Wanna play the new Madden Football before your friends?

Videogame maker EA Sports will sell players access to full versions of its games before they come out in stores. For $25 a year, subscribers will be able to download Madden NFL Football, NHL Hockey, FIFA Soccer, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NCAA Football three days before the disc versions of the games go on sale. After the trial period, gamers will have to play the full price for the new game–but the progress they made in those first few days will be saved.

Apparently there’s demand. From All Things D:

Market research revealed that far and away the thing people wanted most was early access and to “look at the game prior to the general population, and start getting the controls down,” [Peter] Moore [president of EA Sports] said. “It’s like they get to training camp three days early.”

Maybe in sports-video-game-land this makes sense?