The move to offer more online and multiplayer content with every game purchase is great when a new game is released, but it’s easy to forget that online isn’t forever, and ceases to be a feature as soon as the publisher turns off the server for a specific title.

EA is well-known for this practice. It regularly reviews the games running on its servers, and if they have dropped below a certain threshold of popularity (typically 1% of peak players), they switch off access. The problem is, with the introduction of EA’s Online Pass some gamers are spending $10 on a used game only to find their online access is set to disappear in a few months.

The latest round of cuts include the following games:

Server Shutdown: March 31, 2012

Battlefield 3: Aftershock

Fantasy Safari

Ghost Harvest

Server Shutdown: April 13, 2012

Boom Blox

Burnout Revenge

EA Create

EA Sports Active 2.0

EA Sports Active NFL Training

EA Sports MMA

FIFA 10

The Godfather

Need for Speed ProStreet

The Saboteur

Spare Parts

While these games are apparently not popular anymore online, one in particular has not been available for that long and required the purchase of an Online Pass if bought used. That games is EA Sports MMA, which saw a release on October 19, 2010. It is therefore only 17 months old. Someone could legitimately buy this game used today, pay a $10 Online Pass fee to play online, and then lose access come April 13 in just under a month.

Hopefully EA has thought of this and decided to no longer offer Online Pass for used copies. However, what counts as a good cut off point for such a decision? 3 months? 6 months? And EA isn’t the only publisher doing this. THQ, Warner Bros., Ubisoft, and Sony also use similar systems for used games. So you can see the wider issue this poses for gamers and an industry moving towards more online features and payments.

More at EA, via BeefJack.com