EA Sports Season Ticket launches today, offers full-game demos and DLC discounts

by Alexander Sliwinski on Aug 2nd 2011 9:10AM

Electronic Arts is launching the "EA Sports Season Ticket" today, an annual $25 (2000 MSP) program that provides a premium service alongside five of the publisher's titles. The "deal" will grant full access to digital versions of games three days before their retail launch, offer a 20-percent discount on DLC, and enable "free premium web content" and brand you as a paying customer (i.e. "membership recognition").

Now, obtaining full, early versions of games sounds fantastic, until you read the fine print. Let's allow EA to do the talking: "The digitally downloaded game will time out when the game is available at retail and consumers have the option to purchase the same full game on disc at retail." If we're reading that correctly, it means you get to download the game three days early, but you still have to go to the store to actually buy it. This probably explains why GameStop is "excited to be selected as the exclusive retail marketing partner for the roll-out of EA Sports Season Ticket." (Note: According to Videogamer, EA is still working out specifics with Sony Europe, making it an Xbox 360 exclusive in that region for the time being.)

The "Free Premium Web Content" will kick off with the "Creation Center" in FIFA 12. It claims to allow greater customization tools, including team and tournament building. It'll all be available "until the membership to the program has expired."

The participating Season Ticket games will be this month's Madden NFL 12, along with NHL, FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR golf and NCAA Football going forward. You'll be able to easily recognize those who bought into the program with their "exclusive membership" recognition badge that is displayed in-game and online.

Welcome to Project 25 Dollar.

Source: EA

Tags: EA, EA-Sports-Season-Ticket, Electronic-Arts, madden-nfl-12, microsoft, playstation, Project-25-Dollar, Project-Ten-Dollar, ps3, xbox

Reader Comments (54)

lol what?

Download it early but then have to go and buy it?

@This Little Man Says His Name Is

Ya, would probably take me 3 days to download anyway

@This Little Man Says His Name Is

well you DON'T have to, but if you want to continue playing you can. I mean it sounds like an ok idea since you get the full game early, but it might back fire on them.

@This Little Man Says His Name Is

I guess if it's $25 for 3 days access to 5 games. It works out to about $5 to have the full game for 3 days (assuming you can download it at a relatively good speed).

Not too bad if you look at it that way, still sounds weird the way they say it though.

Will it also require an Xbox Live Gold subscription on Xbox?

@b3n

Considering you can download games without a gold account, it shouldn't.

@b3n
No sir

EA SPORTS TOOK UR JERBS!

I like EA sports games but this is dumb. 3 days before? It will take me almost 3 days to download it. Then after that I have to buy a disc? I am glad there will be a tag on all the people who buy it so I can know who is stupid.

So... what incentive do I have to play a game 72 hours early?

Because let's face it, I can't 1-up the competition on a game that'll be patched less than two weeks into owning it anyway.

Wow, this is horrible. But if they sell a few (which they will) it will be worth it for EA. This makes me want to avoid EA completely now.

@YourMomsLover
Welcome to project 25 dollar!
welcome to the future of video games!

I don't even buy Madden when it comes out, so this definitely isn't for me.

Paying extra to play a game early? I remember people on message boards saying they'd pay early for early access to a game.

The publishers were listening. Go jump off a bridge.

If it's in the game, it's in the game.

they've finally incorporated contempt for their fans.

WTF? Even though I'm not a sports fan, this is COMPLETE BULLSH*T! Now you have to JOIN A EFFING CLUB to have full access to a game content ("It claims to allow greater customization tools, including team and tournament building")?

EA can go to hell, honestly.

@Dickhole Pasta Activision? I'm guessing EA is just the vice president.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

…hahahaha…haha…haaa…

…oh god people are actually going to buy this.

@Exu

Sad, isn't it? Sheeple inherit the Earth. BAAAA!!

Has anyone considered that the next logical step for publishers is creating their own game consoles? Think about it, the goal here is to create customer loyalty through the hip pocket, right? If you buy this you will be more likely to buy EA sports games simply because if you don't, you've wasted your money. Its already started with Origin on PCs shutting out Steam, and cost would be the only thing stopping the 'EABox' from being created and having it sit next to TV's around the world. It's the only way you could maximize brand loyalty even higher. I predict the next new company to enter console development will be EA, Activision or Ubisoft.

