EA Access a Success, Should others follow?

[Murr]

So, I've done another article for my blog based on EA Access being more successful than anticipated.

 

Just wondered if it'd generate discussion here?

 

EA’s Access has been performing considerably better than initially expected. That’s what EA CEO Andrew Wilson has recently said during a financials call this week. It’s growing “Well beyond early expectations.”

 

If you didn’t know, EA Access was announced in July and pitched to both Sony & Microsoft. Sony turned down the service not feeling it offered it’s customers enough value for money, and they also have their own subscription service in place with PSN offering games from other developers not just EA.

 

It’s currently still in beta but offers a ‘vault’ of games for Xbox One owners that can be played from 1 of 2 subscription price structures. £3.99/$4.99 a month or £19.99/$29.99 a year. The first batch of games from the vault available to Xbox One gamer’s include FIFA 14, Madden 25, Battlefield 4, Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare and Peggle 2. Need for Speed Rivas was added to the vault in September.

 

It works in that once the EA Access hub has been downloaded from the Xbox Games Store, The user purchases one of the subscription methods. During the desired subscription period users then have unlimited access to the full versions of the games within the vault. The games are downloaded onto the Xbox One’s hard drive and will remain available as long as the user continues their subscription.

 

 

Once the subscription runs out, the game is restricted, but any progress and game saves are retained.

 

Sounds good, and with the promise of early access and discounts off digital purchases of 2015’s iteration of the popular sport franchises EA publishes and Dragon Age Inquisition, it’s a service that EA appear to be fully invested in and will continue to update the vault.

 

It all sounds good and as mentioned the reaction to it has been very positive and going beyond expectations. It begs the question, will other developers follow suite with their own version of the service?

 

Activision could well be onto something with a similar service given their yearly titles. Skylanders, Call of Duty Ghosts, Spiderman2 and Transformers to start things off? How about a little later down the line add Destiny to the service? You may think that adding Destiny to the list being pointless as surely everyone that wants to play it would have bought it, Especially based off the numbers it’s sold. But within my group of friends that own a PS4 and myself included their are 5 of us that haven’t picked it up. Purely based off the fact we want to prioritize our game purchases for others and weren’t overly sold on Destiny. I’d actually quite like to play Call of Duty Ghosts myself as I’m not afraid to admit I enjoy the series, but even a year later after launch it’s retailing more than normal pre-owned PS4 titles, and I’m certainly not going to buy it new digitally or physically. I’d rather pay £3.99 for one month for an Activision service to play this game, complete it and then not play it again.

 

I’d pay £4 to play Call of Duty Ghosts for a month

 

Ubisoft currently implements uPlay which comes with the majority of Ubisoft’s games now a days. It keeps track of different types of achievements within the Ubisoft community. But could they extend uPlay further to provide a service like EA Access?

 

Their catalogue of game franchises is vast enough to start the service off with Assassins Creed 4, Watch_Dogs, Just Dance for starters, then incorporate more games as they progress. Far Cry 3 could get a touch up and added to the service in preparation for Far Cry 4’s launch. Perhaps they could offer bundles from last gen titles such as a Splinter Cell playable pack, or Rainbow 6 playable pack?

 

Perhaps Ubisoft could introduce uPlayIT Service (not copyrighted just yet)

 

But then the question arises of, which service should you subscribe too? You’re already more than likely paying a yearly subscription for Xbox Live or Playstation Network. Can you afford or would you pay numerous £20 a year subscriptions? Would you be happy to pay £4 for a month of Ubisoft service just to play Assassins Creed 4?

 

I think it’s more reasonable to pay for the service on a month to month basis as long as each developers vault of games is updated on a frequent basis.

 

Given the success of EA Access it would be surprising if other big game publishers / developers aren’t looking at something similar. But if more should crop up, would Sony turn these down? Would it affect what games are sold on the consoles market place?

 

Would you like to see “Activision-Now”, “uPlayIT” or any other developer service?

 

- Murr

 

http://geeksleeprinserepeat.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/ea-access-a-success-should-others-follow/

[Cube]

It seems like a good launch, but we'll need to see how it progresses and what games are added to see if the service will be any good. Personally, if I had an Xbox One, I wouldn't have EA Access due to the games currently on the service.

 

The games I want (Dragon Age, Mass Effect), I would want to keep.

[sumo73]

This isn't really about giving the gamer a better service more likely a way for companies to make more money and get a quicker return on their investment.

[Wii]

Not interested in it. I'd never pay a subscription service. If Nintendo went down this road as it's way of distributing games exclusively in the future I'd pack my bags and quit gaming.

[Happenstance]

Im happy to pay for something like PS+ that covers a whole range of games from different developers/publishers but I'll never pay for a service that only covers the one.

[Cube]

Not interested in it. I'd never pay a subscription service. If Nintendo went down this road as it's way of distributing games exclusively in the future I'd pack my bags and quit gaming.

 

This kind of service would be amazing for the Virtual Console, though.

