The Latest Xbox Game Pass Rival Is $150 And Is Surprisingly Worth It
Topics: EA, Xbox Game Pass
Featured Image Credit: EA
Topics: EA, Xbox Game Pass
Despite a harsh economic crunch, the gaming platform wars are dividing fans in the same way TV and film do, as more and more subscription services and platform fees are pilfering our wallets.
Long gone are the days of Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus being your only choices to find discounted games, with the only sales being found at CEX or GameStop.
Now, we have Netflix charging $6 a month for its divisive gaming tab, Xbox Game Pass (even with its new, reduced prices), EA Play, Ubisoft+, PlayStation Plus, and countless more services chipping away at your monthly earnings for benefits you don't really need.
One of those platforms has now launched its most ambitious subscription yet, priced at a colossal $150 - although it's a strangely decent value.
EA has long hosted its Play subscription service alongside the likes of Xbox Game Pass, offering all kinds of titles from Star Wars: Jedi to Battlefield and sports simulators like F1 25.
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The latter category is a big hitter for EA, with its sports division leading the way in both football departments with Madden and EA Sports College Football.
Both titles can cost upwards of $70, depending on which edition players opt for, and it can be quite a heavy burden to take for sports fans.
But while those players are already forking out substantial sums just for the base game, EA has doubled down on its MVP+ membership on both PlayStation and Xbox, priced at $150.
The steep subscription appears to be mammoth at first glance, but for frequent annual buyers of both series, it might just be a huge saving.
Granting automatic passes to the two full games, the Beta and Early Access windows, a huge array of in-game currency 'Points' (4,600 in each, the equivalent of $80 alone), and more boosts for the online game modes, the package deal comes as a bulky reward for their loyal customers.
Yet it has attracted a lot of backlash.
"EA’s new MVP+ membership is another attempt to rip off gamers by adding a yearly subscription on top of games that already push aggressive monetization," says Players Alliance, a movement often vocalising support for everyday gamers.
"Gamers are watching EA turn more of gaming into a recurring charge, and the proposed private equity buyout will only accelerate that trend by saddling the company with $20 billion in debt.
"If EA wants gamers to keep supporting its games, it needs to pull out of this deal and stop nickel-and-diming its customers.”
Despite Madden and College Football being very similar in gameplay, they're both EA-developed American Football games, you can see the thought process behind claims that the two titles should merge into one cheaper version that works cohesively as separate game modes.
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