EA Ditches Online Pass Fees For Select Xbox 360 Titles [UPDATE]

[rasputin0009]

EDIT: I'd hate Gamestop over EA any day. And everyday.

Can you personally explain to me this hate of GS? It does not seem that bad and I got the opportunity to purchase Fatal Frame 1,2 and 3 for about 30 dollars. The staff tried to push a subscription or something, but stopped after I said "no thank you". What did they do to you?

EA, on the other hand, consistently uses practices that necessitate the creation and use of databases such as this:

http://www.drmdatabase.net/database

EDIT: Probably closer to 40, but still a good deal.

Why would you support gamestop? They're not there to make your gaming experience any better. They've got such a stranglehold on the industry, that it forces the publishers to come up with new waus to get cash. Why do you think new games on steam still cost full price compared to retail? It's because gamestop threatens publishers that they won't stock their games if they sell for cheaper somewhere else. And also retail-exclusive content. Biggest villain for that bullshit would be gamestop, too. Fuck gamestop.

You're funny. You actually believe that GS can force publisher.
Games on Steam are full price because they can sell them at full price and earn more. If we magically remove GS, games would still be full price and maybe even worse. The Full price could increase because there is no competition with used games.

There is absolutely nothing that GS can do to force publisher to sell PC games at full price on Steam because GS hardly has any PC games. They can't say "We decrease the size of the PC game shelf" because there hardly is any shelf.
And they have no reason to threaten to decrease the shelf size of console games because Steam isn't competing with GS. So high sales on Steam wouldn't impact GS.

The "GS forces publisher to make DLC and increase prices" is a bullshit PR move from big publisher. GS is just a scapegoat, same as pirates and second hand sales. The big publisher make bad games and they will blame everyone that their 4 hour long, $60 game sold badly.

Publisher can live without GS. GS can't live without publisher. Anyone telling you otherwise is delusional.
Sure, GS can do some damage to the publisher, but at what cost? Going under? I can hardly see a capitalistic company going under for principle.

I'm assuming you don't primarily speak English so I'll ignore that you gave me a headache with that terrible grammar.

So you think that GS has no control? Don't they have somewhere close to 50% of the retail market for games? So if they told a publisher that they'll stop selling their games, the publishers wouldn't notice a 50% loss in sales? Gamestop has a lot of publishers to choose from and a huge market share to throw around. They have a lot of control.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

And yet somehow I smell a rat. After all, it's EA.
I see people speaking of "evil" retailers, all I will say is that I don't care which pedophile burglar is worse.

 

[PBMcNair]

I wonder if Gamestop will actively tell their customers that the Online Pass is dead.

I saw a copy of Dungeons and Dragons Online for sale in my local Gamestop a year after it went free to play, so my initial guess would be no. But one way or another, it will probably be a decision made by someone way up the ladder. I have a feeling nothing will change until word comes down from managment.

 

[FoolKiller]

Thank you EA.

 

[Dragonbums]

-Undoes the cancellation of Medal of Honor; states it will not rush another one and will only publish one when it is ready.
-Gets rid of Always-On
-Hasn't done stupid campaigns to promote games (I'm looking at you, Dead Space commercials.)
-Attempts to fix the botched launch of Sims
-Gets rid of Online Passes



Everyone will still complain about EA because gamers recently have become inconsistent whiners who can never be satisfied.
"It's unforgivable"
So EA will forever burn as the most hated company. Because.

EDIT: I'd hate Gamestop over EA any day. And everyday.

You can't just screw over dozens of studios, millions of customers, a bunch of well loved franchises, and expect people to let their guard down the moment you claim you are doing something good. A lot of people were screwed over by EA. Consumers and Devs alike.
For them to do something so...not EA calls for alarm.
No one is complaining yet. However we have a very good reason to be wary of this new development. A couple of good things, could turn out to be hiding even worse scenarios.

 

[Frezzato]

snip

I saw a copy of Dungeons and Dragons Online for sale in my local Gamestop a year after it went free to play, so my initial guess would be no. But one way or another, it will probably be a decision made by someone way up the ladder. I have a feeling nothing will change until word comes down from managment.

Odd, a quick search shows news of the end of Online Passes two weeks ago but today was the final nail in the coffin. Considering that Gamestop still has listings for Online Passes on their website, and when I called a local GS the employee told me they were still selling them...

Something strange is going on between EA and GS. Probably like a colossal 'Screw You', passive-aggressive corporate pissing contest.

