EA Announces New Game Service

Electronic Arts has announced EA Access, which is a new way for gamers to play a variety of the publisher's titles. For $5 per month or $30 per year, selected games will be available for free. Even better for fans of their series, all digital purchases will be discounted 10% and members will have five-day early access prior to official launch days. Some have asked, "What's the catch?" but this actually seems like a pretty decent deal. The selection of free games may be limited, but the service would entirely pay for itself for anyone who might buy five new EA games in a year. Someone could also subscribe for just one month and take advantage of multiple discounts - perhaps even tied to early preview of a particular game.

EA Access is currently only available on XBox One, and Sony has come out saying that the deal is a poor value. What may be more of a factor is tomorrow's launch of Playstation Now, which could be a competitor in the streaming/digital game space. Both Sony and Microsoft also offer Playstation Plus and XBox Live Gold subscriptions which include free games on top of online multiplayer. The new program is already in beta testing for people in the XBox Dashboard Preview program. Is anyone out there planning to sign up?