Online Pass factoring into reviews

[oneamongthefence]

Well if you buy the game new the online portion is free. If you buy it used, its probably been out a while and there are plenty of user review out there to help you decide whether to pay for the online features.

[nuckles2k2]

Yea I'm still kind of confused by how people still don't understand this.

EA directly sells their games to stores like Gamestop, Best Buy, Sears, etc. And they also sell their games to distributors who then sell the games wholesale to independently owned stores. When a consumer sells their game to Gamestop, online, or to a friend...that's a transaction that causes new copies of Madden to remain on store shelves and stores don't have to restock their inventory of the game. If it's Gamestop that's selling a used game for $54.99 after buying it for $25....well that's about a $30 profit per game sold; AND they didn't get that game directly from EA, so that's another sale of an EA game where EA didn't see any money.

So if EA gives a code with each game that only works once for the online features, and then charges everyone without a code $10...they're making a little bit of money from the used sale of their games. I don't see how that should factor into the review of the game, at all.