EA Sports will offer an annual subscription for hardcore sports gamers, which includes a three-day, pre-release full-play preview of five of the label's most popular titles, and a 20 percent discount on their paid downloadable content catalog. EA Sports' "Season Ticket" begins Aug. 27 with Madden NFL 12, and it will cost $25.
Covering Madden, NHL and FIFA this year, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NCAA Football next year, EA Sports Season Ticket will be available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in North America and on the 360 in Europe. Subscribers may download Madden NFL 12 free sometime around midnight Aug. 27 and play it all weekend before its Aug. 30 launch.
The other four titles will follow the same Saturday-Sunday-Monday preview leading up to their traditional release date, at which point gamers will have to have to pick up a physical disc from the usual retail channels. There is no way to pay to unlock the file for full play.
[B]The three-day free-play of Madden, FIFA and others will involve the full code of the physical disc version, digitally delivered over Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. This digital pre-release game will expire at 6 am U.S. Eastern time on the title's street date, although all associated game saves
