When EA Access was announced the service appeared to offer significant value but there were some questionable terms laid out as well. The “Play First” period, which offers the ability to play games “up to five days” prior to release, could be limited to as few as two hours and have portions of the game blocked. The time restriction seemed more likely to apply to story-driven games than the sports games which are is pretty much the sole force behind EA Access in its early days – and Season Ticket was the full three+ days with no limitations – until the company refused to comment on what restrictions might apply to Madden.

Meanwhile EA continued to collect money from subscribers who were not being given all the facts about the program. They proudly sent out messages on social media touting games being available to play five days early while refusing to respond to inquires about a time limit. Now today, with just three days until the Madden play period opens, they finally provided the details for Madden. EA Access subscribers will be able to play Madden for only six hours over that five day window with all of the modes available.

“Play First” is being marketed as a third of what makes up EA Access. For some people it may not matter at all, for others it may be the primary reason they were interested in signing up. Unfortunately EA chose to mislead people for weeks rather than be upfront about the specifics.