EA - Only Multiplayer will need Xbox Live Gold for EA Access

EA has confirmed that you will need Xbox Live Gold for multiplayer EA Access on Xbox One.

"Any Xbox One gamer can join EA Access and take advantage of the benefits of membership," EA said in a statement on the EA Access website. "In order to connect to multiplayer gameplay on the Xbox One platform you will need a subscription to Xbox Gold.

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More information.

This is rediculous. PC MMOs are slowly all moving away from subscription model yet EA is trying to force it on console MMOs.

Am I not seeing something? Like, did xbox gamers say they desperately need this?

It's EA.....I mean, seriously, how many people purchase their products anymore, anyways? Everyone I know avoids them like a plague, and personally I'd play checkers or read a book if ever I was forced to deal with EA. Buying or using their services would be condoning their business model, and no game in the universe is that good.

You sure this isn't Microsoft making the requirements instead of EA?

Whether EA want it or not, I'm pretty sure Microsoft would require it, based on some of the vague allusions I remember the Elder Scrolls Online people making about fitting their subscription model into the consoles.

EA eats sleeps and drinks all day and all night ways to make every single game they publish a game that constantly streams revenue to them. This is what they live for.

"We are very proud of the way EA evolved with consumers," Gibeau said. "I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365."

- EA exec, 2 years ago

He might have said:

"I want every game to be cloud-driven for big-data, always online connected to an app-ecosystem. Every game is driven not by myopic customer desire, but the big picture, greater corporate needs met by imaginary digital currency dlc leaching the wallet in freemium microtransactions of products you can access only with a subscription. It is in this model we can overtake the avant-garde of Kim Kardishian: Hollywood, and replace it with lower-cost games we can clone by the dozen after we have pushed out all competition so PC players wish they could just crush candy with their fancy machines."

But I think that was just a nightmare I had last night, after playing Candy Crush for the first time.

In reality all multiplayer on the Xbox requires the Gold subscription by Microsoft fiat, so this in particular isn't such a big deal.

Yeah, whether it is Xbox Live or PSN Plus, you need a paid membership for multiplayer games on the two big consoles.

Hate on EA to your heart's content, be my guest, but this isn't an EA policy. It's a console online network fee that is the norm across the board, period.

Merin said:

Hate on EA to your heart's content, be my guest, but this isn't an EA policy. It's a console online network fee that is the norm across the board, period.

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Some of the people in this thread may have been bitching about EA Access itself (which is EA's invention, a subscription service for games).... not the Xbox Live Gold requirement (which, yes, is Microsoft's fault).

joxer said:

This is rediculous. PC MMOs are slowly all moving away from subscription model yet EA is trying to force it on console MMOs.

Am I not seeing something? Like, did xbox gamers say they desperately need this?

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Don't you also need Xbox Live Gold if you want to use Sky Go, for example? On top of the monthly Sky fee.

Stingray said:

"We are very proud of the way EA evolved with consumers," Gibeau said. "I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365."

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To that last sentence the phrase, '... except when business models fail then we turn off the game forever' needs to be added.