EA stops giving away games for free, now offers "Access" subscription

[Spotty]

Source: https://gamerant.com/ea-origin-free-game/

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/origins-free-game-program-on-the-house-has-been-retired/
Source: https://www.origin.com/aus/en-us/store/origin-access

EA Game's platform Origin will no longer be giving away free games as part of its "On The House" program. Up until now the program saw Origin users able to claim free copies of games from the service. Every few months EA would offer up one of their games for free on the Origin platform where for a limited time users could claim a copy of the game and keep it forever, for free. Games in the past included titles such as Dead Space, Dragons Age: Origins, and Battlefield 3.

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EA has also been giving away free games through their “On The House” program on Origin since 2014, but today the company announced that it would no longer be doing so.
 

EA initially made the move quietly, simply changing the On The House link to reroute to the Origin Access page. EA later confirmed the change to Polygon, saying in a statement:

 

“Origin On the House has been retired and games will no longer be offered through the program. This change won’t affect any games players downloaded from the service prior to that date — those are theirs to keep forever.”
_{https://gamerant.com/ea-origin-free-game/}

 

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Electronic Arts said during a financial call yesterday that Origin Access Premier, an upgraded version of its subscription-based Origin Access service that will provide full, unlimited access to EA games, will go live next week. More quietly, it also pulled the plug on Origin's "On the House" program, which provided free games to everyone—including non-Access subscribers—on an intermittent, time-limited basis. 
 

On the House debuted in 2014 with the most excellent survival-horror game Dead Space, and since then has made numerous other games, including Bejeweled, Battlefield 3, Theme Hospital, Syndicate, Peggle, and Dragon Age: Origins, free for the taking, without catches or take-backs. The games generally weren't EA's latest and greatest but free is free, and dated or not a lot of the games it offered were really quite good. 

_{https://www.pcgamer.com/origins-free-game-program-on-the-house-has-been-retired/}

 

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"Origin On the House has been retired and games will no longer be offered through the program. This change won’t affect any games players downloaded from the service prior to that date—those are theirs to keep forever," the rep said.

"Even though this chapter of On the House is coming to an end, we’re happy that we got to introduce so many great games to our awesome players. We’re constantly looking for ways to improve our service and give our users an even better experience, and we thank everyone for being part of our community."  
_{https://www.pcgamer.com/origins-free-game-program-on-the-house-has-been-retired/}

 

The "On The House" program appears to have been replaced with a subscription service called "EA Access" where users can subscribe monthly to access over 100 titles of games. Prices are listed as USD $6.99/month or USD $39.99/year. (Those were AUD Prices). USD is $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year.

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Great PC games, unlimited play.

Unlimited access to an ever-growing collection of great PC games.

Try new EA games before they’re released – no purchase necessary.

Save 10% on Origin purchases.

Just $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year. Cancel anytime.

ONLY FOR PC

_{https://www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/origin-access}

It's a shame to see the free On The House program go, but to be perfectly honest I never really bothered with it that much. I picked up a few of the major titles such as Battlefield 3 and Dead Space (even though I already owned it on disc, though the digital copy was nice). Mostly though I don't bother with Origin so more often than not it would be many months between logging in to my origin account and I often missed a lot of the free games.

 

The new EA Access subscription service does feature some quality games, with franchises such as Crysis, Mass Effect, Need For Speed, The Sims, SimCity, FIFA, Titanfall, Battlefield, Prison Architect, Batman, Medal of Honor, and more.
Currently there are 113 games available through the access program, and you can view the full list at this link: https://www.origin.com/aus/en-us/store/origin-access/vault-games

There are two subscriptions available, "Basic" and "Premier".

• "Basic" subscriptions costs $4.99/month or $29.99/year. It provides up to 10 hours of play time on pre-release games, and unlimited access to the currently 113 released games in the "Vault", as well as a 10% discount on purchasing games from the Origin store.
• "Premier" subscription costs $14.99/month or $99.99/year. It provides unlimited hours of play time on pre-release games, and unlimited access to the 113 games in the "Vault", as well as a 10% discount.
   

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So, what's the difference between Basic and Premier?

