Electronic Arts has announced that it will be introducing a new Windows PC exclusive subscription service called ‘EA Origin Access’. EA Origin Access will offer access to a library of games that can be played for free, so long as the $5 (about RM22) per month subscription is maintained.
If the name sounds familiar, that would be because EA already offers a similarly named service on the Xbox. Unlike the Xbox version, EA is providing PC gamers with more than a few tempting titles to mess around with. Battlefield 3, 4, and Hardline are all available for subscribers; which is impressive considering that Hardline was only released last year. Other titles of note are the excellent Dragon Age: Inquisition, along with The Sims 3 and 4.
These games will work offline, although EA says that the player must “periodically reconnect to Origin.” It doesn’t say how long the time period is, and the FAQ is currently offline for some reason.
EA has also promised to expand the offerings on a monthly basis, and may even include third party titles as part of the library. However, the company has also admitted that it could possibly pull titles from the library without advance warning. It claims that there are no plans to do so, but anything could happen in the future; and it certainly isn’t something gamers want to deal with.
EA Origin Access Subscribers will also receive special members-only promotions and discounts; like blanket 10-percent discount on all purchases made through Origin. Like the Xbox One version of the service, there will also be an advance trial option for upcoming games.
At the moment, it looks like the service is not yet available in our region. The Origin site for Singapore (which also caters to Malaysia) doesn’t provide any additional information, which could mean that we’re in for a long wait from EA.
[Source: Ars Technica]
