Hah, yeah. Apparently, EA doesn't care how worse and worse they look as long as they save the trivial amount of cash used to have a master server running. It's even more unnecessary when you consider the bulk of the online play is handled peer-to-peer.
This destroys the one and only reason why the Online Pass thing might ever have been a good idea. If they are still shutting down even the games which have it, then what good is it? I would never buy an online pass. If the game includes it, fine, but I would never spend extra on one, because the plug is still going to be pulled eventually regardless.
Heh. Having the scheme read as "Used Game Penalty" probably wouldn't go over as well. It would be honest though. Oh, another stupid thing is that online support for The Saboteur (a single-player game) will be pulled and some extra content will be unavailable (legitimately, at least). I think the content included nudity for the game's gentleman's club hideout.