Our Basic membership gets you:

• the chance to try out our new games for up to ten hours, starting five days before release, with Play First Trials
• access to The Vault, a library of games that just keeps growing all the time. Play any games that have already been added, as much as you want.
• the 10% discount in the Origin Store on full games, pre-orders, expansions, FIFA points, and more

Premier will give you:

• full, unlimited access to our games, starting five days before they release
  • That’s right, no more limited-time trials. Play the full game starting five days before launch without purchasing it separately, until you cancel your Premier membership.
• access to The Vault, a library of games that just keeps growing all the time.
• the same 10% discount in the Origin Store on full games, pre-orders, expansions, FIFA points, and more

_{https://www.origin.com/aus/en-us/store/origin-access/faq}

So in other words both the basic and premier subscribers are going to be paying to be beta testers. The only difference between the two plans is that the far more expensive Premier plan gives unlimited pre-release game play instead of 10 hours. However, since they only offer access to pre-release games for 5 days before their official release date, for most people 10 hours of gameplay within 5 days will be enough. If a person likes a game so much that they want to continue playing more than 10 hours of it in the first few days, they should probably just buy the game or even pay for a single month of premier in order to get unlimited access to it.

I think EA really needs to change the way the plans are offered, as at the moment I can't see any logical reason why anyone would want to purchase the Premier subscription that costs $90/year extra that only gives you a few days of maybe extra play time on what is most likely a buggy pre-release game. It would make more sense if there were one group of perhaps older, less popular titles that were available on the basic package, and the more expensive package gave you access to more AAA titles such as the latest FIFA or Battlefield games. Even removing the 10% discount from the basic tier as well. Something that gives actual incentive to subscribe to the higher tier package.

What are everyone's thoughts on this? Will anyone miss the On The House free games? Would you subscribe to Origin Access to access a fairly sizeable library of games? Would you pay extra for the Premier subscription package, and if so, why?

Edited July 30, 2018 by Spotty
Corrected pricing from AUD to USD

[Semper]

Much like yourself, the last time I opened Origin (or, for that matter had even the slightest interest in an EA title, was for Andromeda. I purchased it despite the warnings left right and center, and was still somehow disappointed going into it with very little expectation. Prior to that, I think Battlefield 3 was the last time I had origin open. I just don't care enough about EA and their titles to bother with it. I think the only On The House title I've ever picked up was Populous because I loved it back in the day.

I personally won't miss OTH.
Again, personally, I won't be subscribing to Access, or anything EA for that matter, so that's a "no" on premier as well.

As for why, well, it's the tl;dr of the above short paragraph; I just don't care enough about EA as a company anymore. They've managed to destroy my interest in the titles they publish just by being EA titles.

I don't know that too many others are going to have differing experience from ours.

 

Edit: come to think of it, since I installed a new boot drive probably three years ago, Windows hasn't actually officially recognized that Origin is installed. The way I have to access Origin is a bit janky in that I first have to manually find the folder (to be honest, I don't know what drive it's on off the top of my head and file explorer doesn't ever successfully find it), and then it needs to be "repaired" every time I open it. I suppose that speaks volumes as to how much i'm concerned with using it.

[PlayStation 2]

I almost never used my Origin account, so Origin on the House was of no real use or concern for me.

If I were to be blatantly honest I use my Uplay account more than my Origin account.

[Spotty]

I'm not surprised that there's not a lot of love for the Origin platform here. Can't blame anyone either. I open Steam almost as soon as my computer boots, but I would be amazed if I could even remember the login email, let alone password, for my Origin account. For me, Origin is something you only open when you have absolutely no choice but to open it, and even then most of the time I will just give up trying to remember/reset my login details and go play a different game on Steam instead.

That said, I actually think this new Origin Access subscription service has a lot of potential. You're getting a lot of big titles for only USD $7 per month (or less than $3.50 per month if you pay by the year). For that you get access to dozens of major titles that I've previously listed. A lot of the games like Need For Speed, Crysis, Mass Effect, Battlefield, Batman, etc I would gladly pay $7 to purchase them from Steam. Obviously buying the game itself gives it to you for life, but the subscription service gives you instant access to dozens of titles. There's enough variety in the titles between shooters, adventure, racing, sports, and so on that there will be at least one game in there that will appeal to everyone.

This type of thing would be absolutely fantastic for someone who is new to the PC gaming community and doesn't already have a Steam Library with hundreds of games that will likely never get played. Someone who has just built their first gaming PC would have instant access to over 100 titles for the cost of one single game.

