It’s time to give credit where credit is due. Ever since winning Consumer Reports’ Worst Company America award for the second year in a row, EA seems to be genuinely trying to listen to some of the most common consumer complaints about its brand.

First, they announced that the next Sims title would be playable offline, a lesson learned from the recent SimCity fiasco that had players confused and angry they couldn’t build a city without an internet connection. Today, they’re axing yet another controversial practice, killing the “Online Pass” for their games.

The Online Pass was meant to be an insurance policy against used games sold at places like Gamestop, which gave EA and other publishers nothing. The idea was that to use the online features of a game, you’d have to buy an Online Pass, usually for about ten dollars extra, and an activation code would get you online. The money went directly into EA’s pocket, while Gamestop kept their resale cash.
In the scope of EA’s controversies, it’s probably one of the lesser ones, and the practice is now widespread with Activision and Ubisoft using the same system.

But it does seem to indicate that EA is attempting to earn goodwill back from its customers by killing practices most would deem anti-consumer. That said, there’s probably a financial reason behind this as well, as it’s tough to imagine them just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Perhaps they simply didn’t see all that much revenue from these passes, and they figured the good press they’d get from discontinuing it was more valuable than what it actually brought in.