We’ve just confirmed with EA Australia that EA Access will be coming to Australia, at a slightly higher price than what our US cousins will be paying.
The monthly fee will be $6.99 — compared to $4.99 in the US.
If you want an annual subscription it’s $39.99 compared to $29.99 in the US.
The increase it to be expected, particularly when you consider the price of games here in Australia, but it is hard to take when the service is entirely digital. EA would not be drawn to comment on why there was a price increase.
EA Access is a Netflix style subscription service that provides its users with access to a number of games published by EA, but we have very little details on precisely what those games will be. EA Australia is still confirming when it will be released here in Australia.
Comments
36 responses to “EA Access Will Cost Slightly More In Australia”
Of course it will
If there is Aussie servers and Aussie based staff I can understand it. I don’t like it, but I understand it.
There will be I imagine, but it will exist at their already open with a full support staff and a giant internet pipe Sydney offices, so the extra charge is still bullshit.
Just because it (probably) already exists doesn’t mean it is exempt from operating costs. If that extra $10 a year helps hire local staff then I’m totally cool with it.
The reason is “because we can, suckers!”.
USD$29.99 = AUD$32
+ 10% GST = $35.20
So not much of an uplift really, depending on exchange rate on any given day.
Yeah, as much as I hate the idea of paying more I can understand if it’s a few dollars to counter the natural rise and fall in the dollar. That said I’d rather they just charged me in USD.
Is there even GST applied to these digital products? I thought where your cc purchase is authorised is located overseas and therefore has no GST.
I hate this shit it should just be a straight conversion US –> AU dollars for any digital product. Part of the problem is that none of the profits are going into local coffers – none. It’s not like any AU tax is being applied to it. They are simply charging more because of locale.
I guess it depends what resources are going to be in Australia – there would surely be an element of EA Australia’s involvement in it, whether it be servers, sys admins, support/community staff. If any of those apply, then it’s likely to be slugged a GST.
And you can’t have a straight conversion – the dollar changes too much. How would you feel if you paid $29.00 but something else happens that affects the dollar, and suddenly all your mates are jumping on board late, and paying $23.00, oh but now the dollar has strengthened even more and now your other mates who were even later to the game are now being slugged $34.00. You gotta keep it realistic.
EA isn’t a charity, they’re out to make money. They need to survive as a business in all it’s arms of publishing. Even more importantly, they need to be able to give financial forecasts. How can you give forecasts when you don’t know what your fees are going to be from week to week?
Everything you’ve said is redundant. If they really wanted to save cash they’d just cut those positions. EA have absolutely no need for a local managerial presence in this day and age.
Huh, this already happens with sales – shit the steam sales are up to 75% off. The point you are making is nonsensical. The dollar never fluctuates anywhere near that much – 5% is massive fall/rise just have a look at some graphs of our exchange rate over the last few years.
Doesn’t give them a license to gauge the customer based on location. For digital products there is absolutely no reason to charge us any more. Which is what they’ve been doing. For many years.
EA has a presence in Australia, so it would be hard to claim that the purchases should be GST free.
And besides that, are you really advocating for a multinational to avoid paying tax?
As far as I’m aware none of the digital sales from AU are taxed locally. All sales are made effectively off soil. So claiming that GST and other AU taxes should be taken into account is pointless – those extra profits just go straight into EA’s coffers, we see none of it.
Hell no, I just don’t want to be charged more when none of the proceeds are going locally anyway.
There are no real reasons for a local management presence with EA. Just look at valve with it’s mirror policy. Let the ISP’s mirror content for local access. For gaming servers, sure i understand an increased in costs but they don’t validate the 20 – 50% increased margins we see on games – fuck some games they still don’t offer local access. Regardless for this service there is absolutely no need for inflated prices.
EA’s Origin store says you pay GST (search for Australia): https://www.origin.com/en-au/termsofsale
Similarly, Sony lists an Australian GST number on their web store: http://www.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/en-au/about-us
I’m sure many of the other big digital marketplaces do the same. And why wouldn’t you want EA to have a local presence? For multiplayer games, the best way to reduce latency is to have the servers located close geographically. It’s also in their interest to have a local presence for marketing purposes.
Fair enough! It must be because they have local offices & an ABN – their website must fall under that umbrella. Admittingly i’ve never purchased anything off Origin.
