EA Were Charging for Game Demos
EA Were Charging for Game Demos
There was some slightly worrying news for gamers from Australia and the UK today as EA were charging for game demos on Xbox platforms. Game demos seem to be on the decline as a whole, particularly on consoles; head into the PSN or Xbox store and you’ll be doing well to find a demo for the latest, or a forthcoming, release. In Australia and the UK however, EA seemingly attempted to take things to a whole new level by charging gamers a fee for demos.
Demos of both UFC and FIFA 14 on Xbox One required a fee to be paid before they could be downloaded. The fee was £3.99 on the UK Xbox store, which equates to around $6.85 in American dollars. The image below, which was taken by VG247 writer Dave Cook, provides a clear screenshot from the UK store showing a fee for a FIFA 14 demo.
EA has issued a statement since the story broke saying “The price associated with the FIFA 14 and EA SPORTS UFC demos was due to a technical error. Both demos have now been fixed in the Microsoft store“.
It will come as another blow to EA, as the company was starting to earn back the trust of gamers following the company being voted as Consumerist’s ‘Worst Company in America’ in 2012 and 2013.Despite managing to just about avoid ‘winning’ the award for 2014, a patchy launched riled with issues for last years’ Battlefield 4 and widespread server issues that resulted in Sim City being unplayable at launch, EA cannot seem to manage to avoid controversy.
Whether this was a genuine mistake is unclear, but the skeptical side of me certainly leans towards the theory that EA may well have been trying to charge for demos, hoping gamers wouldn’t notice, although that clearly hasn’t happened.
What do you think? Let us know on the forums whether you believe the fee for demo downloads was a genuine mistake or a deliberate move by EA.