The subscription model has worked extremely well for movie/tv show streaming companies like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and so on. Who knows, this may be the next big shake up in the PC gaming world.

I'm just excited to see how EA manages to squeeze in Loot Boxes and microtransactions in to this system.

[Sauron]

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Dead Space, Dragons Age: Origins, and Battlefield 3

The only worthwile games they ever gave away to be honest. I don't think "on the house" will be missed much, although it was better than nothing.

 

The subscription itself seems to be priced pretty well, but a lot of people won't be able to enjoy it due to slow connections and I always dislike not owning the games I play (even if they are technically "licensed" to me at least they don't depend on EA's willingness to keep offering them in their subscription service).

[2FA]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

The only worthwile games they ever gave away to be honest. I don't think "on the house" will be missed much, although it was better than nothing.

 

The subscription itself seems to be priced pretty well, but a lot of people won't be able to enjoy it due to slow connections and I always dislike not owning the games I play (even if they are technically "licensed" to me at least they don't depend on EA's willingness to keep offering them in their subscription service).

IIRC they pretty much gave away just about all the BF4 DLC over time with OTH.

[Semper]

14 minutes ago, Spotty said:

I'm not surprised that there's not a lot of love for the Origin platform here. Can't blame anyone either. I open Steam almost as soon as my computer boots, but I would be amazed if I could even remember the login email, let alone password, for my Origin account. For me, Origin is something you only open when you have absolutely no choice but to open it, and even then most of the time I will just give up trying to remember/reset my login details and go play a different game on Steam instead.

That said, I actually think this new Origin Access subscription service has a lot of potential. You're getting a lot of big titles for only USD $7 per month (or less than $3.50 per month if you pay by the year). For that you get access to dozens of major titles that I've previously listed. A lot of the games like Need For Speed, Crysis, Mass Effect, Battlefield, Batman, etc I would gladly pay $7 to purchase them from Steam. Obviously buying the game itself gives it to you for life, but the subscription service gives you instant access to dozens of titles. There's enough variety in the titles between shooters, adventure, racing, sports, and so on that there will be at least one game in there that will appeal to everyone.

This type of thing would be absolutely fantastic for someone who is new to the PC gaming community and doesn't already have a Steam Library with hundreds of games that will likely never get played. Someone who has just built their first gaming PC would have instant access to over 100 titles for the cost of one single game.

The subscription model has worked extremely well for movie/tv show streaming companies like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and so on. Who knows, this may be the next big shake up in the PC gaming world.

I'm just excited to see how EA manages to squeeze in Loot Boxes and microtransactions in to this system.

I don't believe the subscription is new, I believe they've been doing it for a while, haven't they, just under a different name... "Vault" perhaps?

It didn't much interest me back when it was announced, and it still doesn't much interest me now, either. The crux of the issue is that it's still EA. I've seen a number of potentially fantastic titles completely destroyed by their monetizing practices. I'll be the first to tell you that I don't know finances, I don't know how profit reports, on whatever schedule they might use, shows productivity. To me, though, it seems that EA's singular focus is to create a better bottom line for their investors (are they even publicly traded?), on their annual report basis rather than develop quality games that retain loyal players, In other words "throw some shit at the wall and see what sticks".

I get that capitalism makes the free world work (and I support capitalism for that matter... but this is a different debate), and EA is a for-profit company. It's a two way street though. Just as much as EA can try to lock half their game behind additional paywalls, I too, can choose not to pay for the "privilege" of seeing that paywall in the first place.

EA continues to produce a trend of disappointment, just as they did when they drove me away, so I left, and i'm yet to see reason to return. This isn't some white-knight hate EA crusade, it's an informed, rational consumer. Whatever they're doing seems to be working for them, else it wouldn't continue, it's just not a success that I want to be part of. If you want to play EA titles, dive right in, I'm not going to tell you "no", "you're wrong" or "EA iz t3h Dev1lzZz". Your money, your choices, your happiness.

[Teddy07]

I hate subscriptions. It is a scam because you pay way more.

[Semper]

Just now, Teddy07 said:

I hate subscriptions. It is a scam because you pay way more.

That's a statement relative to how much you use it and what content is included, added, or removed from the subscription.
 

if you pay for three consecutive years and play for 15 minutes total, yes, you're paying a lot more.
If you pay for three consecutive years and use the access given to you, over buying their individual counterparts, on a regular basis you've saved money.

