Used Game To Survive? EA Plans To Drop Online Pass

Krazy Kanuck writes "Introduced in 2010, Online Pass was marketed as a way to 'preserve' online content or DLC as titles were sold in the used game market. Many saw this as a way to cut out the second hand game market. EA has now decided to end this program 'partly because the players didn't like it.' Unfortunately this appears to only be for future released games, those previously released will still be subject to this feature. Activision and Ubisoft still use this form of content control, it will be interesting to see if they follow suit."

Re:Of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uuh no, matchmaking servers run by EA for many older sports games (like 2011 and older) are no longer online so I hope you like single player mode.

This is why people should never EVER buy multiplayer games without a LAN host option.

Resale Economics

[ThinkThis]

I think the game / console companies are not considering the upside of resellable games. When a kid on a budget decides to splurge $60 for a game, they do so knowing that they have the option to recover a portion of that money later on. If they love the game they keep it longer if not they dump it. The bottom line is that knowing you can get some of your money back makes it easier to take the risk of buying that pricey item. Imagine buying a new car with a new resell license. The value of the car would be diminished and the confidence to purchase would be lower. Sure Toyota won't make any money if I resell that Camry, but they got more money at sale time because as a buyer I see value in the ability to resell.