Sony: EA Access is Poor Value for PlayStation Users

[Kameburger]

yes absolutely; EA needs quality control. But I mean I think my though overall is that PSN shouldn't even think about allowing EA's system until it's completely free of bugs etc and even then I'm not sure if they should.

Remind me: is Sony still selling Battlefield 4 on PSN? They are? Well, that sounds like a really bad reason to refuse the service.

Half of their games don't even work online when they're released.

Maybe Sony shouldn't sell them. Hell, Sony features a good chunk of them on their storefront.

So while I agree with you that there is an element of players choice that is lost,

To the contrary, I'm not arguing player choice is lost, I'm arguing that the premise is a non-issue because the "quality control" angle is a farce.

You've kind of proved my point. Sony has no problem selling you broken, shitty games. They don't care about QA, they don't care about the customer. Something else is up here, because this being their line in the sand is absurd enough that Weird Al passed on it.

I can't tell you how pissed I was about the process of playing battlefield 3 online and how it burned me and how I wished in that moment that they had just integrated their games in with a system that worked like Steam or PSN or even XBL. So yeah I don't trust EA, and if I had a platform that my customers used, I wouldn't go rushing to cut myself out of the process for them.

Would you still sell their broken games to customers like yourself? That, I think, would be more telling of where you really stand.

I don't think I proved your point as much as I think you think I did. *giggle*

From my point of view, BF3 didn't work for me because EA employ's a stupid online pass system, for a few reasons, I had a lot of trouble with this online pass primarily because EA's payment system and PSN's were in no way connected and thus there were various difficulties that I won't get into now. My point is this, EA let me down because EA sucked, and PSN didn't step in and say, wait this system sucks and we don't want you to use this on your platform. So in a way, my inability to play the game comes from a lack of quality control on the part of Sony.

I don't care what Sony sells on their store front because I'm free to buy it as it comes or free to not buy it. I am not forced into a contract within a contract, in order to access for my product from a limited space within a limited space.

Let me put it this way, EA's games being shit are really irrelevant to whats going on here, it's just a good result of what actually happened which is that EA tried to set up it's own store within someone else's store, and that person refused. Apple doesn't allow google to make a google play store for Itunes because it circumvents their design for customer experience. The same way PSN shouldn't let any company, not just EA, set up shop in their territory because it deprives them of the ability to control what goes on, which when customers are unhappy (and it's EA so that's a certainty) Sony would have less ways to say, hey this isn't what we want here for [Reasons].

Also if I said broken, I didn't mean in the non functional sense, I mean from a design standpoint which is different. The games you buy from PSN work as they are intended, it's just that EA intends for them to be anti-consumer garbage. It's not like I mean if toys R Us sold broken toys but rather if Toy's R us sold stupid toys that were hard to play with.

so the tl;dr of it all is really I don't care what they sell to be honest, but I think they have every right to decide how they sell what they sell, and I think they did most of their customers a favor by not giving EA license to do what ever they want in their ecosystem.

 

[JayRPG]

I couldn't be happier with my PS Plus sub, I've had it for years and years, the fact I own a PS4, PS3 and Vita only makes it better.

I pay for it in yearly lots and that $70 was made up in the very first month of free games.

Not only that but I recently got to buy Injustice on PS4 for $7.40 which was a PS Plus sale price, that game to buy over here in Australia is $90 retail.

The EA thing, from what I understand, is a glorified Demo service. You get some 2 hour demos then have the chance to buy the full game, sometimes at a slightly discounted price. Doesn't seem like much value to me.

 

[Alek The Great]

Let me put it this way, EA's games being shit are really irrelevant to whats going on here, it's just a good result of what actually happened which is that EA tried to set up it's own store within someone else's store, and that person refused. Apple doesn't allow google to make a google play store for Itunes because it circumvents their design for customer experience. The same way PSN shouldn't let any company, not just EA, set up shop in their territory because it deprives them of the ability to control what goes on, which when customers are unhappy (and it's EA so that's a certainty) Sony would have less ways to say, hey this isn't what we want here for [Reasons].

Also if I said broken, I didn't mean in the non functional sense, I mean from a design standpoint which is different. The games you buy from PSN work as they are intended, it's just that EA intends for them to be anti-consumer garbage. It's not like I mean if toys R Us sold broken toys but rather if Toy's R us sold stupid toys that were hard to play with.

Except EA isn't trying to set up a separate storefront with ea access. EA games would still be sold on the psn marketplace, they would simply also be offered as rentals on the ea access page. While not a perfect analogy, think of ea access kind of like the magazine rental apps (where they offer you subscriptions to a bunch of magazines) on IOS as opposed to Apple allowing Google play to be put inside the app store. While EA access may detract from PS+ it is nothing like Apple allowing Google Play on iOS. EA Access gives you rentals for their games (kind of like how Netflix lets you rent movies and TV shows through a subscription model even if they are available on the PS store as well) along with some other perks like early demos and discounts on games (that would still be bought through the PS store).