[MMKing]

It's not really a scam if you use the service actively, hence subscriptions tend to offer significantly better deals than if you were to purchase the products without a subscription. EA is banking on it's users not actually using the product they are purchasing. Alternatively, they wish to keep the consumers invested in their store.

[Crunchy Dragon]

EA just has to make everything pay to win, don't they?

 

Also, in my honest opinion, the Premier subscription should give you a higher discount on the store, maybe 15 or 20%. Because then it would feel actually worth the $130/year cost.

 

I mean unlimited play time on pre-release games and unlimited access to the "Vault" is cool and all, but still only a 10% discount?

[aezakmi]

meh I only grabbed battlefield 3 and I literally played it 5 minutes before deleting everything because of the obscene amount of cheaters in every server, not to mention the loot boxes and P2W weapons, free players only had the Ak 47 and a pistol to use, it was stupid.

 

dead space was cool though I had already played it when origin gave it for free

[Sauron]

23 minutes ago, 2FA said:

IIRC they pretty much gave away just about all the BF4 DLC over time with OTH.

Yeah, assuming you already had bf4.

[| Rembo |]

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

However, since they only offer access to pre-release games for 5 days before their official release date, for most people 10 hours of gameplay within 5 days will be enough.

How sure are you about this, because from everything that I've read you will have full access to their new games for as long as you have the subscription and not only for 5 days.

[suicidalfranco]

pay a subscription to play over hyped, triple Ay titles with freemium-like monetization schemes?

Where do i sign up!?

/s

[D13H4RD]

Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield 3 were the only worthwhile OTH titles IMO

[D13H4RD]

1 hour ago, aezakmi said:

not to mention the loot boxes and P2W weapons, free players only had the Ak 47 and a pistol to use, it was stupid.

I don't recall Battlefield 3 having lootboxes.

 

I haven't played BF3 in a long while, but I liked the AK-74M. It wasn't as good as the insanely overused M16A3 (starter weapon for the US side) but it was not a bad choice for midrange combat.

[Guest]

I thought Origin was really nice until my account got hacked and I couldn't do anything about it. I spent a bit on the old sales, so quite the shame too. 

[TheKDub]

Let me guess, their intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for subscribing for access to games.

[asus killer]

gamers love to hate subscription model, i see people with 400 games on steam bad mouthing subscriptions for games like Netflix. I don't get it.

 

[Mr.Meerkat]

Slightly off topic but what's this? Its cheaper in the UK than it is in 'Murica? Ehhhhh...what? 

[Dabombinable]

So...I'll only be getting free games from Uplay from now on. Eh....

[Ithanul]

7 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

EA just has to make everything pay to win, don't they?

 

Also, in my honest opinion, the Premier subscription should give you a higher discount on the store, maybe 15 or 20%. Because then it would feel actually worth the $130/year cost.

 

I mean unlimited play time on pre-release games and unlimited access to the "Vault" is cool and all, but still only a 10% discount?

Darn, 130 bucks?  That wack compare to Xbox One and PS4 subs.  Not very hard to find those two consoles' subs on sale throughout the year for a yearly sub that cost way a heck less than that.  Like right now, the Xbox Gold on sale for 40 bucks and the Playstation Plus is at 60 bucks, but I seen that on sale a few weeks back or so as well.  EA sure wanting make a sub costly.

[ZacoAttaco]

It makes sense that EA would do this. They're pushing subscription services so much that they don't want to give you a way to get games for free, I got 4 or 5 games for free with the service so obviously would have liked it to stay around. Currently I'm subscribed to EA Access on my Xbox and I've been really happy so far. For the price of less than 1 game, I have access to 30-40 of EA's best games. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I like the EA Access model, especially since I only plan on buying a select few games a year.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 hour ago, Ithanul said:

Darn, 130 bucks?  That wack compare to Xbox One and PS4 subs.  Not very hard to find those two consoles' subs on sale throughout the year for a yearly sub that cost way a heck less than that.  Like right now, the Xbox Gold on sale for 40 bucks and the Playstation Plus is at 60 bucks, but I seen that on sale a few weeks back or so as well.  EA sure wanting make a sub costly.

That's probably the full cost of the sub with DLC prices added in...