Earlier in December 2009, Electronic Arts gaming company announced it was getting into the prepaid debit card business via its sporting game division.

Branded under the Visa debit card umbrella, the card allows you to build up points which you can then use toward acquiring an Electronic Arts sports game.

With young males being the primary, targeted demographic of sporting game divisions of gaming companies, it could be a real boon to them in that they offer something they don’t have access to with a bank.

Of course adult males also enjoy sporting games, so it then generates the question of whether this is a good deal and if it’s helpful in your finances beyond making it easier to acquire a sporting game to play.

First with kids who have no other means to pay than cash, this could be helpful in that it and an enforced and built-in limit in that you can’t spend beyond what’s on the card. So if it’s parents doing this for their children, or a child taking some of their own cash and investing it in the card, it does have the value of limiting the purchase to what is on the card.

From the standpoint of making it easier to buy games this is a good deal, as many of the things to generate those actions are included with the card. Things like building up points to use toward purchasing more games, and young kids without access to a bank account can use the cards to pay for game subscription fees on the Internet or to buy a variety of virtual products offered by Electronic Arts.

So if you want an easy way to conduct business with more options, a Visa debit card from Electronic Arts could be the right thing for you.

Now the problem. Since we’re a savings Web site, the problem with a prepaid card like this is it’s just too good, and it offers you absolutely so many ways to spend money more easily, that it could get you to spend far more than you normally would, defeating the purpose of the usual use of a debit card, which is built-in restrictions which keep you on budget and limited in your spending.

In other words, you’re going to be spending more money with a debit card created for the purpose of acquiring products from a company, and which offers you the carrot of rewards to get you to spend more than you had planned to.

It’s a great business move which will generate more sales, and will also add more loyalty to Electronic Arts.

The card itself, like most debit cards, will be re-loadable, and can be filled from a direct deposit of your payroll check, your regular checking account or even another debit card, among other ways.

Again, you can only decide if this will do you any good. When a company makes it easier for you to spend on their products, they’re making it easier for you to spend. If you have self-control and can manage the debit card responsibly, it’s a good idea. If you can’t you’ll find that this really isn’t a financial tool but a marketing ploy which will take money away from you rather than help you save it.

It may be better just to get a regular prepaid debit card than a specialized one like the Electronic Arts one, which is almost guaranteed to cost you more than you would save.

Tags: Prepaid Debit Cards

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 1:56 pm and is filed under reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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