10 Triple-A Video Game Paywalls That Came Out Of Nowhere

In the early 2010s, many video game publishers began introducing online passes in an apparent attempt to combat piracy. 

Basically, a new copy of a game shipped with a free online pass, allowing you to play the multiplayer portions of the game for free. 

However, if you then sold the game on or loaned it to a friend, they would need to purchase their own online pass for $10 in order to access said multiplayer modes.

It was blatantly obvious that publishers such as EA used the boogeyman of piracy to target the second hand market and effectively punish anyone who didn't buy their games brand new.

The online pass proved especially irksome for fans of the Battlefield franchise, with many players who bought Battlefield 3 pre-owned coming to learn that they needed to fork out an extra wad of cash for the part of the game that most people actually want to play.

Thankfully online passes were ultimately a short-lived concept, largely due to negative player feedback, the general decline in physical video game sales, and platform holders such as Sony expressly forbidding online passes from the PS4 onward.