Ok, I am the first one to say that EA Sports makes a half-assed iteration of Madden football every year. As much as Ian Cummings (the lead designer of the game) likes to make it known that they can push all sorts of "new" technological breakthroughs every year. Now they have a new policy that will most likely help or destroy online gaming and used video game sales.
THE ONLINE PASS (Here is a brief article about it)
The problem is simple, if you don't buy the game brand new ($59.99) you will not get to play online by default. If you by the game brand new, you will be able to use a code on the back of the game manual to enter into the online gaming community as part of the retail purchase.
However, if you buy the game on eBay or Gamestop used - you will most likely have to fork over $10 to play the game online.
Much of this is coming from the study by EA that showed over 350,000 people played Madden 10 online once and never played it again. Apparently, they must think that making people buy the game new in order to get online play included is a good idea for the community as a whole.
I hate to be the harbringer of reality... actually, I don't mind it at all... BUT
Online gaming is a crapshoot no matter if you pay for it or not. Everyone that plays XBox live knows that $50 a year is enough to bring you gaming bliss or hours of rage quitting.
Madden is a different beast than Halo or Call of Duty though.
This is where I start to get scared. Because, if Halo or CoD end up charging $10 for online play, it will put the gamer into a situation that forces them to make a decision between single player or multiplayer. I feel that this will simply result in games becoming a bunch of microtransactions where you have to piece together in multiple purchases what you used to get for free.
Then again, Madden isn't worth a single transaction, let alone many microtransactions.
If you were looking for a reason to hate EA Sports, you may have just found it.
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