Panic! Outrage! The Internet Explodes As EA Starts Charging For Demos

OMG WTF and all those other acronyms, EA has started charging for the demos of  UFC and FIFA 14 for the Xbox One!

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The FIFA demo was free last week but now the Xbox Live store shows a cost of $4.99, or £3.99 on our store.  Let’s do a little quiz to determine what is going on, why do you think the demos for UFC and FIFA 14 now have a price tag?

  • A) It is a glitch, someone at Xbox has pressed the wrong button and it will be fixed shortly.
  • B) It is not a mistake, EA want all the moneys.
  • C) Blame Canada

If you picked A then consider yourself a rational human being, have a nice cup of tea and wait for the problem to be fixed. You also have the option of feeling a little sorry for EA who probably have nothing to do with this and it’s Microsoft’s problem.

If you scored mostly B’s then hit as many comment sections and message boards as you can and express your anger using lots of swearing, CAPITAL LETTERS and animated Gifs.

If you scored mostly C’s then you remember the South Park movie, well done.

wtf

UPDATE: The pricing is “the result of a system error,” an EA Australia representative told Polygon. Well done if you picked option A!

UPDATE #2: “The price associated with the FIFA 14 and EA SPORTS UFC demos was due to a technical error. Both demos have now been fixed in the Microsoft store.” – Statement from EA

Source: Twitter

42 Comments

  1. Heres my prediction – the next wave of big EA games will give you the demo if you preorder, otherwise its £5.

  2. Given that publishers have previously spoken about costs and time needed to put out demos, I could see a situation developing where companies would charge for a demo, with the cost of the demo being subtracted from the price when you upgrade to the full game.
    I remember preordering something (i think it was either Black or Killzone for PS2) in Game, and you had to put a minimum of a fiver down but you got handed a demo disc which was otherwise unavailable.
    The thing about that is that it’s fine for games which you are already pretty certain about and just want to get in on some early action, but it’s a less palatable situation when you require a demo to tell you if any paricular new IP is something you’re really interested in.

    • Agreed, fella. It was quite a surprise to read (on TSA last year) about how a lack of “demo” means higher sales. Tease them with trailers and clips of gameplay but don’t actually let us play! Better sales.

      With that in mind, I can’t help think that the demo route wouldn’t be the best of moves but a paid-for demo could offset the losses of people pulling out from an otherwise-purchase.

      • Maybe they could add a little questionnaire at the end of a demo so they know if/why it affected the players decision to buy or not.

  3. Hey, they could have charged £20 and called it a game. Cough cough, konami.

    • Yeah I got caught with that one this week when I bought my ps4 :(

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