Online Access To EA Sports Games To Be Granted Via One-Time Code

 EA
$10-$15 per pass. Marketing benefits.

Me, purchaser of new EA game
Instantly lowered second hand value. Nothing. Can of worms type things; continued employment of similar, possibly worse, more anti-consumer practices.
 
Where do you stand? You can understand EA's justification all you want, but that's ultimately what it boils down to. 

 
Here's a wall of text I made.  
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Justification : EA has zero right to a piece of the used sales. But EA is running their own server network. It's a service they provide that is separate from Xbox Live. It costs money to maintain. When you resell a game the result for EA on the server usage side is the same as if someone bought a new copy.

But of course from the consumer's point of view all you see is you getting charged more and getting nothing in return. Or well, you get that, lowered second hand value, the ability to continue supporting these sort of practices in the future, possibly worse practices in the future...

..And it's worth adding at this point that something worse already has happened. EA charges $15 for a Bad Company 2 VIP pass, which renders half of the maps inaccessible. All of these maps appear to have been put on the disc, locked away and are then made available periodically, advertised as free map packs. So far 6/8 maps are available. What all this amounts to is you paying for a worse, lesser product. While EA gets to reap the marketing benefits, artificially elongate interest in the game, keeping people from selling the game, keeping it in the headlines, increasing sales, and gets an additional revenue stream. It is absolute bullshit.

I made a thread about this on another forum and the general indifference was very scary and probably and unfortunately indicative of the future we can expect. Medal of Honor I'm sure will employ a similar practice. I will not buy that game if it does. I will not buy any game that does. This is the point where I just draw the line. 
 
Also it's worth noting that there are a lot of people who buy games that are not informed about the goingsons of the industry. EA is uniquely able to at least justify a charge like this, but this crowd won't know that. What will other publishers do if this venture is successful?

But I would at least like to be informed. I would very much appreciate it if the enthusiast press would ask questions regarding this type of thing and not fucking back down until you get an answer. Because with Bad Company 2 I did not know I was getting screwed over until the second "free" map pack, one month after release, was automatically available in the menu.

But EA is running their own server network. It's a service they provide that is separate from Xbox Live. It costs money to maintain. When you resell a game the result for EA on the server usage side is the same as if someone bought a new copy.

First I hardly buy sports games, but I agree this will extend past sports titles if successful. Second the only used games I buy are $10-20 titles. At that price point, as an informed consumer, I think adding another $10 to give something to the developer/publisher is acceptable. It is still my choice to access these online modes. For those who buy a used game for $5-$10 off new price, you are part of the problem, stop feeding EB/Gamestop. I have no sympathy for you.  That being said the retailers need to be up front with their customers and make very clear at the point of purchase that used is not the same as new for $5 dollars less. I really have no faith that this message will be delivered clearly.

I don't mind this, but I would be very peeved if they took it even further, and decided to make games playable only after inputting a one-time code. Unless, of course, they allow people to buy a seperate code so that they can play even if they bought the game used.  
 
But it really is a slippery slope. Consumers really should have the ability of choice, and if publishers take this too far, that will no longer be the case. Should that happen, however, I think we will see a lot of court cases.

It's a good thing I don't play any EA sports games then.

This is just the beginning. I get why EA is doing this but ultimately I think trying to cut out the used game business is unwise. I get that they don't get any money from used sales but a lot of trade ins are used in order to pay for new games. I definitely wouldn't buy as many games if I could get some money of them buy trading in my old games. Also is a game really worth full asking price in most cases? I'm usually happy to buy a game knowing that I can get a portion of that money back by trading it in even if its not that long. If this move to a new only market continues then I think ultimately it will in fact result in less sales overall. Some people just don't have the disposable income to buy all there games new, your not going to get any money out of them by punishing them by denying content or features. These people do subsidize the initial adopters by buying their games though and their money does filter up.