Local servers don’t need local management tho. If a local marketing department is advantageous would they not stand on their own feet? essentially paying for themselves otherwise it would be cheaper to outsource them as well.
Regardless if everything was ~10 – 15% difference I wouldn’t have an issue – it rarely is tho.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that the Australian price differences are justified. But saying “if only they could find a loophole to pay less tax” is a bit short sighted.
In the past, when they’ve managed to find efficiencies (e.g. digital downloads), how often have they passed those savings on to customers? Why do you think it would be different if they started defrauding the Australian government (since that is essentially what is being proposed).
You know this is something that I was starting to wonder about too. I know people complain about higher Aussie prices (I do it too) but I wonder how much is the company and how much is actually introduced by our government. Maybe a bit of both.
Except 10% off digital games that are already 30% overpriced vs physical is absolutely worthless. So I’ll be getting the US sub and region switching for a price of nearly 40% off vs the AU Xbox store.
As long as it downloads quick that’s all I care about 🙂
Still a good price for what your getting IMHO and as the service builds with more games will only add to the value.
Shame the online store is soo over priced it wont mean too much for digital sales of the games :/
You know, if there was just one moment where EA could prove to Australians that they weren’t evil…
I don’t care what EA does, as long as I can play Battlefront without a subscription fee I can die happy.
So is the general idea that games will be rotated in the vault? BF4 this month then something else the following month?
That would be terrible, large downloads for a month of gameplay. I’d hope they just kept adding older games to the vault.
I think I read the cycle will be a year minimum.
Do you have to buy this from EA direct? or can you buy it from MS US Store with the region change trick and get it for US price = exchanged rate?
The markup isn’t so unreasonable that I’m going to whine about Australia tax. This time.
So I’m guessing you lose access to the game once it’s rotated in a month or two yeah?
The monthly fee will be $6.99 — compared to $4.99 in the US
of course it will. whats new in the land of the gouging price.
Is this taking into account US taxes, remember they don’t have to be included in the advertised price. That and exchange rates would explain away most of the difference on cost to me
you know, I actually expected it to be way more. I’m not entirely mad at this
It’s like being bent over, but with lube. How nice of them!
And in other news “Bears shit in the woods”
I got an email from MS about this because I’m in the early access program. I’d love to try it out, but out of those games peggle 2 is the only one I don’t have that I would play. I’m not paying $7 a month to play it.
I think most Australians understand that our country is more expensive generally and our incomes are usually higher, so a mild increase in price is reasonable. It has to be within reason though.
Call me a cynical prick, but anytime I see EA “innovating” with pricing arrangement I know we’re all about to get f*cked.
I bet you my left nut that as soon as EA gets a decent amount of subscribers to this service (ie regular, near-guaranteed income) we’ll be seeing all their full priced games scaled back to basic-versions (they’ll give is a fancy tosser name so it’s not called that though) and then loaded with free-to-pay style content.
Subscribers will get a basic version, people who buy retail will get a gold-edition, people who pre-order from retail will get a platinum-version (which what people who are on the service really should have gotten) and people who spend $200 will get the platinum-version with a plastic figurine.
Everyone can up-scale to the next version up for a fee.
No doubt about it, as soon as they have a regular stream of subscribers they’ll start skimping on content. You pay a subscription and then you get the games “for free” right? Of course it needs to be subsidised with F2P!
I’m still not clear on the details for EA Access, is this a streaming service, or downloadable? If you’re going to be able to download the titles to your console, then it’s a pretty good competitor to PS Now (if/when it ever comes to AU) based on Aussie internet.
Considering I’d rarely play a game like Battlefield for over 12 months, I’m happy to pay half the retail price, smash through it and do an achievement run on the other titles for $30 a year. I spent more than that on lunch today (yes, I was hungry).
If your in Xbox beta program, you can download it now.
Once you download the EA Access app, you use it to subscribe, then you can download any of the 4 titles to your console and when viewing other EA titles in the Xbox store, you will see the discounts applied to them.
Its that easy.
Also, if you want to save some cash, change the console region to US before downloading the app and subscribing 😉
This is an old article but I thought I should point out a mistake, the cost for Aus is $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year.
That’s a hell of a lot more than the US and makes the service not worth it anymore, it’s a shame to as I liked the idea.