EA's Online Pass thing is not really that bad. Used games are not that much cheaper than new games to begin with. And as for renters, they get 7 days of free online.
That all said, I think this is a baby step towards the industry moving towards a digital-only Steam-esque/PSPgo-esque model where gamers can't resell their games or rent them. If that happens, console gaming will turn into the dire state that is PC gaming. PC gaming right now is basically Blizzard, The Sims, Valve, MMOs, free to play games and casual games. Traditional PC gaming is dying out. PC gamers, at least the ones who pay for games, love to talk about how great Steam is. But in reality, Steam is only popular because of the frequent bargain prices. The bargain bin hurts the wallet of developers too. So should we ban the bargain bin too? Whereas on the console side of things, Activision can sell Call of Duty for $60 and get millions and millions of sales Day 1. PC gamers are cheap skates compared to console gamers. But I don't blame them. Because the PC gaming industry has basically said bend over and take it and theyre not taking it. Theyre saying 'fuck you' to $50-60 (yes some have the audacity to charge $60 for PC games) PC games that can't be resold. And they're waiting for those games to drop to like $5-20 on Steam before buying it.
The industry seems to have this belief that gamers are addicts who will have no problem spending more and more on their habit.. erm I mean hobby. The game industry has this sense of entitlement. That everyone of their $60 games deserves $60. When in reality the Steam business model has shown us that as you take away the ability to resell games, gamers become a lot more patient and pay less per game. At the end of the day, it balances out and the gaming industry doesn't get anymore revenue from gamers. A good game is a good game whether you get it Day 1 or you get it a year later and PC gamers seem to be a lot more aware of that than console gamers (who have been relying on GameStop trade-ins to make it feasible to always buy the latest shit). When you play a new release, you get more excited at first. But then eventually that wears off and then you realize that it's no different than a one year old game of similar quality.
