14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts has announced that it plans to introduce, starting with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, the golf simulation coming out on June 8, Online Passes, which will allow players who have them to gain access to the online sections of its sports titles. The passes will be free for those who get the videogames new and will cost 10 dollars for those who buy them used.
John Riccitiello, the “take fun out of games” Chief Executive Officer of Electronic Arts, has told investors after his company announced better than expected results that the new Online Pass initiative will allow players to get access to “boatload more content to experience than they otherwise would” adding that teams can now work on DLC for the games that they ship.
The company man also stated that “We used to literally pull our teams off of a game within maybe four to six weeks pre-ship and they'd go work on something else because the game was done, it was going into manufacturing. Their jobs were done.”
Another Electronic Arts executive talked about the company aiming to actually shift the way players are looking at their videogames, from believing that the disk is the end product to thinking that the experience starts with the game disk but then extends to the online game modes. Sports games like FIFA and Madden NFL are especially well suited for the Online Pass initiative because they have extensive multiplayer components, from simple competitive matches to dynasty modes.
EA has already implemented the 10 Dollar Project in titles like Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2 and the FPS Battlefield: Bad Company 2, allowing those who pick up the games new to access content for free. The publisher is saying that the code redemption rate is higher than 70% for those titles, which bodes well for the Online Passes initiative.