EA renames its subscription service to EA Play

EA today revealed that it’s rebranding and consolidating its subscription service. Whereas before it operated under a few different names, now it’ll all be under a new banner called EA Play. This is likely both an attempt to avoid confusion and to make its transition to Steam more appealing.

I wouldn’t want to say gamers avoided EA’s subscription service, an otherwise decent value, because it was confusing — but I am going to say that I avoided it because it was confusing. Up to now, the PC version of the service was called Origin Access, while the version on consoles was called EA Access. EA will now call both EA Access and Origin Access’s Basic tier by the name EA Play. The service formerly known as Origin Access Premier will now be EA Play Pro.

The price will otherwise remain the same: $4.99 for an EA Play subscription, and $14.99 for a Play Pro subscription. It’s worth noting this rebrand is coming shortly before the subscription service is due to arrive on Steam. In fact, the phasing out of the “Origin” part of the name, combined with EA moving both its service and several of its previously-exclusive games to Steam, makes me worry for the fate of EA’s Origin PC client.

While EA’s subscription service has never been as well-publicized as Xbox Game Pass, it operates in much the same way. You pay a subscription fee in exchange for access to a selection of games. The size of the selection varies depending on whether you purchase the Basic or Premier subscriptions — oh, excuse me, EA Play or Play Pro subscriptions. A Play Pro/Premier subscription also gives you full access to new EA games — in fact, this was announced at the same time Microsoft revealed Xbox Game Pass subscribers would also get new games.

In case you were wondering, the EA event that used to be called EA Play will now be called EA Play Live. Yeah, I’m confused too. EA Play the subscription service will launch on August 18.