Sign up to try and cancel later. Or sign up and burned out on sport games then cancel and come back when new games arrive.

In my opinion don't call something a beta if your going to charge for it. That would put many people off in the first place as opposed to just letting users sign up.
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cmdrdredd said:
So basically they will pick the poor performing products to end up there which is what I figured. Makes the most sense anyway.
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I wouldn't say it'll necessarily be poorly-performing games. I think it'll just be that they have a sales figure in mind where if the game drops below that number for a month or two (or a quarter), they'll put it in. So, it might just mean that less-popular franchises make it in sooner than others.
 
Lil Frier said:
I wouldn't say it'll necessarily be poorly-performing games. I think it'll just be that they have a sales figure in mind where if the game drops below that number for a month or two (or a quarter), they'll put it in. So, it might just mean that less-popular franchises make it in sooner than others.
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It'll probably be like PSN+. Older titles that are past their sales peak, games that were slightly under performing, and older versions of titles that have a newer release coming up.
 
cmdrdredd said:
It'll probably be like PSN+. Older titles that are past their sales peak, games that were slightly under performing, and older versions of titles that have a newer release coming up.
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Exactly. They'll probably think that at some point, the potential for MUT microtransactions in Madden 15 will outweigh the number of sales at $30-40, and that's when they will add that game, for example. Similarly, I'll bet GwG will add Ryse once the Season Pass sales potential outweighs the potential retail game's sales potential.
 
I haven't read this whole thread, and not sure if it's been mentioned, but anyone getting that Comcast/Dish/Etc flavor in their month?

I know, I know, this is a beta, yada yada.

I just can't help but feel in 4-5 years I'll have to have an EA, or Ubi, or Square sub active to play whatever game they have online, or to get patches day 1, or whatever other crap they garden wall to boost sales.

Bad enough I have to have a program for each guy on my computer, I don't want to cross that threshold on my consoles.

Perhaps I'm being cynical about all this, but I don't see the benefit of this, like, at all. The platform holder should be responsible to let us rent stuff. Not the publisher holder.
 
railven said:
I haven't read this whole thread, and not sure if it's been mentioned, but anyone getting that Comcast/Dish/Etc flavor in their month?

I know, I know, this is a beta, yada yada.

I just can't help but feel in 4-5 years I'll have to have an EA, or Ubi, or Square sub active to play whatever game they have online, or to get patches day 1, or whatever other crap they garden wall to boost sales.

Bad enough I have to have a program for each guy on my computer, I don't want to cross that threshold on my consoles.

Perhaps I'm being cynical about all this, but I don't see the benefit of this, like, at all. The platform holder should be responsible to let us rent stuff. Not the publisher holder.
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Yeah that's been mentioned, it's also probably why Sony didn't want it on PS4 because they want companies to just release their stuff on PSN and if they want to offer special discounts, game trials etc, do it through the PSN+ program.
 
railven said:
I just can't help but feel in 4-5 years I'll have to have an EA, or Ubi, or Square sub active to play whatever game they have online, or to get patches day 1, or whatever other crap they garden wall to boost sales.
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You essentially do already. You have to get Origin and UPlay for online play, even on consoles. Watch Dogs, Madden, FIFA and Need for Speed already do it, and I'd expect the same from The Division and Siege and Dragon Age. The difference here is that instead of $40/game (the price most will be when they're added to the Vault, I'd imagine), you'll be on an annual subscription for digital titles. You'll get games more cheaply than before, most likely, but there will be an extra hoop or two to jump through.
 
Lil Frier said:
You essentially do already. You have to get Origin and UPlay for online play, even on consoles. Watch Dogs, Madden, FIFA and Need for Speed already do it, and I'd expect the same from The Division and Siege and Dragon Age. The difference here is that instead of $40/game (the price most will be when they're added to the Vault, I'd imagine), you'll be on an annual subscription for digital titles. You'll get games more cheaply than before, most likely, but there will be an extra hoop or two to jump through.
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For the consoles all it does is link your psn or Xbox id with their origin servers. You can then sign in on origin on the pc the same way. But yea you do need it on the pc.
 
went live for the public today. I signed up for the year and am downloading the games now. Hope it works out well.
 
