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EA Sports' Persistent ID To Be A Paid Subscription?

This month EA Sports stated that it was working on a cross-title, cross-year persistent ID system that would chronicle your progress as a player of the label's games. Now new information purports to unveil details about this program and reveal that it's a paid subscription program.

Pastapadre has obtained a reported document that details an annual paid subscription plan for Madden, FIFA, NHL, Tiger, NCAA, and SSX that would give members perks like discounts on DLC, a membership badge, the ability to transfer paid content from year-to-year releases (like this year's Tiger DLC courses), free/exclusive DLC, and more.

Perhaps one of the more interesting features of this membership is the fact that you'd also be able to get full games via download before they come out in stores.

I personally was excited when EA announced the program, but even with all these perks, making it a paid subscription takes some of the excitement out of it for me.

EA Sports director of public relations, Rob Semsey, told us that the company has "no announcements at this time," so who knows if all of these details are legit or if the whole thing's still to be determined. When I talked with EA senior vice president of worldwide development, Andrew Wilson, last week, I got the impression that there were still a lot of details that were being hammered out. Could this document be a rough draft? On this point, perhaps it's worth noting that it refers to SSX with its old subtitle, Deadly Descents. Since the game's reveal at the Spike TV's Video Game Awards last December, that subtitle has been dropped.

We'll have to wait and see what EA Sports has cooking.

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Comments
  • No thanks, I pay enough subscription fees as it is.  I really don't care about cross game stats enough to pay for them though it is a cool idea if it were free.  Maybe just do it for the people who only buy new games and use the online codes?

  • An interesting idea but still a subscription sucks at your first thought. Maybe they shouldn't release every year a new title in the sports franchises and keep it up to date with DLCs.
  • Corporate America strikes again with a brilliant idea!

    /enable detect sarcasm

  • If I were really into the sports games, like some folks are, and it was at or under $10, I might be interested. But I don't think I play enough sports games to make this worthwhile.

  • my subscription is a very good fee for me to pay monthly.

  • I'm not one to keep up with Subscriptions.

    Magazines are fine, Games, not so much.

  • This is all well and fine for traditional sports titles, but don't rope SSX into it for goodness sake...

  • I'm not really into sports games, but seeing SSX on the list makes me cringe a little.
  • No thanks, not interested.  I pay for the game and choose to pay for DLC if I want it.  That's it.  I have enough monthly bills, I don't need to add "EA nifty badge bill" to the pile.  

  • It all depends on the content they will offer.

  • Oh boy! I can't wait to pay a subscription to keep buying games filled with bugs hooked up to crap servers
  • Let's be clear: I pay to play games on XBOX Live. Any publisher who tries to bend me over with any kind of paid anything to play their games can shove it right up their ass. Not in a million years. I'd give up console gaming first. Everybody had better be real careful with this. It'll start with EA sports and all kinds of "great" content and bonuses. Ten years down the road, you'll be paying MS $100 a year for XBL, and every publisher an additional monthly fee to play their games, and we'll all be crying "remember when..."
  • EA, do not make the consumer pay...U are already treading water!!

  • Am willing to give it a try like i have given Xbox live,PS+,Netflix,gamefly.  long as the items offered are worth it am game.

  • And so it begins. Paid access. At first it starts innocently enough. Maybe some early access, some free, cheap goodies like weapons and some clothes. Suddenly, entire features are being thrown behind this paid service. Things that would normally have come with the game, or included with a one time purchase DLC download.

    Next thing you know you are forced to pay a monthly fee if you want roster updates, access to half of the multiplayer modes, character customization, etc, etc, etc. It ALWAYS begins innocently enough. Remember when DLC was just going to enhance a finished product, and then suddenly became all about selling you the other half of the game you already paid for.
  • And thus EA cements themselves as: "The Evil Empire of Gaming"
  • I'm not sure why anyone would expect this to be free....
  • This could be really cool if you're into sports games that much. Of course, if they charge anything more than $10 a month, I don't think many people will sign up. Actually, $10 is probably still too high.

  • I won't pay for xbox live just because I'm not down with the monthly sub. Mortgage, credit card, phone, gas/elec, water. Just paid off the car, workin on payin off the cc, screw adding more monthly fees im trying to get rid of the ones I have!
  • So, all the people who play just 1 of these games are now stuck paying for a service that only covers all of them? No thanks! I already hate Madden, here's my reason to stop buying it every year.
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