10 Times The Games Industry Had No Idea WTF It Was Doing

3. Online Passes

Batman: Arkham City
Rocksteady

Back when the popularity of secondhand game sales were seen as killing the industry, publishers decided that the best way to entice players to buy titles new was to lock off content and punish the people who wouldn't (or couldn't) pony up for a new copy.

For a while new games came with an 'online pass', a one-time code that gave players access to all the content the title had to offer.

In the case of certain games like Arkham City this meant unlocking new levels and new playable characters, but for the most part it was used as an access code for the online portion of multiplayer games.

It turned out that restricting your customers' access to important content and the ability to play online wasn't the best idea however, and a huge player backlash meant that this practice was dropped a few short years after it was implemented.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.