Xbox One briefly charges some gamers for free EA Sports demos

By John Callaham
last updated

People who tried to download the normally free demos of EA Sports UFC and FIFA 14 on Microsoft's Xbox One console got a rude awakening on Thursday and early Friday when they discovered that those demos had price tags.

The prices were first spotted by a member of the NeoGAF forums and extended to the US, UK and Australian markets for the Xbox One. The demos for the two EA Sports games generally had a price of about $4.99 each.

However, this was not some new sales scheme but an "error in the system", according to an EA spokesperson. There's no word on what caused the issue but the demos should both be reset to their free prices on the Xbox One store by now. There's no word on if any actually purchased these demos during the error period but if that happened we would assume they will see their charges refunded.

Source: NeoGAF; Polygon

John Callaham
John Callaham
26 Comments
  • UPDATED already, its an error. so all calm the frik down. Got nothing to do with MS, EA Tried something new and messed up.
  • I am completely calm. You, on the other hand...
  • LOL, I don't think anyone is getting upset by this.
  • Just wait for it. EA will introduce something new. Well kinda already showed a small thing with this blunder.
  • It's not ms its ea. Classic ea tries to screw people over
  • It was an error, but maybe just for now. erhaps EA's planning something, and it got let out early? I have so little faith in EA as a company that I'm not convinced that they are planning that for the future.
  • Pretty sad but I agree with you. I don't trust EA at all.
  • I remember in the midst (or maybe early rumblings) of the Xbox One requirements, someone in an article somewhere pretty much called out demos for being bad for gaming and hoped to either do away with them or monetize them. I don't remember the exact wording. But I get the sentiment that creating some kind of barrier for demos (whether its charging for them or not releasing any) is something publishers are probably seriously discussing.
  • Demos bad for gaming? No. Only bad for companies who put out shitty games.
  • EA, Bethesda, Activision A.O talked about how demos will die for this Gen and the future. And see early acces and more beta's as the new big thing for gamers. This counts for PS4 too. Giving gamers more playtime in the game instead of releasing a maybe good short demo that might ruin the game experience. Paying for demos is an maybe upcoming project, but I think early acces will be the thing we will see allot more.
  • I typically don't buy a game unless there is a demo. Not for all games, but there are MANY I would not have purchased if not for the demo.
  • Well after reading this article.http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/07/02/eas-peter-moore-is-wro...
    I wouldn't be surprised if don't see E.A. try a whole bunch of dumb crap like make people pay for demos(what a joke), or see games from them with increasingly less content in their games.
  • So what you're saying is that the money hungry bastards made a mistake and charged people $4.99 for a demo of a good selling game? Yea, it was truly a mistake.
  • Ooh so it was just an error
  • Haha :D
    EA. Who would've thought ;)
    This company is just straight up evil. More evil than others. Waaaaay more.
  • This is why I torrent Ea games..!
  • And this is why our games cost 60USD. Thief...
  • Speaking in technicality, he is not a thief. Someone bought a game and gave it to him to play.
  • Some of you people are just pathetic. Who in their right business mind would charge for a demo?
  • Why wouldn't they? Gamers bitch about $60 games, incomplete games at $60 that want you to buy $60 more in DLC to complete the game and a host of other things and will turn around and support those games/publishers anyway. Why wouldn't a publisher then think they could bamboozle those same gamers with demos with a small fee?
  • Umm, waa waa, bitch bitch, complain complain. I feel better now .
  • the title made it sound like if it was charged after they acquired the demo... it's not like people have to buy them, I mean if you see a price tag... why would you buy it? it's obvious there is a mistake...
    but honestly they are demos, and crappy ones. FIFA's are always the same boring crap and it's so easy to score goals with no effort, and UFC while nice... it's also the same, because that's how sports games work, they don't really change much especially in recent years.
    maybe it's a way of saying "don't be cheap and buy the game, you already know what it is about anyway" ha!
  • BTW this was occurring on other platforms as well so nothing to do with xbox Posted via the WPC App for Android!
  • Also neowin is my source Posted via the WPC App for Android!
  • Ea tried to charge people for demos to see if they could get away with it but they blame live.. Sneaky bastards lol.
  • Or EA was trying to sample what's the market for Demos with price and how many are willing to pay if a price is put on these demos.