Rumour: Mortal Kombat and F.E.A.R. 3 to feature online pass code?

360 Rumour | Buy or be locked.

Australian gamers will be well aware by now that the most recent Mortal Kombat title won't be heading our way, but that doesn't stop interesting events surrounding its release from unfolding. The latest piece of news concerns the growing rumours of consoles adopting online pass codes for retail games, with Joystiq reporting we might be seeing a similar situation for this title.

PC gamers have long experienced the bane of digital rights management, of which often demands products be 'activated' online before they can be played, or tethers online and activation codes to profiles preventing the games from being resold. According to Joystiq's source, a similar system will be on the way for games published under Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, specifically Mortal Kombat and F.E.A.R. 3. Both games will supposedly ship with an online activation code, preventing the online multiplayer portions from being played until the code is activated and linked to your Xbox LIVE or PlayStation Network account.

Supposedly WBIE's other major game, Batman: Arkham City, will also be supporting this online code system, though with no known confirmed multiplayer it does beg the question as to what for? Downloadable content locks? Locked features?

At the moment, this report is classified as a rumour, though with publishers eager to explode DRM systems on console platforms, don't be surprised to find it true sooner rather than later.

Related Mortal Kombat 8 (working title) Content

Mortal Kombat launch trailer
20 Apr, 2011 Krack dem skulls.

Mortal Kombat 'Throwdown' trailer
29 Mar, 2011 Damn the ban.

First Mortal Kombat DLC revealed
28 Mar, 2011 But will we ever get it?

8 Comments

John Marston

2 years ago

Congrats on the 6000's post Jarrod! I really think more and more games will be doing this and yes it does suck. Mind you regarding Mortal Kombat i don't think it matters since the servers will be located in the USA. I think Mortal Kombat will be a offline multiplayer game tbh

Jarrod

2 years ago

noooooo i missed it how will i spam weeaboo gifs now fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Benc82

2 years ago

John Marston wrote

Congrats on the 6000's post Jarrod!

Mostly ME2 Arrival screenshots imo

Karai Pantsu

2 years ago

It's one of the sanest, and least impactful measures to help publishers/devs make money off games in the face of massive re-selling.

You buy the game new, no impact to you.

You buy the game second hamd, and (assuming WBIE adopts a similar method to EA) you pay $10 to access online - if you want it.

I dig that for people on a limited budget that want to play online, this sucks. I understand why it's happening though, and certainly can't think of better (read: less impact on gamers) ways to do it.

Camm

2 years ago

The two things which come to mind is A: What happens when the console\online service no longer exists and B: Will prices reflect the change to a code system?

I'm more than happy to buy new, if I'm paying sane prices for it.

jesuslol

2 years ago

Camm wrote

Online services are never maintained forever anyway. Since it is done mainly for multiplayer there would be no need to activate it just for single player use.

Prices should also stay the same for a new copy whereas a used copy should cost as much less as the online pass costs to buy (although EA used games don't cost $10 less than they used to like they should) on top of the existing used prices.

The Genius

2 years ago

Have already pre-orderd this so these codes had better be region free!

This gen of gaming has introduced a number of bad trends this being one of them!

Other industries and businesses don't claim any right to a share of sales of their second hand products so why is the gaming industry different! Where is it written that game publishers and devs should get money of used games?

Hollywood dont fuss about used dvds do they? So is the car industry, other electronic, mobiles etc! You get the drift!