EA Sports WRC Is "EA Play" Account Really Necessary?

[newbert]

Every time I start up EA's WRC, it asks me to set up an EA Account. Thankfully, I'm able to bypass that by simply pressing <Esc>, so my question is whether I'm missing out on anything by not creating an account.?

(FWIW - Although I really dislike having to create a new account just to play a sim/game that I bought/own, I tried creating an account my first time through anyway. However, anything that I entered as a potential "EA ID" (when trying to create an account) is always declared "invalid". )

NOTE: After completing my first Time-Trial stage, WRC wouldn't allow me to post my (very mediocre) result to the online leaderboard. So, I guess that's something I'm missing. But is there anything else - especially content or feature-wise?

Thanks!

EDIT: For clarity.

 

[newbert]

Let me try again with a more succinct question:

I'm trying to create an EA account, but -----

Exactly what format is required to create an EA ID? I've tried anywhere from 4 to 8 characters and I get "EA ID is invalid". If I use a space and or a number, I get "invalid character".

Any help with this would be appreciated!

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Let me try again with a more succinct question:

I'm trying to create an EA account, but -----

Exactly what format is required to create an EA ID? I've tried anywhere from 4 to 8 characters and I get "EA ID is invalid". If I use a space and or a number, I get "invalid character".

Any help with this would be appreciated!

Genuinely no idea. My old EA account was made back in the Battlefield 3 days.

Have you tried to create an account on www.ea.com (top of the website, the small "man" there).
And then after creating there, using that?

 

[newbert]

Finally got it working, Ole........

It turns out that I needed to link it to my Steam account, instead of creating a new EA account from scratch. By linking it to my existing Steam account, it never asked me to enter an EA ID.

Thanks for responding!

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Finally got it working, Ole........

It turns out that I needed to link it to my Steam account, instead of creating a new EA account from scratch. By linking it to my existing Steam account, it never asked me to enter an EA ID.

Thanks for responding!

Oh. Well, that is a simpler solution, but also weird how it doesn't just straight up tell you that when you launch from Steam. Heh.