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Want To Play Madden NFL 15 Early? Pony Up For EA Access
Today Electronic Arts confirmed what many of us expected after the company announced its EA Access program on Xbox One - if you want to play Madden NFL 15 early, you'll have to sign up for the new service.
This paid access replaces EA's typical approach, which on last-gen consoles was to give players an early taste of the gameplay via a downloadable demo. But when the company revealed the new program last month, the information listed early access to EA titles as one of the benefits to joining. The EA Access program costs $4.99 a month, and offers subscribers to play a back catalog of games published by Electronic Arts, a 10 percent discount for digital items (think Ultimate Team packs), and season passes for games like Battlefield.
EA told Polygon that this program isn't the only reason that a demo won't be coming for Madden before its August 26 release date. "The difficult decision not to do a demo for Madden was strictly a result of the team's commitment to deliver the highest-quality game possible," the statement read. "We chose to put 100 percent of our development resources toward the full game."
Our Take
Did you expect anything different? If a publisher sells early access as one of the benefits to signing up for a monthly subscription service, it would likely anger the group who paid for this subscription if EA offered the same perks for non-payers as well.
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