Next month, season three goes live in EA’s free-to-play reboot of Skate. The big new addition in the upcoming season is Grom, an island that players can visit and skate around on. However, the island, which is a slightly updated version of the tutorial island, is essentially locked behind a paywall, which goes against a promise EA made before launch.
On February 19, EA and Full Circle posted a blog talking about some of the changes coming in Skate’s third season, which goes live on March 10. In the post, EA revealed that a new island will be available to skaters in the next season. But accessing this island won’t be as simple or free as fast traveling to it once the update is live.
During the first month of season three, skate.Pass Premium holders will be able to visit Grom as much as they want, whenever they want. For those who haven’t paid for Skate’s battle pass, they’ll be locked out until April. That’s when a “very special multi-week event” will happen, and all players will be invited to Grom’s “grand opening.” After that wraps up, free access to Grom will be restricted once more to Premium pass owners. Non-paying players will be able to spend 500 rip chips, an in-game currency you earn by playing, to buy a day pass to the island.
Did you get all that? A bit confusing, but somewhat understandable for a free-to-play game. However, there’s a problem. Before the launch of Skate in September last year, EA made some promises about the game. In a video posted in July 2022, the devs said that when they started exploring the free-to-play model, they had to set some “hard ground rules to follow.” One of those rules included “No map areas locked behind paywalls.” Whoops! It also doesn’t help that the new island is just a slightly expanded version of the game’s tutorial island, something that is very clear to see in EA’s own comparison image in the blog.
The backlash to Skate paywalling an island
As you might expect, Skate players weren’t happy about all of this and started flooding social media and Reddit with posts pointing out the promise EA had broken. This eventually led to the official Skate account on X posting a statement about Grom.
“We launched Skate in Early Access so we could build it with players, not behind closed doors,” EA wrote. “Since September, we’ve been updating the world, tweaking characters, and adding features our players have been asking for, and there is lots more coming. Yes, sometimes plans have to change. That’s part of the deal when you’re building in public. We’re here, we’re listening, and we’re going to keep shaping Skate together.”
Kotaku has reached out to EA for more information.
While it is true that game development is messy, going back on this promise has opened up a can of worms. EA also promised that Skate would not contain paid loot boxes or pay-to-win elements. Why should players trust EA to stick to those promises if it is willing to deviate on this issue and toss an island behind a paywall, even one that can be avoided by grinding for currency?
Regardless, I’m not shocked EA has decided to renege. The company is likely under pressure to make more money across all of its games after announcing its upcoming deal to sell itself to Saudi Arabia and private equity goons for $55 billion.