EA Sports subscription service planned?

face it EA would charge you to pause the game to use the bathroom if they could.

Wow my loathing of EA grows by the very hour. Frankly I'm not surprised I'm insipid at the point of all the bullsh*t money moves they do, and people are still wondering why EA is one of the most hated company out there. Just to amuse myself in this diatribe in Madden they upped injuries substantially so you could guess what pay a dollar to buy their obtuse little madden coins and free him from the injury. EA is the bane of the gaming world

I wouldn't be interested in it because I don't play enough EA sports games to justify paying for something like that. One of my friends though is addicted to Tiger Woods PGA TOUR and buys every single DLC course every single year, as is HIS choice. He would definitely get a lot out of something like this, especially if he got a discount on the DLC. Even a very small discount on DLC could potentially save him money. HE is the target consumer for something like this, clearly not the people posting comments here! EA, and any other company in any other industry, can do and charge whatever they want. But they can't hold a gun to my head and force me to buy it. We live in a free market economy, if they make this work, fine. I won't hold it against them.

This all started with their "online pass". I would have said "and so it begins", but this is just the next step in EA charging us to play the games we already bought.

all i play in NHL, but i play it a lot this paid subscription thing scares me, just because I hate all the microtransactions they have been adding to boost your players etc...its complete BS we pay 60 for a game, we should have access to everything with that price

I've been playing EA sports titles less and less through the years so if this comes to pass I won't have any trouble saying goodbye to these money grubbing vampires.

i haven't really played any EA sports games in a wile, just haven't interested me the way they used to. but now i will never buy one, and i hope the don't try to do this to there reg EA games, the only way to stop this is NOT buying the games, but we all know that's not gonna happen... horrible idea...

Good luck with that.

How about we buy the game, which is about $60, then you give us all of that stuff for free.

Count me out.

I think that could have some potential, but I also think it could be a way to nickle and dime customers. The idea of having games of Madden with PS3 players against 360 players would be cool. Also, instead of having to spend $60 a game every year, it'd be cool if they offered a $10-$15 patch that updates the current game to new features. Like everyone, I do understand that gaming is expensive for the consumer. But so many fail to realize that gaming is also expensive to the publisher and the developer. These people who make the games have to be paid. There is marketing and advertising, endorsments, and licencing to pay for. In the middle of a recession, companies have to find ways to make a buck. If they don't, no games and no company. We shouldn't knock it so hard without considering what all goes in to the games we love. This could be a good thing. It could be a way for some to actually save some money while allowing EA to still pay their employees and turn a profit. If it works, everybody might just win.

haha yeah right that wont be happening for me.

How about including subscriptions to live broadcasts of the NBA and soccer? That'd be nice.

It's a shame these companies don't spend as much time making great games as they do sitting around, thinking up ways to seperate us from our cash.

Do not want. Then again, I don't buy their titles anyway, so I doubt they'll lose any sleep from me not buying this either.

Ugh. Shave around ten bucks off on said titles, and make it a one time payment - not annual.

This is the kinda stuff that is turning me off to gaming. The constant nickel and diming thats being done to gamers. The sports games dont even get much in way of DLC. I guess theyll just remove any Alt jerseys from disc versions and give those out as DLC packs. FUNK YOU EA and any other game co. that wanna charge a seperate subscription fee.

@Avenger1324 NICE post! Don't forget to include that if anyone else other than you in your house plays the game, they have to buy an online pass as well. EA, time to change your motto! EA should stand for Electronic A-Holes. "We've shamed your game."

'The ability to transfer paid content from current titles to future versions of said titles.' Translation... Why in the F**K have we NOT been able to do that already?!?!?!?!?!? Tiger F*****G Woods anybody?!?!?!?!?! The last one, I won't even bother with. Point being, as someone else has already pointed out, if this is the way the industry is going, then I will just 'jump out'. This hobby, remember that is all it is, has already become too expensive, and now they are killing any value it may have had left. $60 for a GAME is still too expensive, and now we have to deal with these retarded schemes. No thanks Peter Moore. No thanks gaming industry.

This actually makes sense with sporting franchises offering real time updates on how a team or a specific player is performing. Whether or not people will subscribe will depend on the price, TAKE NOTE EA.

There's business, then there is ripping people off. When you charge for something innovative and new, that is business. When you start charging for things you have removed from a product that USED to be included, that is ripping people off. OnLine Pass, while I understand what brought it on, is STILL ripping people off. Let's break it down even further... 'Discounts on all downloadable content for participating EA Sports console-based titles.' Translation... We are just going to charge a little less for the stuff that used to be included and we are already make you pay extra for. Or, just ripping you off a little less so we can include more schemes to steal more money. 'Free and exclusive EA Sports downloadable content for console-based titles.' Translation... We are going to take out even MORE stuff that has always been part of our games and rip you off by making you pay extra for that as well. 'Full downloadable versions of participating titles before they come out in stores.' Translation... Who F*****G cares? 'An exclusive "recognition badge" that will appear both in-game and on players' Web profiles.' Translation... See directly above. Continued...

Here I was thinking Activision would have jumped on something like this first. Good going, EA. Not exactly a compliment, either.

