I always said an EA sports subscription would be the best thing since that one thing that was better than sliced bread. I guess I was wrong!

Fantastic J. Wellington Wimpy reference in the title there. Love it! I haven't played EA Sports games for a while, though. I think the few I've played were under their EA BIG Banner, like NBA Street 2-3. Might need to get another copy of those games since they were so much better than Homecourt, in my opinion.

Wait, what?

You know some of that money will go directly to peter moore's retirement fund,just saying.Alex your headlines always amuses me,they are high class stuff.Keep up the good work.

Only money im giving to EA sports this year is for NBA Jam: On Fire

Is that headline a Wimpy reference? From Popeye?

@Donos said:

Also lulz, sports games.

What, sports games are great.

Instead of offering something useful to the consumer, EA once again finds a way to not offer anything worth while for an unreasonable amount of money. They have definitely returned to form with this gem.

It seems the only way to get value out of this is to be a whore, buy all their games and buy all the discounted DLC and only play those games for the whole year. Honestly, who buys ALL this shit?

The title of this article made me literally laugh out loud. 

I don't completely blame them. EA has tried new IPs and it hasn't worked out considerably well for them. So go milk the sports division, makes sense to me. While I won't take advantage of it, I can see how some who are fanatics about online play will. Trying to get an advantage over others for 25 bucks a year. I can see it.

It is all optional, not a mandatory thing so I don't get the hate. Do you hate on a restaurant for having 500/dollar bottle of wine on the menu? No, you just don't order it and get what you want.

Enough teasing EA. Just charge me per team already!!!!

No way !! ;-)

So, in the case of someone who only plays one of those games a year? Too bad? Pay this premium for a 20% discount on content for games you'll never want and get a few extra "perks"? How is this good to anyone but a small select few who actually play ALL of those sports games every year and supplement it with DLC? How about if I pay $25 and get all the DLC for that one game for free, as opposed to getting a discount on shit I'd never buy? Even at $25 that doesn't seem like you're getting much, if anything, except where Tiger and its multitude of downloadable courses come in to play. This seems really really stupid.

I don't feel like it. I don't feel like it at all. 
 
I'm not paying for another online subscription fee on top of already paying for Xbox Live and the Internet. That's a lot of dominoes to set up - too many, infact. I don't care how cheap it is, if it's any more expensive than "free", I'm not going to pay it.
 
That goes for any other developer out there thinking about setting up a subscription service for their game. Call of Duty Elite? Nope. Bungie Pro? Get out of town.

So I'll be the devil's advocate on this one. I love the NHL series. I mean I fucking love it. Every year I get the game day of release and because I work nights, I get out at 7 AM and get the game as soon as Target opens at 8 and rush home to play it all day and night and use a day of vacation of work. This year Amazon has a preorder deal for NHL 12 where you get $20 credit for anything on Amazon. So I can the season pass basically for $5 and now that I have it during the weekend, I can cancel a day of vacation. I actually get paid 80 cents less an hour when I take vacation because I don't get my shift premuim. So basically I can get it for sort of free and can justify waiting a couple hours for the disc version to come in the mail on that Tuesday. That said, I don't like the future implications of what I'm doing.

I don't play sports games but I'm sure to the hardcore Madden players there is some value to be had there with this program.

As much as I like NHL i'll pass.

Isn't this what demos are for ?

How about no?

It makes sense if you're the kind of person that will pick up maybe three of those titles new every year, but how many of those people are there? Considering that baseball and basketball aren't covered by this, it seems like this program rides on 1) Gullible people who will part with their money for little value or 2) A rather specific, rabid sports fan.

Actually when I consider number 1 then this plan just might work. If it doesn't cost that much to implement then even with a lower than expected customer base this plan could net some easy side cash for EA.

No thanks 

Nah bro. I don't even buy each of the say 5 main sports titles more than once a generation... yeah, I am real interested in "Flying That Flag".

P.S. Thanks Jeffery for that wonderful quote with one of the EA d-bags.

activision will adopt this tactic and put it on its yearly call of duty games then some people won't find it funny anymore

This is stupid. What's the point in paying an extra $25 to play (Let's be realistic) 1 or 2 games THREE DAYS early? The only way this would even approach making sense is if you were gonna play AT LEAST all but one of these games and for some reason you felt the need to get three days' head start to enjoy a competitive advantage online or something.

Nice try EA. Come back when you have an actual service to offer for that $25.

All of the giant publishers are starting to do some weird things.

activision will adopt this tactic and put it on its yearly call of duty games then some people won't find it funny anymore

 If you like basketball or baseball, apparently you can just go to hell.

No offence but sometimes I just like to read a news story without all the attempted wit and sarcasm. I understand that writing video game news is probably pretty boring at times but in all honesty I sometimes can't even extract the actual news from these articles because it's buried under all the "whackyness".

Is it just me or does sarcasm not play well at all in written form?

Alex, I understand that you're trying to give the reader something different than what can be read on the countless other video game news websites but I can't help but roll my eyes again and again every time I read one of your articles.

