EA’s twinned Access subscription plans offer a lot of good value on PC and Xbox One, but now they’re doubling down on this by announcing a new tier called Origin Access Premier (for PC) which will feature their major games at launch.
That means Battlefield V, Madden NFL 19 (which will be on PC again for the first time in years and years), FIFA 19 and Anthem, day and date, as well as everything already in the Vault. Origin Access Premier will be $14.99/£14.99 per month or $99.99/£89.99 per year. Note that there’s differing rates between the monthly and yearly rates.
You’ll get access to these games prior to their street date, as well. In each case this is by a week, but it’s not entirely clear if this is the same thing as the 10 hour trials that regular subscribers get or the full game.
- EA SPORTS Madden NFL 19 – August 2, 2018 for Origin Access Premier, August 10 for everyone else.
- EA SPORTS FIFA 19 –September 20, 2018 for Origin Access Premier, September 27 for everyone else.
- Battlefield V – October 11, 2018 for Origin Access Premier, October 19 for everyone else.
- Anthem – February 15, 2019 for Origin Access Premier members, February 22 for everyone else.
EA are also trialling streaming games from the cloud, though this will be a limited programme to start with.
gazzagb
I still can’t get over how EA are making money from this. £89.99 per year. If you buy more than 2 AAA titles on release, you’ve made your money back. I guess they are heavily reliant on micro-transactions?
MrYd
Do they actually release more than 2 games that you’d want to play in a year? Does anyone actually play all of their sports games? Or they stick to whichever sport they like?
And how much money do EA actually make from selling a copy of a game anyway? Once you take away all the costs from selling it in a shop or on a digital store run by someone else. £90 a year is probably more than they’d make from selling 2 games.
How much does it cost them to make a new football game every year anyway? Isn’t it basically just DLC for a game from years ago? Does football gain any new features? Has it got a battle royale mode yet??