EA Play

[iup=3519204]Saint of Killers[/iup] wrote:I had no idea the pricing model had been set.

There is no subscription it is a game by game fee, that much was confirmed. You either buy access to the game for a certain amount of time or you pay RRP for permanent (until the game has licensing issues and is removed) to the game. I think £10 a month at most for access to the catalogue would be the right price.

[iup=3519204]Saint of Killers[/iup] wrote:I had no idea the pricing model had been set.

It's still in beta so it may change, but right now it's all timed rentals and I suspect that unless they do a subscription service with unlimited access to a selection of games, PSNow is going to flop.

[iup=3519203]Photek[/iup] wrote:Well, yes, I guess MS are paying EA but this is mutually beneficial to an extent so maybe its not that much.

It is only mutually beneficial if MS are paying EA for loss of revenue, otherwise there is no benefit to not supporting the larger user base.

EA's just playing the console manufacturers off against each other. They promised to be "special best friends forever" with Nintendo as well before the Wii U launched, IIRC.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... lationship

People talking mostly about the games on the service but the 10% off stands out to me as an incentive to get it if you're a digital only gamer. Get a month sub for £3.99, buy a new EA game for £50 then save £5 with the 10% off and you're a quid up.

Very strange response from Sony, the backlash is already brewing.

[iup=3519223]Monkey Man[/iup] wrote:People talking mostly about the games on the service but the 10% off stands out to me as an incentive to get it if you're a digital only gamer. Get a month sub for £3.99, buy a new EA game for £50 then save £5 with the 10% off and you're a quid up.

You're right actually, If I buy a yearly subscription for this then im paying €2.50 a month for this, FIFA 15 (which I buy every year) Digital only is €70 so I'm getting it for €65.50 and also earlier than others. Throw in the other free games (Madden 25/NHL 14) and this is rather brilliant.

[iup=3519223]Monkey Man[/iup] wrote:People talking mostly about the games on the service but the 10% off stands out to me as an incentive to get it if you're a digital only gamer. Get a month sub for £3.99, buy a new EA game for £50 then save £5 with the 10% off and you're a quid up.

Very strange response from Sony, the backlash is already brewing.

You're already losing by paying over £40 for games.

[iup=3519225]Photek[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3519223]Monkey Man[/iup] wrote:People talking mostly about the games on the service but the 10% off stands out to me as an incentive to get it if you're a digital only gamer. Get a month sub for £3.99, buy a new EA game for £50 then save £5 with the 10% off and you're a quid up.

You're right actually, If I buy a yearly subscription for this then im paying €2.50 a month for this, FIFA 15 (which I buy every year) Digital only is €70 so I'm getting it for €65.50 and also earlier than others. Throw in the other free games (Madden 25/NHL 14) and this is rather brilliant.

£55 for a copy of FIFA...blimey. Reminds me of the days of the Great Universal catalogue.

For me if a game isn't £35 or under then strawberry float 'em.

Like, if you're going exclusively digital only, I can see the argument. It still makes EA's digital games laughably overpriced compared to their disc cousins, however.

[iup=3519235]Delusibeta[/iup] wrote:Like, if you're going exclusively digital only, I can see the argument. It still makes EA's digital games laughably overpriced compared to their disc cousins, however.

Disc games are €65 here. I bought Titanfall Digitally cos couldnt be arsed going out to get it.

[iup=3519228]Dark Dragon 64[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3519223]Monkey Man[/iup] wrote:People talking mostly about the games on the service but the 10% off stands out to me as an incentive to get it if you're a digital only gamer. Get a month sub for £3.99, buy a new EA game for £50 then save £5 with the 10% off and you're a quid up.

Very strange response from Sony, the backlash is already brewing.

Dark Dragon 64 says "You're already losing by paying over £40 for games."

I know but some people are happy with buying all their games digitally for the convenience etc. I personally don't but the numbers who do are growing.

