I can understand WHY they do it, but it is till garbage.
Developers dont see a penny more after the initial sale of a game. So 3 people might buy a copy of Madden 2011, but EA only sees $59.99 once. Meanwhile Gamestop makes billions off used game sales. Thats why they always push used games. Why let someone pay 59.99 for a game and make no profit, when you can convince them to pay $54.99, get another $5 off with your Edge card and still make $20 - $30 profit depending on how new the game is. At least now they get $10 from those othr two people if they want to play online.
But then on the flip side, these same deveopers who cry about used game sales hurting them will turn around and give Gamestop, a used game sales store, pre-order bonuses on new games.
I, like many other posters, don't buy EA games anyway....let alone play them online. However this isnt the first time this has happened. IIRC, Mass Effect 2 has free DLC IF you buy the game new. If you get it used or rent ir or whatever, you have to pay $15 to access the Cerberus network to get the DLC