An important development in the business of used games happened yesterday: publisher EA has decided to sever its online pass program. If you haven’t been playing console games in the last two years, the online pass system effectively locks content behind a $10 paywall that ensured that even though publishers and developers wouldn’t receive money from the sales of used games, the opportunity to get a little money anyways. In an e-mail to the site Venture Beat, senior corporate communications director John Reseburg said that “None of our new EA titles will include the feature” and that the reason for discontinuing the program was due to fact that “many players didn’t respond to the format.”
While the $10 program was mostly used for multiplayer content by Sony, Ubisoft and THQ, some publishers attempted to gate single player games, like in the case of Batman: Arkham City and the Catwoman section of the game. Whether this spells the end for the now common paywall is yet to be seen.
Something else to keep in mind are EA’s CFO fairly recent comments on how many of their games will have microtransactions. Though he did step back from what he said and clarified that while most all mobile games will have microtransactions and bigger titles will have Battlefield 3 style season passes, Mass Effect 3, Dead Space 3, and SimCity all include micropayment options.