[dazzybee]

I think this is a great service for a company like EA. Where they release annual updates of the games, paying £5 a month means you play two games extensively you've saved money. As I buy fifa every year for £50, it doesn't take much for this to seem a great service. But can you play the immediate releases?!

[Goron_3]

This kind of service would be amazing for the Virtual Console, though.

 

Yeah, I basically want a Netflix style Virtual Console where I can still out-right buy the games if I like them.

[Goafer]

I guess it works for annual releases where each new game is basically an add on for the existing game, but I don't really play those games so it's not for me.

 

To be honest, I don't think I'll ever buy into digital releases. Hard drives still aren't adequate to save all my games locally and I just don't trust services where you buy a licence and hope that they'll always keep the item available. Plus if you can store them all locally, if your hard drive goes you're fucked. At least if a console breaks, your games will still work on a replacement.

 

The only digital I bother with is Steam, but that's only because of the sales.

 

I don't mind Netflix, but that's more like subscribing to a TV service. I don't do it because I want specific films/TV series. I do it to watch whatever is on. Anything that I consider a must have I still buy a physical copy. I guess a system where you pay a small amount to access a huge variety of indie games/smaller games would be good. I just don't see me buying into a subscription for the games I really look forward to/intend to play again a few years down the line.

[Cube]

I think this is a great service for a company like EA. Where they release annual updates of the games, paying £5 a month means you play two games extensively you've saved money. As I buy fifa every year for £50, it doesn't take much for this to seem a great service. But can you play the immediate releases?!

 

FIFA 14 is on the service. You get 10% off FIFA 15 if you subscribe.

[flameboy]

The way I look at it for whatever it was $30 I got Peggle 2, Battlefield 4, Plants Vs Zombies and NFS. All games I may have picked up but not for anywhere near full price. I'm always interested in the other sports titles outside of FIFA but would never want to pay full price, so being a year behind suits me for the odd game here and there. Whether I'd want other companies to follow suit is another thing. I used it for FIFA and got a good discount plus 6 hours of the game a week early which was nice. I'm personally going to purchase the disc version of Dragon Age as already have it preordered at $20 off. However the discount will come in handy for DLC. I don't have a problem with not owning the game...if I desperately wanted to go back to a game I'd either pick up a cheap used copy or resubscribe on the service (Which would bring about a whole new slew of games depending on how long I'd been out), which ever represents the best value.

 

The only other two I could see it working for are Activision and Ubisoft. I think it will happen...look at what is happening slowly with the TV streaming, HBO Go is going solo without having to have a cable subscription for example so it's a sign of TV moving away from that traditional business model of advertising and instead directly taking money from the customer. These gaming subscription services are going the same way...developers basically getting a chunk of free money for old games that help sustain them over the course of development of other games. Something EA kind of need if their threadbare E3 showing was anything to go by they don't have a lot of games coming that aren't in the early stages of production.

 

It's not ideal now as there are so few games on it BUT if they keep to their mantra of once something enters the vault it doesn't come out then the service is going to keep getting better and better.

Edited October 30, 2014 by flameboy

[liger05]

Looking at the games EA has provided I think I would of got more from it than PS+ since launch of the PS4.

 

Think its a joke that Sony have decided gamers are not interested. Let us decide that.

[flameboy]

Looking at the games EA has provided I think I would of got more from it than PS+ since launch of the PS4.

 

Think its a joke that Sony have decided gamers are not interested. Let us decide that.

 

I don't think you can compare the two especially seem as PS+ is now required for most multiplayer content. Also PS+ been around much longer...Also yes I agree Sony should let people decide.....The whole it doesn't represent value for our customers is absolute crap...if someone buys every game EA publishing in a given year they've made their subscription back in savings plus more....so how is that not value for money?

Edited October 30, 2014 by flameboy

[liger05]

I don't think you can compare the two especially seem as PS+ is now required for most multiplayer content. Also PS+ been around much longer...Also yes I agree Sony should let people decide.....The whole it doesn't represent value for our customers is absolute crap...if someone buys every game EA publishing in a given year they've made their subscription back in savings plus more....so how is that not value for money?

 

Its a bizarre position to take considering its not really going to take people away from PS+ considering PS+ is a requirement to play online.

[flameboy]

Its a bizarre position to take considering its not really going to take people away from PS+ considering PS+ is a requirement to play online.

 

Exactly....in the context of PS3 yes it's a competing product but not PS4. Unless they genuinely view the vault as reflecting badly on the rotating nature of the titles on PS+

[Cube]

Looking at the games EA has provided I think I would of got more from it than PS+ since launch of the PS4.

 

Think its a joke that Sony have decided gamers are not interested. Let us decide that.

 

Personally, I think that Microsoft are paying towards it and Sony didn't want to. Why else would there be no PC version?

[flameboy]

Personally, I think that Microsoft are paying towards it and Sony didn't want to. Why else would there be no PC version?

 

I'd say there is no PC version because EA are still pushing Origin as a viable alternative to Steam and having EA Access in that case muddies the water. Also they have their own free game promotion via Origin with a new game every month.