@Snide Jackal - Creating a console is a huge expense that is usually a money loser for at least a few years, plus if a company like EA moved their titles exclusively to a console of their own, the sales of their titles would drop drastically (plus in EA's case, I bet they'd piss off a lot of the sports leagues they work with, especially the NFL if their only title was suddenly exclusive to a fourth console).

You see it with something like Origin on PC (which I believe will be the first of many publisher exclusive PC download stores) because there is no additional cost to the consumer so there's a significantly lower barrier to entry than there would be with an entire console.

I'm going to pre-order both Madden 12 and NHL 12 for the $20 pre-order discount, but I'm not interested in Project $25.

I'll have more than enough other good games to last me three days.

I'd rather pay $250 for a time machine membership to give me an extra three days to play through my backlog of games before getting into this season's EA sports titles.

If you think Gamestop is agressive as it is pushing preorders on customers, just wait until they start pushing this!

I'll just stick with Pro Evolution Soccer, no matter how inferior it is.

Not like it'll matter anyway, I'm not the kind of person that's supporting EA and Ubi through all their recent crap.

I don't really see the issue with this program. It's completely optional, it's a fairly reasonable price & it's not cutting content out of the game or anything so you're not losing out on stuff if you decide not to subscribe.

Am I going to subscribe? Not likely (unless they announce something else that I really feel I need to have) but I don't have an issue with the program's existence.

@Mcmax3000

I agree it is optional so it should theoretically not bother me but it is almost insulting to think anybody would want to buy into this. There is so little value it would be more entertaining to take $25 and watch it burn.

It is as if I went to buy a 1997 Toyota Corolla and the salesman tried to sell it to me for $100,000. Sure nobody is making me pay $100,000 for a used Toyota but I am sure am insulted that I was given that offer. It makes me less likely to buy anything from that salesman simply out of being insulted.

@Mcmax3000 Actually it is cutting content out of the game to charge you separately for it. Creation Center used to be standard in FIFA, I even remember it in PS2 versions of the game. Now apparently it will cost you $25 extra. EA must really want people to hate them, I hope their recent outbursts of greed lead to their downfall.

@Cranky Penguin - I don't see that it's necessarily been taken out of the game though. It says "Premium Web Content". That tells me that you'll be able to do creations online on your PC as the exclusive.

While that very well could mean that the feature will be put behind a pay wall, it could also mean that it will be in the game for everyone but the web portion will be exclusive.

Download and early access to NHL - good
Access to four other games I don't care about - OK
Having to go buy a disc instead of just a code to unlock the game forever - Horrible!

Eliminating the need to purchase a disc over an unlock code would make the deal better. The bad side of it? Now you're paying a $25 membership fee to download games.

Eliminate the fact that it's EA Sports games and you know you'd buy into the concept.

@friarcanuck - The problem for them is that if they start to make the full game downloadable on day one, you start to piss off retailers like GameStop which is where the majority of their sales still come from.

All of these companies still need retailers for numerous things so they're not going to do anything that will piss them off. That's why you see Games on Demand games come out months later in most situations & why you see the prices so high.

The publishers don't want to piss off the retailers that still account for the majority of their sales (and push their products in stores and in retail flyers) and the console manufacturers don't want to piss of the stores that are selling their hardware that people need to be able to buy things from their online service.

damn EA, just go f*** off.

EA, fine makers of S*** Sandwiches since 1982.

@TheBatman4141

I'll provide EA defense force line here:

Uhh...Mirror's Edge?...aaahhh....Dead Space? ..ehhh...Road Rash?

@FriedConsole

all you had to say was Battlefield and it would have been enough....

still tho...no defending this shit...its just something they figured they could make money off of from HARDCORE sports fans. Sadly, they will most likely make a killing off of this for that very reason. Then watch Take Two do something similar with MLB @K and NBA 2K

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi - 2K probably won't be able to do something similar because MLB 2K isn't likely to last past next season when their exclusivity deal with MLB expires so that leaves them with just NBA 2K.

@FriedConsole Mirrors Edge was pure, unwashed, stinky, ass.

