It’s barely been around a month since EA first announced their “online initiative” that requires people to buy a pass to play a used game online and already other companies are looking to cash in: THQ has already done the same thing with UFC Undisputed 2010 and now it looks like Sony is looking to take advantage of this as well.

I hopped on the Playstation store to buy Modnation Racers PSP the other day and I clicked the first logo I could find, thinking that it would be the game. Oh boy was I wrong, because what I actually clicked was an add-on titled “Modnation Racers PSP Online Entitlement.” This is what it says:

The Online Entitlement is used to activate the Online and Infrastructure features of the ModNation Racers game for the PSP system. For those purchasing the game second-hand, the entitlement will also need to be purchased and entered into a PSN account prior to activating the Infrastructure

So, another publisher joins the fold.

Is this something that’s been going on behind the scenes now? I know that publishers were looking for a way to discourage used game sales; Have they found it? Should they really be getting all butthurt about used games?

This is still a neutral subject for me; I don’t mind publishers looking for a way to get some money off of used games. Really, it’s still their game, but at the same time I don’t agree they should be making money off a game that they’ve already sold. All in all it’s been mentioned many times on various gaming blogs that this pretty much makes buying used games pointless unless it’s a strictly offline affair. Destructoid’s latest Bit Transmission podcast put this nicely, if you’re buying a used game for 10 dollars less than the price of a new one, and you have to pay 10 bucks for a code to play it online, it doesn’t make it worth buying used unless you’re playing it strictly offline.

It might not have been long since EA announced their online initiative, but this is quickly becoming the norm.

The online entitlement seems to be only in place for the PSP version of the game; From what I’ve heard it’s not the same thing for the PS3 version. Of course, if you buy the game new or off of PSN then you don’t have to worry about buying the entitlement, as it will be tied to your PSN account.