That's ok EA, I think I'll keep my money

Hilarious article, great work Alex.
 
 
 
Now it is time for me to go rushing out of my house to buy this AS FAST AS I FUCKING CAN.

No offence but sometimes I just like to read a news story without all the attempted wit and sarcasm. I understand that writing video game news is probably pretty boring at times but in all honesty I sometimes can't even extract the actual news from these articles because it's buried under all the "whackyness".

Is it just me or does sarcasm not play well at all in written form?

Alex, I understand that you're trying to give the reader something different than what can be read on the countless other video game news websites but I can't help but roll my eyes again and again every time I read one of your articles.

I find it shocking that people pay for DLC for sports games. It's not like it's new levels or teams or something. Weird.

Does this mean EA games will be available for individual purchase online?

Lets just say I do sign on, download NHL 12 early...I probably would just want to pay for the full game in MS points to "keep" the digital copy so I don't waste all the bandwidth on three days of game time.

Not saying that I really want to sign up for this, but it seems like a waste to spend that much bandwidth on three days.

The thing that really offends me about this offer is your paying $25 for a 20% discount for dlc... I'm giving you money upfront. I expect all DLC to be free or like 80-90% off. Early access doesn't justify even a dollar and "web packs" sound like stupid social features. I know people talk shit about Playstation Plus but for $50 I got 15 months of free games, like Stacking which I can keep forever because I bought the dlc, and discounts, like Limbo for $11 instead of $15, so it adds up. This is quite possibly the worst value ever. If they pull this shit with SSX I'm not buying it whatsoever.

Well at least I know what I won't be spending 20 bucks on. Also loving the article Alex.

Terrifyingly enough, GameStop has been named "the exclusive retail marketing partner for the roll-out of EA Sports Season Ticket, with the company president quoted as saying, "GameStop is in a unique position to deliver this digital product utilizing its multichannel network. We will continue to work with progressive publishers to bring great gaming experiences to our customers." I have no idea what that means, but it's already freaking me out.

That means that EA announced this plan to its retail partners; Gamestop got pissed off and they strong armed EA into making them the exclusive retail partner because they are scared as fuck about the future of their business model in this increasingly download focused industry.

So now you know: If you've got $25 (or 2000 Microsoft Points) lying around, you can give it to EA Sports, and they'll give you some stuff...provided you like football, college football, hockey, golf, and soccer. If you like basketball or baseball, apparently you can just go to hell.

Wait, does EA even have a basketball game this year?

Man! Alex has such a slanted perspective about everything.

I am pretty sure that 2k still owns the rights to professional baseball. I am not sure when the last time was that EA had a baseball game, butI remember after 2k got the exclusive rights, EA put out some college baseball games. But, they never did very well. And, I think most people would agree that EA's basketball games are the All Pro Football of basketball games. I am sure if EA makes another basketball game that sells a few hundred copies then that game will be added to this service.

They should really make cards with this to sell at Walmart and GameStop, so much money would be made.

Well at least I know what I won't be spending 20 bucks on. Also loving the article Alex.

@Invertedx said:

No offence but sometimes I just like to read a news story without all the attempted wit and sarcasm. I understand that writing video game news is probably pretty boring at times but in all honesty I sometimes can't even extract the actual news from these articles because it's buried under all the "whackyness".

Is it just me or does sarcasm not play well at all in written form?

Alex, I understand that you're trying to give the reader something different than what can be read on the countless other video game news websites but I can't help but roll my eyes again and again every time I read one of your articles.

  

This was a delightful read

@Invertedx said:

No offence but sometimes I just like to read a news story without all the attempted wit and sarcasm. I understand that writing video game news is probably pretty boring at times but in all honesty I sometimes can't even extract the actual news from these articles because it's buried under all the "whackyness".

Is it just me or does sarcasm not play well at all in written form?

Alex, I understand that you're trying to give the reader something different than what can be read on the countless other video game news websites but I can't help but roll my eyes again and again every time I read one of your articles.

  

Thats cool for those who cant wait. Guess it helps that both the FIFA and NHL series are outstanding and well Madden has gotten pretty great over the years as well. I still wouldn't pay no $25 to play 3 days early though.

The caption under that picture of Peter basically summarizes the entire article lol

I am a little bit interested in this. I do like them sports games.

I love how publishers vilify GameStop in one breath for their second-hand games market, but then with every other breath they constantly make deals with them for exclusive content, thereby fueling GameStop's ability to build that second-hand market.

I refuse to do business at GameStop unless it's my only recourse, and no amount of awesome exclusive content will make me change my mind, but that's even more reason why I wish exclusive content deals would just die. The only people who like them are publishers and retailers; contrary to what they seem to believe, fans don't enjoy missing out on content for their games simply because they didn't pre-order copies from ten different retailers.

Also, who wants to bet that the price of DLC for EA Spots titles suddenly increases after this Season Ticket goes into effect, thereby minimizing the loss of potential profit from the 20% discount? Not that I'd purchase any of the bullshit excuses for DLC that EA puts out for its sports titles, even if I did play them.