Ultimately, I think it should be up to the consumer to decide whether this is a good value for them, but something tells me Sony doesn't want EA Access mucking up their PS+ and PSNow plans. It's their platform so they can do what they want kind of like how Apple choose to make iOS a completely walled garden.

 

[Traviltar]

Bravo, Sony. Can I get a round of applause?

Now to be fair, Sony didn't do this from their kindness of their heart, but more because they don't want a competing platform to *their* console.
Still, the consoles would probably lose some of their charm, if they became like non-upgradeable PCs, which they mostly are already.
Gah, I wan't back to the 6th-gen consoles (PS2, Xbox, GameCube).


But man, Microsoft has made so many mistakes, and even taking all of their "super awesome" features off the Xbox One, it's still less powerful, the same price, is freaking huge, and still is run by people I don't necessarily trust. I don't know why I even own the thing. Guess it used to be "Cuz Halo" but I don't even know anymore.



So, Bravo, Sony. I'll tip my hat for you this time.


*Old man voice*
.......But I'll be keeping a close eye on you.......

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't think I proved your point as much as I think you think I did. *giggle*

Is Sony still not only making money off of, but distributing and even promoting broken games? Yes? Did you just help demonstrate that? Yes?

No excuses are going to change my point or how readily you reinforced it.

 

[Something Amyss]

The EA thing, from what I understand, is a glorified Demo service. You get some 2 hour demos then have the chance to buy the full game, sometimes at a slightly discounted price. Doesn't seem like much value to me.

Except that's almost completely wrong. You get unlimited access to certain games, plus a five day "early access" to upcoming titles. It's not two hour demos.

I mean, if you don't want it, that's fine. It's a completely optional service, after all. But to pan it for what it isn't? That's ridiculous.

Though you do apparently get discounts on any digital content, so that part is actually correct.

Bravo, Sony. Can I get a round of applause?

What for, exactly? There's still a ton of shit on the PSN store worth a lot less and users have now been deprived of choice.

 

[Kameburger]

I don't think I proved your point as much as I think you think I did. *giggle*

Is Sony still not only making money off of, but distributing and even promoting broken games? Yes? Did you just help demonstrate that? Yes?

No excuses are going to change my point or how readily you reinforced it.

eek, I don't quite see your point here... "broken" and "shitty" are not the same thing. Even my example with battlefield was EA's fault, not Sony's, because Sony, probably rightfully so, allowed companies to provide their own online infrastructure.

So when I put the disc in the trey the game works. I can play single player just fine. Mission accomplished Sony. When i try to log on to EA's servers, there is where the problem arises, but getting on Sony's case for this is kind of like blaming Dell when you can't connect to the internet.

I really have yet to see how I proved your point, and please don't hesitate to connect the dots for me because it's much better then assuming I understand. I'm not trying to change your opinion merely offering some conjecture, cause message boards?

Also I think you're using the word excuses wrong...

I get that tone is really hard to read on the internet and I feel bad, because I think that *giggles* bit probably sounded a bit more condescending then I meant it to so for that I apologize. I just got a kick out of using that particular wording and I tend to type every single thing that comes to mind so yeah...

Honestly I think Sony is in the right here, but at the same time I understand why some people might not like it. Unless Sony is refusing to sell EA games on their console which they are not, then it's fine, but potentially (or more likely intentionally) undercutting Sony's business on Sony's console seems like something Sony has every reasonable justification to resist.

 

[Something Amyss]

Even my example with battlefield was EA's fault, not Sony's, because Sony, probably rightfully so, allowed companies to provide their own online infrastructure.

And allowing them their own infrastructure is fine. Yet Sony, the great bastion of quality control, actively featured and promoted these games they knew had issues, either being partially non-fucntional or completely broken. These are the people you are cheering for their censure of a hypothetical service with no evidence that such problems will exist.

 

[Kameburger]

Even my example with battlefield was EA's fault, not Sony's, because Sony, probably rightfully so, allowed companies to provide their own online infrastructure.

And allowing them their own infrastructure is fine. Yet Sony, the great bastion of quality control, actively featured and promoted these games they knew had issues, either being partially non-fucntional or completely broken. These are the people you are cheering for their censure of a hypothetical service with no evidence that such problems will exist.

First of all, I'm not cheering for them. I'm saying I think preventing EA (or any other company) from doing this kind of thing is completely fine by me, because they have the right to decide what goes on their platform. I don't happen to like EA which makes it sweeter for me personally but that's beside the point.

By your own logic by the way, if EA is producing poor products in general, then wouldn't Sony be moving in the right direction by not letting EA experiment with their "hypothetical service" without any proof that it's going to work?

Also to that point, Origin sucked, and EA has practically become synonymous with server problems in the gaming industry, so isn't that evidence enough alone that EA needs to prove it self as being stable for going along with the platform?

And let's say for a second that you're completely right and PSN's quality control is garbage, does that mean that Sony should just let it remain that way? Quality control means you have to say no some times, whether it be to games or services or whatever.

My understanding of your argument is that because PSN has had bad games in the past, in has no reason to refuse EA's service without any reason to know that the service is bad. You have said that this is wrong because it is Censorship, despite all those games being available on the platform already. I just don't see how that makes much sense...