Not interested, as if 10$ for playing online wasn't enough for those money hungry suits.

@GunBladeHero at least the map packs are free so the total cost of a game would only be 60 if bought used as compaired to 90 dollars to get all the map packs for call of duty

Before reading the article I figured this was gonna be "Pay us a yearly fee and we'll give you your roster update for free instead of making you buy a whole new game". This is just eh, whatever.

If this included unlimited Online Pass access for all EA games, it might be worth it. They would have to include NBA Live and NFS games as well though. The only features I would want are: --Discounts on all downloadable content for participating EA Sports console-based titles. --Free and exclusive EA Sports downloadable content for console-based titles. --The ability to transfer paid content from current titles to future versions of said titles. If they don't include those things, I won't even bother. Being able to to transfers golf courses, mountain slops (for SSX), teams, and other game content from older games to new games would be nice. Having free exclusive DLC isn't a bad thing. They need to include more games. If this was like $20, it might be worth it. Especially if you play a LOT of EA's games. Otherwise, most people aren't going to waste their time or money.

EA Sports - It's in the game* * providing you pay us for the additional season pass. ** and have a valid Online Pass for that title. *** and pay for the content we held back as DLC. **** and assuming we haven't turned off the online servers for games we don't want you to play any more.

peyton hillis on madden cover! go to espn.com and vote!!

Piss take - won't bother with any of their games if they do introduce it!

Fifa 11 is junk or at least the PC version is

Oh god please don't... actully I dont care if they do but if they start carrying this over into their mainsteam games like Medal of Honor and other games EA publishes ill flip. cause if EA succesfully pulls it off oh god next will be Activistion and Capcom and the rest will follow screwing us all over -.- ill tell you what they can do this if they start selling their games for $15-$20 instead of the $60 they are now. cause who in their right mind is going to want to pay $60 for a game, then (just say example) $15-35 MORE just for content and stuff :/ oh not to mention you'll still have to pay for DLC (tho u will get it discounted) either way thats a bit pushing it. I mean I am a Playstation plus (PS+) member but least that has some logical perks to it, this is just a cheap way to make more of a profit than they already are making... oh well really hope this fails so oter companies dont start doing it and such.

It's not worth it in my opinion.

@GUNBLADEHERO I hear what you are saying but the pre-owned market is massive. Blockbusters will sell a pre-owned game at very similar price to new (Motorstorm Apocalypse retail £39.99, pre-owned £37.99) and there's only one company gaining from that sale. I think EA and all other companies deserve to get paid for what they provide and if you buy pre-owned they get nothing. There needs to be a better set of guidelines for pre-owned. I have a PS1 Discworld trilogy in excellent condition that will garner me a nice price on ebay, but that's me selling and not offering you 5 quid and selling on at thirty.

@Revelstone I'm pretty sure they charge for that.

Yet ANOTHER way to extort MORE money out of people for a product they ALREADY paid money for. Pay for the game, the console, the online service for the console (X360) and now pay to have the ability to even play online with it. Ohh, and don't forget, if you bought the game used you have to pay 10 bucks to use it online now. What's next,? Wasn't 60 bucks for the game ALREADY ENOUGH? I am really upset in the direction the industry is headed.

Subscribe for a discounted price on content? And how long would it take to get my money back?? This is no LPG conversion, just another rip off!

@wazzmalo They ain't alone but lots of these crazy-assed ideas seem to be EA-based. WTF indeed.

file this one under "Bad Idea" EA

EA really lost my respect when they created that stupid online pass that forces you to pay 800 points to play online if you bought an used game from someone! I don't need to say anything more do I?

Other than the FN series, i dont play any EA sports games, however personally i think MS should subsidise 'Gold' members as part of our membership, if not EA can 'Ram It'. On a final note, i really hope this is not successfull as we will begin to see other Devs employing the same money grabbing tactics.

Isnt the sports range a cash cow already for ea? Madden is the biggest sports game in the world, with fifa a close second........ Geeeze EA give something nice back to the gamers

Fortunately,I dont play Sports games.Hopefully EA wont try something like this on BF3.

lol heres one. Fifa 2012 standalone edition features no teams just the backbone of the game engine simply go on line and add teams for 15 pound each

Good thing I don't play sports video games. But this is full of crap written all over it.

i was gonna say its a about time playstation owners started paying for services, but xbox owners on the other hand we're getting the worst deal having to pay for an online service then having to pay another fee to play a companys games . instead of selling consoles to us they might as well loan em out and make us pay a monthly rental charge on them. while there at it bwhy dont they put a unit play system on the actual games so you get to pop the disc in the machine 25 times after which you need to add more playtime for 25 quid

WHAT THE F!@$% IS HAPPENING TO THE GAMING INDUSTRY?

@ioannisdenton +1

no just no

As long as i don't have to pay extra after buying a game to play online i don't care. I don't need the extra stufff unless EA sports are going to start bring out games without the teams...

AND do not forget: Micrapsoft opened the way for subscription, a recipie which saw successs since there are a lot of die hard lemms defending xbox live's "excellent" payable service. EA saw that that (people willing to pay for something that was free before) and that peopel are defending it, So it EA will do the same.