• EA Access for Madden 15 Limited to 6 Hours

    A point of concern since the EA Access service was announced, the actual amount of pre-release gametime with Madden NFL 15 will be "six gameplay hours." This comes via the EA Access Twitter account in response to a question from an assumed customer of the service.

    EA Access costs $4.99 a month (or $30 a year) and allows users to play older EA titles for free while also giving them five days of early access to new EA titles. While a limited playtime makes sense for games with a storyline (Dragon's Age, Battlefield, etc.), many sports gamers have expressed disgust at going from unlimited three day playing time with EA SPORTS Season Ticket to now six hours over five days. (Season Ticket returns to PS3/360 this year.)

    EA Access is only available on Microsoft's Xbox One as Sony (PlayStation 4) allegedly declined carrying the program, citing it a poor value for consumers. With full details now available, do you agree with Sony's decision? Continue on to share your opinion and to see some initial reactions to this time limit via Twitter.


    This article was originally published in forum thread: EA Access for Madden 15 limited to 6 hours started by gschwendt View original post
    Comments 29 Comments
    1. skipwondah33's Avatar
      skipwondah33 -
      That's about 5 hours or more longer than I play the demo every year

      Not bad
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by skipwondah33 View Post
      That's about 5 hours or more longer than I play the demo every year

      Not bad
      Yeah, but you're not paying $5 for the demo. To me it's pretty laughable. At least give me 12 hours (ie 1 day) as though I actually rented the game.
    1. souljahbill's Avatar
      souljahbill -
      That's bad. Season ticket gave you 3 whole days.
    1. JBHuskers's Avatar
      JBHuskers -
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      Yeah, but you're not paying $5 for the demo. To me it's pretty laughable. At least give me 12 hours (ie 1 day) as though I actually rented the game.
      Agreed. That's a horrible business idea.
    1. skipwondah33's Avatar
      skipwondah33 -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      Yeah, but you're not paying $5 for the demo. To me it's pretty laughable. At least give me 12 hours (ie 1 day) as though I actually rented the game.
      Even better.

      If I were paying the $5 I wouldn't just get it to play Madden for 6 hours. That is just part of the benefit of having it. Also would get to use any teams, rosters I wanted...and not just the 4 teams included with no other options/settings to choose from.

      I bought the Season Ticket only to use it for Madden and Tiger mainly, and NCAA...but of course paid the full $24.99. And probably didn't get 6 full hours of either game with it by the time they finished downloading.
    1. jaymo76's Avatar
      jaymo76 -
      Wow! What a rip off... That being said i would still probably buy it if Sony offered.
    1. I OU a Beatn's Avatar
      I OU a Beatn -
      That's a joke, really. Why even offer early access if you're going to limit it to only 6 hours of game play? I had 3 or 4 whole days with Season Ticket on last gen systems, why are we getting so much less now? Stupid.
    1. CLW's Avatar
      CLW -
      LMFAO maybe Sony was right about the "value" of EA Access. 6 hours (which will be the most they ever offer) is an absolute joke. With Season Ticket you got it for a whole weekend +.
    1. I OU a Beatn's Avatar
      I OU a Beatn -
      Quote Originally Posted by CLW View Post
      LMFAO maybe Sony was right about the "value" of EA Access. 6 hours (which will be the most they ever offer) is an absolute joke. With Season Ticket you got it for a whole weekend +.
      Maybe, but as long as they're doing what they're doing with PS Now, Sony has no room to talk when it comes to "value."

      Like I said, this is a joke, though. 5 days early access and you can play a whopping 6 hours. I get that for single player games, but come on, this is a sports game. We had unlimited access to Madden with Season Ticket, so why can't we be afforded the same luxury now? The only good thing that could possibly come of this is that fact that EA's going to get rung a new one with all the criticism I'm sure they're about to receive, so maybe this idiotic policy will be changed.
    1. skipwondah33's Avatar
      skipwondah33 -
      I heard plenty of complaints of the Season Ticket when it was announced and released.

      And of course this

      http://kotaku.com/5834827/ea-sports-...s-on-debut-day

      Not sure if these are complaints or not haven't read through the entire thing but here is TGT's feeling towards it when it released

      http://www.thegamingtailgate.com/for...Launches-Today

      Out of the 38 people that responded to the poll...22 said No, 7 said Leaning No...only 9 said Yes or Leaning Yes

      Why you yourself said

      Quote Originally Posted by CLW View Post
      Nope. Sorry 3 days early for a download doesn't entice me to give EA $25 bucks and I don't think I have ever purchased DLC
    1. jaymo76's Avatar
      jaymo76 -
      Quote Originally Posted by skipwondah33 View Post
      I heard plenty of complaints of the Season Ticket when it was announced and released.