Even in the UK, Game [http://www.game.co.uk/en/battlefield-3-online-pass-157442?pageSize=20&searchTerm=online%20pass] still lists EA Online Passes.

 

[weirdee]

still suspicious of them

will wait for next gen news...

maybe this is the policy of the new guy in charge?

 

[glitch388]

I can now get Zaeed for free, so I am not complaining. I never thought I'd actually say this anytime soon, but thank you EA.

 

[RicoADF]

-Undoes the cancellation of Medal of Honor; states it will not rush another one and will only publish one when it is ready.
-Gets rid of Always-On
-Hasn't done stupid campaigns to promote games (I'm looking at you, Dead Space commercials.)
-Attempts to fix the botched launch of Sims
-Gets rid of Online Passes



Everyone will still complain about EA because gamers recently have become inconsistent whiners who can never be satisfied.
"It's unforgivable"
So EA will forever burn as the most hated company. Because.

EDIT: I'd hate Gamestop over EA any day. And everyday.

If they make sure that games don't require an online mode (I'm looking at you Simcity) and allows offline for the times that servers are down/whatever the reason, then I will happily buy another EA PC game, but atm that has only put them back on the console list of "will buy - but not at full price" for the forseeable future.

 

[rednose1]

EA still has a long way to go with me, but this is a good start. I've even begun to hold out hope the latest EA news story is a positive one, vice the reflex, "Ugh, what has EA done now??" response.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Seems a bit stink for those people that would have purchased them, but hey, it's something.

They still have a long way to go before most people trust them, but perhaps this is to do with their old CEO being gone, maybe the new one wants to try be a little more friendly.

 

[grey_space]

Fair play EA well done. Fingers crossed for DA3!

 

[Pebkio]

Oh, yeah, no, this is awesome.

Except the part where it's still an online pass. Last I checked, my TV is still too "in another room" from the router for me to have access to any of that extra content, even if it is free.

 

[CleverCover]

When I read this I got the "calm before the storm" feeling instead of "great relief".
I'm tentative about it. This could be a prelude to something glorious from EA or something horrible.

 

[Osaka117]

Looks like item #1 on the new CEOs to do list was "Make sure we're not voted worst company in America for the 3rd year in a row."

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Well ok. Once you're done being anti-consumer, the next step is to publish games I will want to buy. When you've done that, get back to me and I might give you some of my money. Simple, right?

 

[RicoADF]

-Undoes the cancellation of Medal of Honor; states it will not rush another one and will only publish one when it is ready.
-Gets rid of Always-On
-Hasn't done stupid campaigns to promote games (I'm looking at you, Dead Space commercials.)
-Attempts to fix the botched launch of Sims
-Gets rid of Online Passes



Everyone will still complain about EA because gamers recently have become inconsistent whiners who can never be satisfied.
"It's unforgivable"
So EA will forever burn as the most hated company. Because.

EDIT: I'd hate Gamestop over EA any day. And everyday.

-implying that they will keep their word and not rush games
-Where? IIRC SimCity still requires always-online
-while their PR are lying as much as they can
-HAHAHAHA, no. Fixing Sims would require removing the always online drm and they said they won't do that
-Because the Xbone and PS4 have integrated ways of preventing used games. The point of the online pass was to force people who bought games used to pay some extra. They ditched it because they have no use for it anymore. It's now a part of the console. Now EVERY game on the Xbone has an online pass.

The PS4 doesn't have it built in, Sony gave a direct answer saying that they don't have it supported and they never planned to have it. I cbf to find the link again as I've had to repeat this too many times, seriously people do some research instead of spewing bullcrap. Microsoft (for now) is doing it, Sony is not. They also are not requireing online in any way and don't have a Kinnect that you must go online 24/7. Also they wont be hard to develop for, that was PS3, it's not PS4.

 

[darthzew]

I was really hoping I'd see Dragon Age on this list and lo-and-behold! This is a good move by EA. I appreciate the olive branch and I hope it means continuing good things from them.

 

[afroebob]

Well, I'm not going to praise EA for not being dicks about online passes anymore because its stupid to praise someone for stopping a practice they should have never been doing. It would be like praising the Boston Strangler for deciding he was going to stop killing people.

Anyhow, I am still glad that they did stop, and I hope that this new CEO will finally start making EA into a company that isn't a complete pile of shit. Hell, get rid of the SimCity DRM and I might decide to go buy it, and make a game that is actually good and I might buy it and stop being total douchebags and I might start liking you again, and believe me nobody is more willing to forgive EA than me, once they earn my forgiveness at least. I truly do miss liking them.