Book Publishers And Automobile Manufacturers To Adopt Online Passes?

The introduction of Online Passes in their videogames has seen Electronic Arts reach new heights in plundered profits, demanding what they feel is rightfully theirs of a gamer who only wanted to save a little money in order to support even more of their favourite game developers.

Created as a means to finance online servers and keep them running, Online Passes have permeated various gaming titles in the EA stable such as their online shooter franchises, their various annual sports titles and even singleplayer role-playing-games which have no real need for an Online Pass in the first fucking place.

While the executives at EA count their cash and consider which server to close down next, other corporations which have been taking notice have finally decided that now is the time to follow suit.

“We are proud to announce that as of December 21st, all books published by us will require readers to enter a 25-character code before the words will appear to them,” said Artemis Hen, managing director of Piplup Books. “If a book is purchased second-hand or borrowed from a friend or a library, users will need to purchase and enter their own Online Pass before the book will allow them to read it. If they refuse to do so, the book will still allow them to read the first and last page, as well as the author’s note and the synopsis on the back cover. Early purchasers of our books will also receive exclusive content including holographic covers and an extra page of story that is vital to the overall plot of the book in question.”

It seems this mentality has been shared amongst the motoring crowd as well after acclaimed vehicular manufacturing company Oplol announced their own adaptation of Online Passes in future vehicles.

“Ever since we can remember, when a customer purchases a car of ours and then sells it to someone else we see none of the money they get from that second-hand sale,” explained CEO Dr If Ting. “This upsets us as we have a corporate holiday to plan and we’d really like to go somewhere better than the Vatican each year. As such we’ve developed an Online Pass system that requires brand new purchasers to enter a 25-character code into the steering wheels of their newly purchased vehicles. If they do not do so, the car will still start but the steering wheel will retract making it impossible to turn.”

He continued: “Second-hand buyers will be required to purchase their own Online Pass prior to driving their vehicle, with the same rules applying if they refuse to do so. As an added bonus to early adopters of our upcoming models, the brakes included on all vehicles will be fully functional from day one free of charge. While brakes will still be included in all showroom models thereafter, customers will have to purchase a content pack for a nominal fee which will enable their functionality.”

This follows on from the original gaming implementation of Online Passes which involved the belief of publishers that when a user sells their game to someone else, the original person is still somehow able to play that game together with the person they sold it to, meaning that there must now exist two slots on a multiplayer server for a single copy of the game, effectively meaning more finances required in order to keep those servers running. Or at least that’s what they’ve told us.

Gaming publisher EA has been accused of greed and selfish desire by gamers, however many still happily support the practice of buying Online Passes which has allowed the publisher to get away with daylight robbery and call it necessary. It’s little wonder then that this practice has moved to more mainstream offerings such as books and vehicles.

Following this movement towards an Online Pass system our very own executive editor Dean Oberholzer has considered moving all daily gaming news into a standard user feed with further exclusives, columns, previews and reviews moving to a separate feed which asks readers to enter a 25-character code before they will be allowed access. This is due to the high maintenance cost brought on by having even more unique visitors to the site and because reviewing Forza 4 is a costly affair that requires more than we can afford right now.

Look forward to more adaptations of Online Passes in future.

The satirical nature of this article aside, I hope I’ve made my point.