A has just given gamers the finger, as in the pointing one. Stating an effort to fight piracy and the used games market from cutting into their profit margins, they have introduced the Online Pass.
The Online Pass is a code that will come with, at first select, EA packaged titles. The code will allow you full access to your purchase. Without it, you’re stuck in offline mode. They say that it “rewards” gamers with “game-specific, one-time-use registration code for online services, features and bonus content.”
Whoa, online services? So what they are saying is that you won’t be able to get your new game online unless, well, you’re online. That’s fine I guess except that it’s on the PS3 and Xbox 360, systems which have built-in online game offerings for most titles. So they’re going to launch their games and cut them off from any sort of XBLA or PSN services.
Now we see the true evil behind them running all of their games on their own servers. They can simply block access to whomever they wish when they haven’t got the secret handshake and password.
Read the rest at Gamers Daily News