EA makes online pass content free in existing games

Electronic Arts is dropping out of the Online Pass racket, and several of its properties already reflect the decision. Games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Dragon Age II, and Mass Effect 2 have had their pass-gated components priced down to free on Xbox Live (via NeoGAF), and EA says more are to come.

"As we discontinue Online Pass for our new EA titles, we are also in the process of eliminating it from all our existing EA titles as well," an EA representative told our sister site CVG.

"Players will see it first with some EA Sports titles, where a prompt to enter an Online Pass code will no longer appear in-game; with other titles we are simply making Online Passes available free of charge online."

The rolling updates will take effect over the next several weeks, until the used-game monetizing initiative is no more. At least, no more from EA--how Microsoft and Sony plan to deal with used games on their respective next-gen consoles remains hazy.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.