Anyone who owns the title, first or second-hand, they want to have access ”to the entire product.” Gamon also argued another reason is because they were ”confident in the scope” of it.
The online pass was instituted by EA as a way to monetize second-hand sales, which publishers don’t otherwise get any revenue from. Syndicate would have it ”under normal circumstances”.
Starbreeze is featuring co-op play as a major part of the game where just one map can take hours to finish. ”We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible. The co-op is equal billing in this,” said Jeff Gamon of EA Partners.
”We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product. Maybe another reason for not having the Online Pass is we were confident in the scope of the online game.”
“There are nine maps. It’s hard to say, but just to play through the maps once on normal is a good six, seven hours. To progress your character and upgrade a few weapons is a heap of content. That and the single-player campaign means hopefully we won’t see much in the way of early second hand sales and rentals,” he continued.
It’s considered unusual now for any title coming out of EA Partners, or even EA itself, to not have some kind of online pass system in place. DLC is the most common ‘bait on the hook’ for the system.
”Under normal circumstances it would have had an online pass, but because it didn’t have competitive multiplayer and because we wanted as many people as possible to be playing co-op, we got away with it,” said Gamon.
Syndicate releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC February 21st in the US, 24th in EU.
