That EA is ”diffusing or covering” online costs with this is not viewed as ”unreasonable.” Online Pass is well underway and there’s ‘no backlash’.
”The reception of the program has been positive,” EA chief financial officer Eric Brown said. They thought about Online Pass ”pretty carefully and there hasn’t been any significant push-back from the consumer,” he continued.
”…because I think people realise that if you’re buying a physical disc and it requires an attachment to someone else’s network and servers,” he added, ”people realise bandwidth isn’t free.” Any who buy 2nd hand games with Online Pass will have to pay $10 for a one-time code to access multiplayer. 1st hand copies get a free code.
”So the fact that we’re diffusing or covering online costs is not viewed to be unreasonable. We’re well into this program and there is no consumer backlash.” Brown believes 20 percent of all game sales are now trade-ins which publishers get nothing from.
Ubisoft has voiced support for their own Online Pass-like system. ”Most of the games we are releasing next year will have from the start downloadable content available, and we are looking very carefully at what is happening with EA regarding what we are calling the $10 solution, and will probably be following that line sometime in the future,” said Ubi.
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