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EA Access double membership in six months

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I love the idea behind EA’s Xbox One exclusive service, EA Access. For just $30 a year, those who subscribe are given access to a number of games from the company’s vault; slightly older games from the publisher that they’re able to play through without having to actually purchase the games. It includes unfettered access to games like Battlefield Hardline, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Titanfall, Battlefield 4, FIFA 15 and more – with new games being added to the rotation every so often.

It also allows subscribers to download full EA games before they’re actually out, and play them for a few hours to see if they’re rubbish or not. From there, players are able to purchase the games digitally – at a 10% discount – and pick up right where they left off. Yes, it’s a bit like paying for a demos, but at $5 a month or $30 for a year, it’s a pretty worthwhile investment if you like the sorts of games that EA peddles.

And a lot of you seem to. According to EA, their EA Access user base has doubled in the last six months.

“EA Access is accelerating. The subscriber base more than doubled in the last two quarters; we’ve added five new games to the vault this year; and we’re excited about what we’re learning, as players engage through this service”, said EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson.

“EA Access is delivering strong, sustained growth”, added the company’s chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen.

Of course, the cynically minded will say that without hard numbers, the stat is meaningless; twice nothing is still nothing. It’s sentiment I agree with, though it’s hard not to see the value in a service like this – one again, provided you like EA’s games.

This year’s returning-to-its-roots Need for Speed is currently available to play on EA Access, while Star Wars Battlefront goes up next week, well ahead of its official launch.

And with EA now making twice as much money on extra downloadable content than they do on retail games, It’s easy to imagine this service continuing, using the cheap access to the games as a way to push even more DLC.

Last Updated: November 2, 2015

10 Comments

  1. DrKiller

    November 2, 2015 at 09:36

    Sigh! Why didn’t I read this earlier.. Could’ve downloaded NFS so long 🙁

    Reply

    • Fox1 - Retro

      November 2, 2015 at 10:40

      It’s only 18gb’s so you could do that in 2 nights.

      Reply

      • DrKiller

        November 2, 2015 at 10:41

        It takes people 2 nights to do this? Will probably take me just over an hour 😛 Less than 2 hours.

        Reply

        • Fox1 - Retro

          November 2, 2015 at 10:43

          LOL! VDSL huh!

          Reply

        • balcobomber25

          November 30, 2015 at 21:26

          Took me about 4 hours on a 10mb cable connection.

          Reply

  2. Kromas untamed

    November 2, 2015 at 09:58

    I will stick to “on the house” for now thanks. 🙂

    Reply

  3. Fox1 - Retro

    November 2, 2015 at 10:41

    You’ll need an external hard drive to go with that membership.

    They should really look at bringing this to PC but I suspect there’s a golden handshake between MS and EA on this one 😉

    Reply

    • balcobomber25

      November 30, 2015 at 21:27

      I have the 1TB hard drive and I downloaded Madden, Fifa, NHL, NFS and Dragon Age along with a few other games I have on my HD and I am just under 30% full.

      Reply

  4. Tulipdame

    November 2, 2015 at 15:57

    Need for Speed really is nice. I am enjoying it. And I don’t regret being part of EA Access from the start. Really is worth while

    Reply

  5. balcobomber25

    November 30, 2015 at 21:24

    I got mine free with the Madden Bundle and my guess is the numbers are much greater because of the Madden and FIFA Bundles. But I still might have bought it anyways, it’s basically like buying Dragon Age and getting everything else for free. It’s especially good if you don’t need the latest sports game but still want to play that sport. For me that is FIFA, I am not a big enough fan to need the latest roster update and I have no interest in playing as females, so FIFA 15 more than fills my soccer fix.

    Reply

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