MikeyLSU said:
went live for the public today. I signed up for the year and am downloading the games now. Hope it works out well.
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I'll hit it tomorrow. Play some FIFA for a week, and then get Madden 15 five days early and $6 cheaper. And then rinse/repeat for NHL15 next month. 🙂
 
Wingznut said:
I'll hit it tomorrow. Play some FIFA for a week, and then get Madden 15 five days early and $6 cheaper. And then rinse/repeat for NHL15 next month. 🙂
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Do you have Madden 25 already? You know Best Buy is giving $35 in trade-in towards Madden 15for it, right? Plus, if you pre-order it, you get $10 in Best Buy rewards back, and if you are a GCU member, it's another $12 off.

Because of all of that, I bought Madden 25 for $15 on eBay, and I'm going to trade it in the Best Buy, and Madden 15 will cost me $14.58 after the trade, meaning $29.58 out of pocket, and I'll get $10 of that back in rewards, basically meaning that Madden 15 will cost me under $20.
 
Lil Frier said:
Do you have Madden 25 already? You know Best Buy is giving $35 in trade-in towards Madden 15for it, right? Plus, if you pre-order it, you get $10 in Best Buy rewards back, and if you are a GCU member, it's another $12 off.

Because of all of that, I bought Madden 25 for $15 on eBay, and I'm going to trade it in the Best Buy, and Madden 15 will cost me $14.58 after the trade, meaning $29.58 out of pocket, and I'll get $10 of that back in rewards, basically meaning that Madden 15 will cost me under $20.
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I have it, via digital download. And I will get 15 via digital, also. I play Madden (and NHL) so much that the benefits of not having a disc are important enough to me to offset the drawbacks.
 
zokudu said:
IN for a year subscription to start. Excited to play some Fifa this weekend.
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I am going to be perfectly honest, I have debated getting this just for the early access on Fifa 15. Getting my Ultimate Team up and sweaty* before anyone else might prove worth it!


*sweaty is a FUT team used to refer to cheap players that far exceed their overall ranking in some way or are just generally extremely annoying. A Cristiano Ronaldo or a Zlatan wouldn't be sweaty, because they are crazy expensive, but someone like a Sterling though is (rated at 76, super cheap, and 91 pace).
 
I'm hoping they have a FIFA trade-in offer like the Madden one. I kinda want to play the game this year, but I'm not spending $48 on it. If I can buy a cheap copy of FIFA 14 and trade it for $35 towards the new one (like I'm doing with Madden), I might just get it.
 
Just wanted to let everyone know something I discovered today via a friend of mine. EA isn't billing you for EA Access. In other words, you aren't paying EA to use EA access services and subscribe. The billing goes through Microsoft via your account with them. On your account page online you can click on the box that says "see all subscriptions". Inside there is your subscription to EA access and you can cancel it there. You also cannot use your XBL account balance to pay for the subsccription. You need to use a credit or debit card currently. Eventually you will be able to buy Pre-paid EA Access cards from Gamestop and won't need your card info online. Right now though you need a credit card on file. The billing is reoccurring, meaning when your year or month is up it will bill you for the next year or month automatically.

Figured someone might want to know this. I'm thinking of giving it a try for the first year, if it sucks I cancel. If I want to keep it I cancel it but buy a pre-paid card to keep it going like I do for PSN+ and XBL Gold. My friend found this info out since he is a subscriber already and went digging for how to cancel. Apparently Kotaku had an article on the process that alerted him to the fact that your subscription is linked to your microsoft account and billed through there. So you can cancel instantly on the website.

From your console you can go to settings > subscriptions and manage your payment option there if you want to edit what card is used for billing.
 
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