It's a recent change, inspired by EA's similar online pass. The idea is to dissuade players from renting or buying the game used.Cheech said:You're welcome. I was kind of shocked that I had to enter codes for both R3 and SOCOM yesterday to access the online stuff. I don't buy many PS3 games, so I guess they've been doing this for awhile? I wonder how much the game's "pass" costs if you buy the thing used.
As another user pointed out, it's usually $10. So regardless of how you choose to go about playing the game, you're going to have to pay once to play online (unless you pony up for a new copy).