Downloaded this today not not know what it was 20 seconds later It had been deleted.

Nice to see another EA cash grab.

@ColdHeat:

EA: "Kanye Shrug"

@ All dudes/dudettes bitching.....you dont have to buy this. nothing has been taken out of the game for you to purchase. its an option not a necessity

Might as well wait the three days...

How about I KEEP that money, and apply it to a game of equal or lesser value?

HMMMM?

I might get more enjoyment that way.

What if I finish the game in three days? Do I earn achievements in those three days. If so, do they not count if I don't purchase the game afterwards?

@(Unverified)

Finishing that early causes EA to send you an extra invoice to cover the cost of the full game. That's provided you can even download 4 to 6 gigs of data that quickly and then beat it in that window.

@CaptainProtonX I can download 2GB demos in 20-30 mins. on Xbox live, so that's not a problem. PSN ....... now that WOULD be a problem (slower than slow)..

@CaptainProtonX
Some of us have fast internet.. I have a 30Mbps line which is the second slowest my provider offers.

Remember friends and frenemies - this is an experiment. If nobody purchases this, they won't continue it. Simple as that.

So, if you think it's a good idea to buy this $25 "season pass", you are wrong. Spend that $25 on 25 slurpees.

I think we need to look at this in a different way. Yes it's stupid, but let's face it.. Games have cost around $50-$60 since the 80's. And back then a game wouldn't really cost that much to produce. These days they cost a heck of a lot more.. sometimes YEARS where they have to pay programers and designers before they see a return on any of the work, and it's a gamble! If sales are poor, if the game is crap, they will lose a lot of money.
People forget that to make a game you need to have money to pay people before the product is finished, and at the current prices this is getting much harder to do. Ya some games sell millions, but most do not.

This "project $10", "project $25", and releasing DLC that is basically cut-content-to-release later (think all of LA Noir's DLC) is a sort of round about way to increase the price of games without actually raising the price.
This trend won't be going away, but hopefully this type of thing will be more consumer-friendly with it's evolution.

Presonally I like how LA Noir did it.. add $10 and get the rest of the game. I just wish they'd stop hiding what's really going on. I think consumers would get it if they just said so.

@xreadmore - Correct. Prices because of inflation among other influences double every 10 years.

I would be fine with this if it gave me 3-5 accounts to use this on (like apps on my phone and my antivirus software). It would pain me to have to buy a second or third time because my wife or our son want to use a feature or play online (a la online pass).

why is everyone so upset? you don't have to buy it, they are just trying to make money off of hardcore fans of the sports titles. no different than someone charging $100+ for a football jersey of [insert favorite player]. As soon as something gains traction and gets a large enough user/fan base, the ideas of how to extort more money begins. It's typical business practice. At least they still give the option to purchase the products.

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Madden NFL 12

EA Sports Season Ticket launches today, offers full-game demos and DLC discounts

Reader Comments (54)

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:21AM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:22AM b3n said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:25AM blessrok said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:28AM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:22AM b3n said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:27AM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 4:09PM xreadmore said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:22AM MystileArmor said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:22AM FriedConsole said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:29AM foxhound said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:32AM SithKnightmare said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:33AM jeffm227 said

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Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 12:16PM WeRequireMOARMinerals said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 9:53AM Exu said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 10:40AM c0bra95 said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 10:04AM Snide Jackal said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 10:58AM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 10:06AM Goldenspiral said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 10:17AM Mannyman said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 10:25AM KazamaSogetsu said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 10:53AM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 11:20AM FriedConsole said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 11:55AM Cranky Penguin said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 12:31PM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 10:57AM friarcanuck said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 12:38PM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 11:08AM 2Slick said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 11:13AM TheBatman4141 said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 11:24AM FriedConsole said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 12:02PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 12:33PM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 2:55PM jblank said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 12:44PM byaboy said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 1:52PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 2:14PM 216 said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 3:26PM GodDamnEzio said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 3:29PM Piko said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 4:04PM CaptainProtonX said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 4:09PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 4:11PM CaptainProtonX said

Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 4:17PM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Aug 2nd 2011 4:26PM xreadmore said

Posted: Aug 3rd 2011 12:55AM woz3323 said

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