Polygon has confirmed that Electronic Arts will not be bringing back online passes even though Microsoft has pulled the DRM policies. When EA removed Online Passes, many have thought that they did that because the Xbox One didn’t allow used game sales or any sort of trading in order to give more money to the publishers. However, this proves false after Electronic Arts have officially confirmed that Online Passes are not coming back regardless of Xbox One’s big news today.

This is what Electronic Arts said to Polygon regarding Online Passes:

“Nothing else on today’s news, but did want to be clear that our online pass decision was based on player feedback, and there’s no change.”

All is good, and it’s nice to hear the confirmation that online passes will not be appearing anytime soon on next-generation platforms. Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will be launching this Holiday.

Check back on GamingBolt for more updates and leave any comments if you wish in the comment section.

Electronic Arts chief operating officer Peter Moore, for his part, revealed to Polygon that the company was undecided on their stance. “Sony have announced what they are going to do which is, y’know, business as usual, and then Microsoft are looking at allowing a publisher to opt-in, should they choose to do so.

“But if we opt in, do [Microsoft] charge a fee, and if so, how much? We have not internally even begun to sit down and answer those questions.”

He also denied that EA was pushing for any kind of system to stop the sale of used games and that they need to work out what to do in light of Sony’s announcement. “EA has never had a conversation, and I have been present at all of them, with all of the manufacturers, saying you must put a system in place that allows us to take a piece of the action or even stop it. Absolutely incorrect.

“We will figure out what we need to do. I’m not trying to back-pedal but this thing just happened and we need to reconvene and hear what people think and talk to our retail partners and our first party partners. We had no idea what Sony was going to announce. We’ll reconvene next week and figure it all out.”

Moore also admitted that the online pass system, which has recently been removed by EA, was a mistake and “more trouble to the consumer than it was worth.”

Electronic Arts has officially announced that they will be discounting their Online Pass program.

EA spoke to GamesBeat regrading the Online Pass and this is what they had to say:

Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass,” EA’s senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg told GamesBeat in an e-mail. “None of our new EA titles will include that feature.”

“Initially launched as an effort to package a full menu of online content and services, many players didn’t respond to the format,” Reseburg said. “We’ve listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward.”

The Online Pass was a one-time use code that was used to activate online play. This program originally started in 2010 and was supposed to be only exclusive to EA Sports games. However, the Online Pass eventually went past the sports games and into other titles.

What do you think of this change? Let us know in the comments below.

Check back on GamingBolt for more news regarding Electronic Arts future plans.

Fuse will not require an online pass according to Insomniac Games, the developers of Fuse and previous franchises like Ratchet and Clank and Resistance on the PlayStation 3.

Inomniac Games recently posted a FAQ on their website and the answer to the question “Online pass?” reads: “Nope. But, you should still buy it new to support us because there are no microtransactions to make up for it, though.”

It’s not surprising for an EA Partners game to skip the online pass system. Crysis 3 offers multiplayer without the need to actually buy the game brand new.

Fuse will be coming out on May 31st for PlayStation 3 and Xbxox 360, with a demo following up near the launch of the game.

Check back GamingBolt for the full review of Fuse when it launches later this year on May 31st for the current generation consoles.

Source – Insomniac Games

Via their official FAQ, in response to whether the game would require an online pass, Insomniac stated that, “Nope. But, you should still buy it new to support us because there are no micro-transactions to make up for it, though.”

On the state of the demo, Insomniac has confirmed that there will be a public demo “on both the 360 and PS3 closer to release.” This could mean somewhere around the beginning of May, since FUSE is slated to release in North America on May 28th.

The FAQ also states that you’ll be able to play the game online with friends or at home, and you can even go online in split-screen mode with a friend and have two other players fill in the remaining spots.

EA’s Syndicate will not have an online pass we’ve come to know. At a time that almost every EA games’ comes out with an online pass, you’d think it was a mandatory thing.

That all changes with Syndicate though – the reboot whose demo is now available on Xbox Live and PSN. This piece of info came from Jeff Gamon, who is the EA Partners boss.

Their justification for this was that this decision was made due to the game’s dependence on the co-op. Online pass just limits their audience.

“We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible. The co-op is equal billing in this,” Gannon told Eurogamer.

“We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product.

“Maybe another reason for not having the Online Pass is we were confident in the scope of the online game,” he added.

“There are nine maps. It’s hard to say, but just to play through the maps once on normal is a good six, seven hours. To progress your character and upgrade a few weapons is a heap of content.

“That and the single-player campaign means hopefully we won’t see much in the way of early second hand sales and rentals.”

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.