This dude demanded there be no online pass

Just when you thought online passes were the norm for all new EA releases, Syndicate comes along and breaks the rules all over again. The publisher has confirmed that the upcoming first-person shooter reboot will ship without the used games prevention measure because it wants to lower the barrier of entry for the game’s multiplayer component.

EA Partners executive producer, Jeff Gamon, told Eurogamer.net:

We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible. The co-op is equal billing in this. We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product.

Typically it’s policy for EA’s releases to include the online pass system. But, this doesn’t always extend to EA Partners releases such as Crysis 2 and Portal 2 – both of which shipped without online passes. Bulletstorm, on the other hand, required an online pass for its online co-op mode.

Gamon explained:

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. Maybe another reason for not having the Online Pass is we were confident in the scope of the online game.

Gamon reckons that across Syndicate’s nine multiplayer maps, players can expect about six-seven hours of gameplay on a single playthrough. That, in addition to the game’s beefy single-player campaign, means Starbreeze isn’t expecting too many early second hand sales and rentals.

See, the solution to this whole used game sales thing is simple: instead of locking people out of content, just give them lots to play instead. Easy.

[source eurogamer.net]