Today’s announcement of Need for Speed Rivals being added to the vault in the next few weeks had me thinking back on my first month of service and I felt  it was time to convey my thoughts about  the service. When EA first announced their new subscription based platform called EA Access, I was moderately apprehensive about whether or not I would subscribe. The initial offerings from “The Vault” (which is where the full free to play games are housed) were rather meek with just FIFA 14, Madden 25, Peggle 2 and Battlefield 4.

Admittedly, the summer doldrums with nothing new coming out for at least 4 weeks and the paltry price tag of just $30 for the year convinced me that I should sign up and download Battlefield and perhaps give FIFA a shot despite my dislike for professional soccer.

What I found was that FIFA is a damn good game. I am pleasantly surprised at how deep the game was and how much fun I had. Couple that with a few friends that got me playing online with them. It’s killed some late nights and rainy afternoons. Another nice added bonus of being a subscriber is you also get early access to new games and demos. For example – Starting this week, I’ll be able to get 6hrs of playtime with NHL 2015 (The demo is absolutely AMAZING) prior to the release of the game on Tuesday AND the progress made and achievements will carry over to when/if you buy the full game. Couple that with the fact that you’ll get an additional 10% discount for digital purchase – that alone is worth 1 month of service.

I know the current list of games is small – but the service is BRAND NEW. They’re already talking about making adjustments to make it more enticing. This is the future fellow gamers. Like it or not, this is test to see how we react to a subscription based model. So far – I like where we’re going.