      And of course this

      http://kotaku.com/5834827/ea-sports-...s-on-debut-day

      Not sure if these are complaints or not haven't read through the entire thing but here is TGT's feeling towards it when it released

      http://www.thegamingtailgate.com/for...Launches-Today

      Out of the 38 people that responded to the poll...22 said No, 7 said Leaning No...only 9 said Yes or Leaning Yes

      Why you yourself said
      Skip,

      I can only speak for myself but I loved season ticket and thought the value was downright outstanding. If it were on PS4 I would buy a subscription yesterday.
    1. skipwondah33's Avatar
      skipwondah33 -
      Oh I agree Jaymo, was same for me.

      Just saying as some said this is bad, etc..As I said same or similar was said about the product that was one of the best things ever prior.

      I won't be getting it because I don't have a XB1, just saying doesn't sound all that terrible.
    1. I OU a Beatn's Avatar
      I OU a Beatn -
      Quote Originally Posted by skipwondah33 View Post
      I won't be getting it because I don't have a XB1, just saying doesn't sound all that terrible.
      It isn't. $30 a year for access to Battlefield 4, FIFA, Madden, and Peggle 2 is alone worth it. Throw in the 10% discount + early access and it's an amazing service.

      However, I find it a little weird how we were granted full access with Season Ticket, and now a similar service is locking us to only 6 hours. As I said, I find that fair for a single player campaign, but for a sports game I should have full access to it, especially when the predecessor service gave me that full access.
    1. bdoughty's Avatar
      bdoughty -
      Someone at EA is probably working on a way to give EA Access owners the option to purchase extra hours. With a 10% discount of course.
    1. skipwondah33's Avatar
      skipwondah33 -
      Quote Originally Posted by I OU a Beatn View Post
      It isn't. $30 a year for access to Battlefield 4, FIFA, Madden, and Peggle 2 is alone worth it. Throw in the 10% discount + early access and it's an amazing service.

      However, I find it a little weird how we were granted full access with Season Ticket, and now a similar service is locking us to only 6 hours. As I said, I find that fair for a single player campaign, but for a sports game I should have full access to it, especially when the predecessor service gave me that full access.
      Different service. ..apples to oranges

      This one just so happens to include EA Sports games.

      Didn't have a service to compare to it previously and it wasn't liked. This one unfortunately does

      $5 for the exact same thing that Season Ticket offered wouldn't have been worth it for EA either. Unless you have to sign up for a year and not cancel at anytime.

      I wasn't expecting it to be $5 and the same thing as Season Ticket.
    1. Rudy's Avatar
      Rudy -
      6 hours is light. If you just want to look at rosters, play gauntlet, sim stuff in CFM, that clock is running! That takes away from actual gameplay time. Personally I never found season ticket that good of a deal because I was only interested in 2 games. When are we going to get a digital rental service? Why can't I rent a game for 1 day or 1 week at normal rental prices? Will PS Now or whatever have all games available?
    1. I OU a Beatn's Avatar
      I OU a Beatn -
      Quote Originally Posted by skipwondah33 View Post
      Different service. ..apples to oranges

      This one just so happens to include EA Sports games.

      Didn't have a service to compare to it previously and it wasn't liked. This one unfortunately does

      $5 for the exact same thing that Season Ticket offered wouldn't have been worth it for EA either. Unless you have to sign up for a year and not cancel at anytime.

      I wasn't expecting it to be $5 and the same thing as Season Ticket.
      I don't believe it is apples to oranges. This is literally Season Ticket with all EA games instead of EA Sports, and also apparently extremely limited early access instead of full access. Other than that, there isn't much difference. The fact that I'm now limited to 6 hours of my personal main selling point just makes me less interested in the service.
    1. skipwondah33's Avatar
      skipwondah33 -
      http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ski.../1100-6421654/

      This was funny. I wasn't aware EA had any "goodwill" with gamers to begin with, now they are apparently losing it over this.

      Which again people gave them flak over the Season Ticket as well.
    1. JBHuskers's Avatar
      JBHuskers -
      I was on a conference call for this, which should have been three months earlier.

      Everyone on the call expressed that sports should be unlimited and this won't fly.

      This was even before any of us had knowledge that Season Ticket was coming back. That surprised me definitely.