Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:01 pm by crait
It's the same thing that EA, Activision, Criterion Games, and others have been doing...
Whenever you buy a game, you'll have a password that goes for that game. You type it in and it gives you online access. If you buy the game used, you cannot use that key and will not have online access unless you buy an online password from the PSN store. Usually the passes are $10. This ensures that the companies that are selling the games aren't losing a profit to second-hand game sales, which hurts the gaming industry more than pirating, actually... It also prevents people from pirating the game and thinking they can use the online features.
Updates and patches are free, as always, and not all titles will have this PSN pass. Is it a bad thing? Nah, I don't think so. You won't see any differences in how you play games or any additional fees unless you buy games from GameStop or plan on pirating your PS3 games.