Just saw an interesting article on the net about Crysis 2 and an "EA Online Pass". Does this mean that for some games you buy from EA you need to pay an online fee to activate the game multiplayer?

The article also said that there was talk of Crysis 2 NOT having this. So, we don't have to pay more?

I would love to play Crysis 2 and all of its' parts but cannot use a credit-card online. Will this be a game for me? (I have not heard of this before.)

ty!

edit: hmm. does this mean that you can activate the game for one account only but don't have to pay anything?

Just saw an interesting article on the net about Crysis 2 and an "EA Online Pass". Does this mean that for some games you buy from EA you need to pay an online fee to activate the game multiplayer?

The article also said that there was talk of Crysis 2 NOT having this. So, we don't have to pay more?

I would love to play Crysis 2 and all of its' parts but cannot use a credit-card online. Will this be a game for me? (I have not heard of this before.)

ty!

edit: hmm. does this mean that you can activate the game for one account only but don't have to pay anything?
Well i believe its like Blizzard , once u buy a game u have to activate ur account from EA ( The Code activation will be on ur CD or Box or w/e ) And u can just activate 1 account only and there wont be fee for sure ! buy a game = enjoy all the features

Here's the source:
http://www.gamertagradio.com/new/?p=2463

During my recent trip to NYC I was able to get some hands on time with Crysis 2 and a few minutes with one of the developers from Crytek. As I was playing the game I was trying to poke and prod with various questions. I received an unsuspected answer when I asked if Crysis 2 would have the “EA Online Pass” feature that game renters/used game buyers seem to despise. Crysis 2 will not require an EA Online Pass to play multiplayer.

Since Crytek is in the EA partner program, they were given the option to have the Online Pass. Instead they opted out of it for a couple of reasons. At the time it was offered, the online pass was still in its infancy stages and Crytek did not want Crysis 2 to be a testbed. Secondly; Crytek realizes that most console gamers have not experienced a Crysis game yet. They didn’t want to put a wall up to keep people away from the multiplayer and instead wanted to aim at sustaining its popularity even longer than most first person shooters who’s name doesn’t begin with “Call” or “Halo”.

In my eyes this is an extremely smart move on behalf of Crytek. The bigger the audience you open yourself up to, the more likely it is for something to stick. Look for my hands on impressions of the single player of Crysis 2 shortly.


Since Crytek aren't under the EA name (Like EA LA etc.) it means they're not owned by them. Unless you were owned by them, games you make will most likely have EA online pass enabled. Since Crytek are under the partners program, they have more control over how the IP is spread, I can assume. So they decided not to have this system.

Which is good. I never liked this EA online pass thingy.

This is mostly for people who buy games second hand in the past once a game is activated its no good to sell but now with the ea online pass you can sell the game and that person can buy an online pass to play online.

EA did it with mass effect 2.

im not sure if it can be use to activate two copys of the game or if it disables the games original key activation.

keeping in mind that the ea online pass was orginally designed for use with console games.

I guess it works similar to the VIP codes in Bad Company 2? I wonder if Battlefield 3 will employ the same method?

i think it only applys to consoles and not pc.

I read an article on this in Gameinformer, but it was a while ago, so correct me if I am wrong:
The EA online Pass was designed as an Anti-Piracy ploy on the Consoles. (Or something else?) Basically, every game developed by EA ships with this little card with a key on it that allows you to access the online component of their games. The obvious downside to this, however, is that if you buy a used copy of one of these games, you can't use the code that comes with it as it can only be activated once.

Posted an article up about this on the forums before.

The game will NOT have an online pass system as Crytek wanted to expand their multiplayer to everyone and not restrict it.


EDIT: Linkage; http://n4g.com/news/706613/crysis-2-no-ea-online-pass

pc always had one and its called a cd key