EA: why Season Ticket offers great value
"We're not pushing anyone."
EA Sports reckons its Season Ticket subscription offers great value to the right gamer, and that feedback has been "pretty good".
Season Ticket, which launched earlier this month, gets you early access to EA Sports games, discounted DLC, premium web content and membership recognition in exchange for 2000 Microsoft Points.
EA Sports Season Ticket is available on PlayStation 3 in North America only.
"In all honesty, the feedback is pretty good," EA Sports boss Andrew Wilson told Eurogamer.
"What people have recognised is this is clearly a program targeted at our core gamers, the gamers who do line up to get FIFA as quickly as they possibly can every year. The opportunity to build status and progress in their experience three days earlier than everyone else is something that's really cool for that type of person."
Some gamers have complained that Season Ticket lacks value, but Wilson said that for those who buy FIFA day one and play Ultimate Team, it's a no brainer.
"Every gamer will decide for themselves whether the value is there," he explained. "For me, absolutely the value feels like it's there. Playing games three days early, I'm one of those people who can't wait.
"If you told me I could play every game I want to play three days earlier than my friends, and build up progress and status, I'm in. I do a lot with downloadable content. So if you said I could get 20 per cent off every piece of downloadable content I buy, I'm in. There's absolutely value there for the right gamer."
Wilson insisted: "We're not pushing anyone. We're saying, listen, there's a program here, if these things are valuable to you and you believe they are, it's there for you. And if you don't, that's OK. We're still going to build your great games."
Meanwhile, Wilson said Season Ticket was unavailable to European PlayStation 3 owners because of a timing issue.
"Our intent is to always work very closely with our first-party partners. We have tremendous relationships with them. Sometimes timing works out a little bit different for various different reasons. In this instance the timing hasn't worked out quite right for us.
"But our intent is always to deliver the best experiences we can with our partners to the gamers that play those platforms."