[iup=3519241]Monkey Man[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3519228]Dark Dragon 64[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3519223]Monkey Man[/iup] wrote:People talking mostly about the games on the service but the 10% off stands out to me as an incentive to get it if you're a digital only gamer. Get a month sub for £3.99, buy a new EA game for £50 then save £5 with the 10% off and you're a quid up.

Very strange response from Sony, the backlash is already brewing.

Dark Dragon 64 says "You're already losing by paying over £40 for games."

I know but some people are happy with buying all their games digitally for the convenience etc. I personally don't but the numbers who do are growing.

I prefer digital but there's no way I'd pay over £40 for a game. I think that Mario Kart 8 is the only game I've bought (digital or physical) for over £30 that wasn't a special edition.

Will all the big third party publishers going to be launching their own service too?

[iup=3519253]Fuzzy Dunlop[/iup] wrote:Will all the big third party publishers going to be launching their own service too?

More importantly if they do will Sony still peddle the line that they already provide enough value?

Well if your paying for 3 or 4 subs every month with big third party publishers then Sony will still have the better value for money.

[iup=3519266]Fuzzy Dunlop[/iup] wrote:Well if your paying for 3 or 4 subs every month with big third party publishers then Sony will still have the better value for money.

Surely that depends on what content is then available for PS Plus/Xbox Gold?

If more 3rd parties follow this model then we're strawberry floated. EA have taken a good model (netflix) and perverted subtly to suit their greed. Much like MS were going to take the steam model and twist it before people with sense made them revert it.
This is all setup to use old games, which would have been worthless to EA as they are an annual update driven company, to sell DLC and micro-transactions. BF4 has premium, which is almost mandatory at this point in it's life cycle, and the sports games are riddled with micro-transactions. That is where the money is for EA with this.
People get hooked on that stuff easily and that is what EA are counting on. There are sensible people like most here that will use it to save money and that is fair play but a large number will pour stupid amounts of money into the micro-transactions. So these games that are getting past their time will still be bringing in cash due to the new audience. This model takes off and more companies want to copy it? They start putting more and more micro-transactions into their games just to get money from the subscribers. Eventually games are running on a F2P-type model with nickel and diming everywhere but you're also paying a subscription as well which is even worse than straight F2P.
Also it gets in the DRM they wanted with Xbone to start with. Plan A was abandoned so this is plan B.

Might seem good in the short term but in the long term it's a bad idea. I hope it fails.

[iup=3519266]Fuzzy Dunlop[/iup] wrote:Well if your paying for 3 or 4 subs every month with big third party publishers then Sony will still have the better value for money.

Depends on what games you get though, yeah? If, like with EA, it would be 4 games per publisher, that would be access to 12-16 games in a month.

In that case I personally wouldn't bother subscribing to them all at the same time, because I'd never play that many different games in a month. I would be more likely to just switch between them each month depending on what they were offering. It would be a relatively inexpensive way to get access to a lot of different games.

[iup=3519209]suzzopher[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3519204]Saint of Killers[/iup] wrote:I had no idea the pricing model had been set.

There is no subscription it is a game by game fee, that much was confirmed. You either buy access to the game for a certain amount of time or you pay RRP for permanent (until the game has licensing issues and is removed) to the game. I think £10 a month at most for access to the catalogue would be the right price.

No sub? Game by game?! Bloody hell. Prices better be very good or yeah, it's probably going to flop. Though one thing you can say about Sony is that with PS+ they have a record of turning faltering services around into something must have. But they should just roll Now into PS+ and increase its price.

[iup=3519282]bear[/iup] wrote:Surely that depends on what content is then available for PS Plus/Xbox Gold?

[iup=3519286]Garth[/iup] wrote:Depends on what games you get though, yeah? If, like with EA, it would be 4 games per publisher, that would be access to 12-16 games in a month.

That's very true. Like Rog said though, whilst it's seems good short term, if other companies follow, it's going to do more harm than good IMO.