We have a company who has been ultra aggressive about monetizing their content. Let's look at the moves they've made to aggressively nickel and dime the paying customer:
Season Pass Content "Pay us $25 now, and play them 72 hours before each one releases! (You'll still have to buy the game). And a free hit towards our Weekly DLC money gravy train!
"Cheats" DLC: Want another extra home recruiting state in NCAA? How about some additional stadiums for FIFA.. or maybe some extra cards for the Ultimate Team mode? Yup.. we can do that for you.. for a price, of course.
Online Pass: You didn't buy new, did you, you dirrrrrrrtttyy pirate. You're playing our game without paying us. We don't care that we already got paid for that copy, we didn't get paid again when you bought it. So, we're locking down about 45% of the game till you kick in at least $10 to make our coffers richer.
Needless to say, EA has been grasping with both hands, so are we to expect they'll suddenly decide, out of the goodness of their hearts, that they'll remove one of the toll bridges, especially one that they hate. EA has been at the forefront of claiming that used game sales hurt the industry.
No.. Instead, I think, they're trying to get someone else to play the heavy for them.
It's long been rumored that Sony and Microsoft have anti-used games features built into their next generation systems (Sony holds a patent on blocking used games, for the next Xbox,, it's rumored that Microsoft has a built in check that can be sent on a game by game basis to require an always on connection, with the requisite checking of disc details._
It's no more than a rumor at this point (and I don't think tomorrow's Xbox reveal will do much of anything to debunk that), but call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think that EA's going for the bump in goodwill now by announcing it, and then hoping Microsoft and Sony take the blame when used games are locked out.
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