You're not buying games through EA Access, you're renting them. Comparing the service to a retail purchase is spurious. It's cheaper than GameFly, but then again the selection is smaller.
You're being fatuous and insulting. I have brains, self-control, and a bank account. But if I were a Battlefield fan, paying $40 to be able to play BF4 whenever I want, would be a better value than paying $5 every month that I decide to return to the game. If you're a "play-once-and-never-again" gamer, then EA Access is probably very appealing to you. I'm not like that. I still play Link to the Past on my SNES, for example. I make a point of going back and beating Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on my original Xbox once every couple years.
1) I was rebutting a point made by someone else who was comparing the games to retail, rather than raising it. I understand that these games are not being purchased, but are being rented. I have decided that renting 6 (and more to come) games for the sum total of £20 per year is good value for money when compared to buying games at £45 a pop. I still buy games. I still buy
EA games.
2) I'm not being fatuous OR insulting. Certainly not to you, anyway. I wasn't making a comment on YOUR intelligence. You clearly have intelligence, and have recognised the potential dangers of spending limtless amounts of money on games.
You said "When a game (or, now, these publisher access programs) lacks a finite cap on what you can conceivably pay, it worries me. It should worry you, too."
There has been the ability to spend infinite amounts of money on individual games for several years, now, via in-game purchases, and it doesn't appear to have caused much of a problem. The odd case of massive debt accrued from in-game purchases persists - of course it does - but then again, there are people out there who ran up massive credit card debts buying complete game collections or individual carts on eBay way before in-game purchases became reality.
Sure, if you're a Battlefield fan, paying $40 to play the game whenever you want is possibly a better deal than paying $5 every month to play it whenever you want during the life of your subscription. But there are points to consider. Firstly, if you were a Battlefield fan, you would more than likely have bought the game on day one, rather than waiting months for the game to appear on EA Access.
Secondly, if you did wait and if you're that much of a Battlefield fan that you're playing the game online for 2 years after the game's release (the amount of time it would take for your subscription costs to outrun the cost of a purchase, providing you only consider that one of the six EA Access games represents any sort of value to you) - would you not have jumped on to the next Battlefield by then anyway? Surely, you would just cancel your subscription when the next BF game came out if nothing else turned up in the EA Access Vault that you actually wanted to play? Potentially, that could actually make a gamer's time with Battlefield 4 CHEAPER without any spending cap in place. If they find something else in the Vault that they enjoy, the time theoretically becomes cheaper still.
Obviously, it wouldn't suit you as you like to go back to your games time and again. So you'd just buy the game - an option which isn't going away any time soon - and be happy with it.
Your comment said that I (or everyone, as it was aimed at everyone) should be worried that games lack a finite cap on what you can conceivably pay. The main point I was making is that there is NOT a lack of a finite cap on what I can conceivably pay. What I can conceivably pay is controlled by my own intelligence, restraint, and of course, the limits of my bank account. If I find the amount to be inconceivable - ie. it costs me more than the value I'm getting from it - I cancel my subscription. Job done. Heck, if I keep my subscription for FOUR YEARS and EA doesn't actually add anything else to the Vault from now on, I'll only have spent £13.33 per game for four entire years of access to those games. The only thing I lose is the ability to a) loan a game to a friend or b) replay the game in five years' time - something that a lot (not all, by any means!) of people are unlikely to do as they will have moved on to one of the other thousands of games per year that are made available.
I wasn't looking to offend. I just felt that your comment was riddled with tinfoil hattery, is all. The sky isn't falling down because a company has offered a different way of getting access to games, which a lot of people seem to be enjoying and are perfectly happy with.
