EA is cutting prices for DLC and Online passes for several games on Xbox Live Marketplace as the company moves away from the online-pass business model which was rejected by the gaming community.
Some of the games subject to discount are listed below.
- Alice: Madness Returns
- Battlefield: Bad Company 2 VIP
- Bulletstorm Online Pass
- Dragon Age: Origins – The Stone Prisoner DLC
- Dragon Age 2: The Black Emporium DLC
- Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Online Pass
- Mass Effect 2 Cerberus Network
- Medal of Honor Online Pass
- Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed Online Pass
- Skate 3 Skate Share Pack
Games that were priced around $10 and $15 are now free; however, the discount applies only to the Xbox 360 version of the games as prices on the PSN remain unaffected.
The online pass system provided an additional revenue stream from secondary sales through an activation code that had to be purchased by players who bought games secondhand, the code allowed access to online features like DLC and multiplayer.
The process was designed to discourage players from acquiring used games; However, EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg told GamesBeat “many players didn’t respond to the format.” This is the reason why EA decided to forgo online passes.
“As we discontinue Online Pass for our new EA titles, we are also in the process of eliminating it from all our existing EA titles as well,” the representative wrote. “We heard the feedback from players and decided to do away with Online Pass altogether.
Players will see it first with some EA Sports titles, where a prompt to enter an Online Pass code will no longer appear in-game; with other titles we are simply making Online Passes available free of charge online.
These are rolling updates that are taking effect over the next several weeks. We hope players continue to enjoy our games and online services for a long time to come.”
