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Almost One Year Later, EA Access is Still Incredible
Last August, EA announced EA Access, their subscription based service where Xbox One owners could pay $5 a month, or $30 for the whole year for access to the “EA Vault”, discount pricing on EA games and DLC, and the ability to play new titles a week before launch.
When Access went live, EA had four titles in the EA Vault: Battlefield 4, Madden NFL 25, FIFA 14, and Peggle 2. The relatively lackluster library could probably be blamed on the Xbox One being less than a year old at the time of the announcement, and gamers were excited nonetheless.
The biggest variable in the minds of the community was how quickly games were going to be added to the vault. If the turnover from a game’s launch to its availability on EA Access was relatively short, $30/year seemed like a steal. If, however, all we got was Madden 15 a week before Madden 16 came out, Access would probably go down as a good idea with poor implementation.
Almost a year later, however, EA Access has only increased in value. With 12 titles in the vault currently, and a 13th on the way, EA has proven that it is committed to EA Access. In addition to all of its 2015 sports offerings like Madden 15 and NHL 15 [hyperlink] having been added to the vault about six months after launch, the critically revered Titanfall was added a few weeks ago (reminder: all of Titanfall’s DLC is free now), and 2014 GOTY nominee Dragon Age: Inquisition will be arriving later this summer.
Trend-Setting?
When EA Access was announced last year, the big question on everybody’s mind was whether or not this would signal a new direction for the industry. Physical ownership of video games has already declined dramatically in recent years; was this the next step? A “Netflix”-esque subscription service that could be cancelled at any time?
It’s interesting to note that since EA Access has come to market, no other company has been willing to jump into a subscription model similar to theirs. The closest competitor to Access at this point is Playstation Now, a streaming game service from Sony that offers a much wider selection of games, but at much steeper price point (min. $15/month). Furthermore, it takes on average 6-8 months for EA games to be released in the EA Vault, whereas none of the games on Playstation Now are from the current console generation. As far as subscription-based current-gen gaming goes, EA Access is still largely in a field of its own.
The Bottom Line
As someone who is not privy to this sort of information, and doesn’t have the business sense he thinks he does, I have no idea how EA can afford to give away their games so recently after they’re released. I have a hard time believing that DLC sales would adequately compensate, but somehow EA has found a formula that works, and they’re sticking to it. The program has proven itself of excellent value to consumers, so if EA is onto something that other publishers want to be a part of, I, as a consumer, am all for it.