The only thing better than getting a game on sale is getting one for free, something gamers have become accustomed to with the likes of Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus. EA has also been giving away free games through their "On The House" program on Origin since 2014, but today the company announced that it would no longer be doing so.
EA initially made the move quietly, simply changing the On The House link to reroute to the Origin Access page. EA later confirmed the change to Polygon, saying in a statement:
"Origin On the House has been retired and games will no longer be offered through the program. This change won’t affect any games players downloaded from the service prior to that date — those are theirs to keep forever."
The change comes after EA announced the release date for Origin Access Premier, a subscription service similar to Xbox's Game Pass, which allows users to play a vast library of games for $10 a month. EA's service will cost $14.99 a month or $99 for a year, and allow users to play all of EA's games a few days earlier than the official release and without limitations, including major upcoming games like Battlefield 5 and Anthem. The service launches next week and explains why EA would want to retire the On The House program.
Since its debut in 2014, the service has provided free access to more than 35 of EA's older games, like Mass Effect 2, Dead Space, and most recently, Peggle, for free. While it's disappointing to see such a service go, EA was the only company to provide games without requiring a subscription like PlayStation and Xbox do. It's always possible that the service could return at some point, though unlikely.
Cutting the On The House service was probably a wise financial move for EA, but likely won't be popular amongst fans. A wiser move would have been to keep the service for members of the Origin Access Premier program, allowing fans to permanently keep certain games without potentially damaging subscriptions to the service. Regardless, Premier looks like it'll be an excellent option for people that buy more than two EA titles in a year and don't particularly care about actually owning their games.
Source:Polygon