Hm, probably useless service to anybody outside off bigger countries bigger countries cause of licensing issues or zero interest from EA to sell it on a tiny market.

Eitherway this is all I get just for looking at it:

"Thanks for your interest!

Origin Access isn't available in your area yet.
Please watch this space for news and updates."

At the end this is just another drm infested service and a rental.

That's because most games are shit, and demos reveal that.

or! or!

we could say fuck that shit

and instead have them here!

They wouldn't, they'd be Origin-exclusive, unless perhaps GOG will once again do the technical work to get the games working.

So... what is it exactly? A streaming gaming service like OnLive, or do you still install games locally (but you have to play with your internet connection enabled so that it can always track you are eligible to play the games)? Or does it check only when you start the game?

If it is mostly just "Origin, but with a monthly fee", yeah I guess it works for many people, especially those who hop between games all the time and finish (or drop) them fast. Maybe less interesting to people who play games for a long time. I recall there was this kind of game rental system on PC already like 10 years ago or more, and I felt already back then that for many it might make sense.

At this point I don't see myself subscribing to it, as I am playing games rather slowly, and concentrating on few games at a time. So for me the ability to play dozens of games during the same month for a small fee isn't as interesting. And some of those games I play are free-to-play, e.g. I still haven't used a dime on Team Fortress 2, yet I am doing great on it.

Plus, yeah, I prefer retaining control for my games I've paid money for, but then that service could be on top of it.

It is giving you access to the included games without having to pay for each one of them specifically. In the ideal world, we would have as many games as possible as part of it. It the market receives it well, it would be a safe bet to assume that third party devs would jump on board as well.

Netflix has proven to be a success. Sub service for games might do so as well. The program on Xbox One has surpassed all expectations, which is why this is being brought to PC now.

Hello video rental stores in the 80s and 90s. Yet, people didn't normally rent their games either, at least not worldwide.

There are differences to how people consume movies, music, TV series and games. When I sit down to watch a movie, I expect it to last max 2 hours or so, after which I am completely done with it. Rental is usually better than buying a copy of my own.

Games tend to last much longer than 2 hours, especially if it is an online game (e.g. thinking how many hours of my life I've used on Team Fortress series...). That may be why it has historically made more sense for most people to buy their games with one upfront fee, even though at least in US there apparently were some game rental services at least for consoles (here they never did, I recall such activity for Colecovision consoles and games (rent for a weekend) but it ended for some reason, maybe even legal problems).

That said, a rental gaming service with a monthly fee probably does make sense to many people, those who consume lots of games in a rapid pace (even if they don't do it as rapidly as with e.g. movies; I recall they days in my youth when I watched four rented movies per day, I don't see myself finishing four games per day, even short indie games).

It might make sense for EA to offer mostly long or neverending games in the service, so that people would hop less between games. Online games (massive multiplayer whatever) are a good contender for the service, I guess. With bought games it is different, there it would make more sense to make rather short games that people drop quite soon but feel happy with the game so that they want to buy another similar game, or more content (DLCs) for that said game.

I think I see this also in Netflix. My original interest to it was movies, but the more I look at it, it seems they are pushing TV series. I think a big part of that is that for the small monthly fee, you could watch dozens of movies (and then cancel the subscription), while cheaper but longer TV series would be more effective to keep people in the service so that they don't miss yet another episode or season of their favorite series.

This is why I haven't subscribed to Netflix yet. I have very little interest to TV series, and it isn't really a service to see AAA movies for a small monthly fee. The movies they list at least here are the same I've already seen years ago on the free TV channels here, so why would I pay to see them again on the service?

As a consumer, it is always good to remember that the reason companies introduce new schemes is because they believe they will make more money with it, not that they are trying to make the customers save money. In reality some might save money, others don't, as long as EA felt overall they make more money than before.

Yes I already know that (e.g. OnLive did that too), but I was asking, what kind of access? Is it a streaming service, or do you still install the games locally? Does it require always-online connection also during gameplay, or only when you lauch the game? I presume offline mode is out of question so that it can track whether you are eligible to run the game.

It depends what games will be offered in the service, and whether other publishers will come with their own monthly fee systems for their own games, so in the end you'd be paying n times $5 per month for several services, unless you really think you'd be content with EA Access game offerings only.

In reality people still probably want to play other games too (and if those versions are missing gameplay DLCs, and people have to buy those separately; after all, DLC-less base versions of games have been offered for free or peanuts in various services, also Origin and Humble Bundles), so for most people gaming would still cost much more than $5 per month.

So we will see, especially considering how highly competitive the PC gaming market is now, semi-new AAA titles offered for peanuts in bundles or sometimes even for free, many games having a free-to-play model etc.

Also as I said, one needs to remember that companies introduce new schemes if they think/hope they will be making more money that way, not just because they want consumers to save money. Case by case, these might sometimes coincide, at least it there is lots of competition on the market and fighting for gamers is fierce.

I personally think these kind of "monthly fee" gaming services might become big on PC too, but not the only or even primary way to consume games. There will still be several different ways in parallel to consume PC games. Saying that all games would be consumed through rental service sounds to me like claiming that all games will use the free-to-play model (with transactions) from now on. Well, maybe that has almost happened on the mobile side already, but then the gaming selection there is quite different, game development doesn't take hundreds of millions per game etc.

Normal install like any other game. I don't know how it behaves in offline mode.

Might have been told or not, but I found this in some article, concerning available countries:

"Origin Access is currently available in Canada, Germany (€3.99 per month), the U.K. (£3.99 per month) and the U.S."

In my opinion, the service is ok. It can just be there. 5$ to at least try some game that one hasn't tried yet sounds good for me. Though I prefer owning them games.

Ok then, sounds promising in a way. Come to think of it, if a game comes with heavy DRM anyway, many times this might even be a preferable way to consume it, but again it depends a lot what kind of games there will be and whether there are extra charges (missing DLCs, microtransactions during the gameplay etc.).

So, when is Valve/Steam going to introduce this? :) That would be even more interesting if they could offer games from several publishers.

From what I know, inclusion in the Vault is on a per-game basis, so there is no strict set of bullet points that have to be done in order to get a game into the program.

As for the additional content, I would guess that is up to the devs / pubs that own those games, but then, I'm not on that team so I rather not speak out of my butt.

Still overpaying. But for people that don't trade it probably seems like a good deal.

Not my cup of tea, even Netflix doesn't interest me, as almost all entertainment falls into two categories for me, the ones I want to collect and the ones I don't want to experience even once.

Since they use Denuvo and/or always online buy a game from EA is not even an option... but using this method you can pay just 4€ to play games from EA for a month, it's not a bad offer... you get access to EA games and you don't have to care about DRM and stuff... I think about Dragon Age Inquisition... I would like to play it but I don't want to pay much since the game use denuvo (so also if you buy it you don't really own it), that means that with just 4€ I can play it once and forget about denuvo shit....
Also there is a 10h try with new games... like the new Need for Speed (with always online shit), that in 10h you can probably finish it.

For me it's a good thing, the first from EA... but for now it's not available in Italy.