This year we saw many game publisher like EA roll-out Online Pass systems, that gave original game copy owners free access to online features through an included token. This rewarded gamers for buying new and helped raise publishers bottom-line. A few months ago Xbox rolled out a Family Gold Plan that allowed you to have up to 4 gamertags, great for families. However with the move to online passes families are now being stiffed for more money from the game developers as these one time tokens only can be used once and don’t grant access to the entire family, just the one gamertag that redeems.
This is a two part problem, one Microsoft is trying to push families to the Xbox but aren’t holding 3rd party developers to maintaining a family atmosphere. Two developer/publishers are trying to make up ever rising costs. I truly think Online Pass systems need to either include for the Xbox 4 codes, or at least a system that allows families to not have to shell out another 2400 MS points in-order for everyone to enjoy online features.
