steverhcp02 said:
Right but this is what sony did with PS+. "Optional", free online, bonus games/discounts etc. Now it is needed for online play after they build up the userbase and people were committted to the service. If you think this is simply EA offering "choice" I have a bridge to sell you. It is the beginning of what the online pass was intended to do just masked as value, the same as PS+ was always the foot in the door to charge for online play and then once people got the taste of the free games and discounts start throwing on necessary things tied to the service. You think its coincidence that PS+ started with nothing but perks and this gen Sony's entire marketing is built around social gaming and now PS+ is required for online play? If this becomes the precedent for third party companies youre looking at Gold/PS+ plus each companies "vault" to access online servers or worse. The same as Sony offered a nice bonus VIP package, get people into the ecosystem, committed, then start slapping on tiny bits of required cost so they cant get out if they want to keep gaming how they always have. |
Yes, every company does this since it generates revenues. They start a service and adds things until we are more or less dependent on them. Rarely do we see companies do what MS did recently, actually removing things from the paywall. I think that decision came from them looking at what other things they might add instead.
So, I agree with you but there is another element to this: game prices. When MS bet hard with XBLA, i looed at it as some fun I could have on the ide of my regular games. At the end of gen 7, I now find myself playing XBLA games more than retail releases, simplyg becauise the quality is so good and the price is so low. Last gen, I put less money in gaming since the ends of the 80´s, yet got more games. What MS did with XBLA was a big win for us consumers.
EA Access means that prices for theses games in the Vault will be super low for those of us that doesn´t have a problem waiting a bit for some games. This will push others to offer even better services and in turn,push prices even further downward. When EA starts to add walls inside EA Access,we will have options of choosing other, better services, making the customer the one with the power in its hands. So, as I see it, this is a win-win for consumers.
