http://ps3.ign.com/articles/100/1007008p2.html

"First, let's go with the feature that's likely totally new to most reading this. It's called Elite Status and it's sure to start a tizzy on the forums once people read the words "Pay DLC" attached to it. But never fear, it's totally optional and should only be considered as a viable purchase by the truly hardcore Madden fans out there. It costs five bucks (400 points on XBL) and it unlocks what is essentially a VIP online world.

This exclusive club of sorts gets you into the Elite online community and you'll get your own private lobbies and private leaderboards. Beyond that, EA Sports is planning on allowing for some sort of avenue for these hardcore fans to easily communicate with the Madden development team. Beyond that, Elite players will also be the only ones in the Madden online world that will be able to play a ranked match on the All-Madden difficulty setting. The standard ranked match difficulty setting of All-Pro will still be available, but these hardcore fans can take the game to the next level. As an added bonus, the players who pay for the DLC will have their online name colored in gold so everyone in the lobby will know when an elitist enters the room. "

5 bucks for a virtual champaigne room & all-madden mode online?

Now this is something i can get behind:

(from the same link)

"I had no issue signing up for my online franchise and immediately hopping into the league that had been setup by EA Sports. It took all of ten seconds to enter my activation code (which every new copy of Madden will ship with), enter my first and last name, and hop in to look around the league."

Online franchise for people that purchase NEW copies of madden? EA fucking over gamestop? I LOVE IT.

....and where do they screw GameStop?

I guess it's because they supposedly only do this with newly bought Madden. Gamestop makes a killing off used games.

Nah, gamestop sells most of their Madden games two years later, when they're only $10 or so. I don't think I've sold a Madden '09 in forever. Madden '07 and '08 is where it's at.

That's good, GS is evil.

All news regarding DLC makes me sad. I want it to go away.

Ugh... I'm not liking this DRM and DLC.

@ OP

Why, exactly why would EA fighting the used games market be a good thing?

Gamestop doesn't have good used games prices, but still companies wanting people to not sell games that they found dissapointing is disgusting.

EA fighting the used games market would NOT be a bad thing, and after reading your second sentence I'm going to assume you're asking why it would be a good thing. For me, there's 2 (sort of 3) reasons.

The first is what you said yourself, gamestop doesn't have good used game prices. In conjunction with that, they also give shit for trade in values.  Every now and again you'll see a decent trade in deal, like they do every year with ncaa trade in towards madden, or the ds lite to dsi trade in, but 9 times out of 10 they give 20 to 25 bucks in credit on a new release game then only take off 5 bucks for the used price compared to the new price. And that's only on the first week of release, again 9 times out of 10 there's a significant drop in trade in value upon the 2nd week a game has been out... and the used price of said game is still only 5 bucks less than new. To play the devil's advocate, it's sort of hard to fault Gamestop for doing this; they are a business, their goal as a company is to be successful, and we all know that businesses see green when they think of success... it's all about profit. It's just hard to think gamestop is living up to their slogan "power to the players" when you break down their trade in program strategy.

Secondly, I am very much of the mindset that every time a game is sold, the publisher and (more importantly) the developer should get some capitol on it, no matter if it's factory sealed or it's been in such shitty condition that it's been refurb'd from gamestop. To draw a comparison to the used car business, the manufacturer still gets some money from the sale. This is only right to me considering, y'know...they made it. 

In relation to my second reason, we've read about activision's shitty practices and a lot of people have expressed their distaste for them, and I can't really blame them. For instance, on my home turf I've seen quite a few posts that are of the "fuck activision, i'll just buy mw2 used!" variety.  Again, I can't blame people for being upset with activision's shitty practices, and lord knows they're shitty, but why should infinity ward be punished? I know personally i'm a huge fan of modern warfare, I think even if fps isn't your sort of thing we can all look at that title objectively and say it was a fantastic game.  I might be jumping the gun, but all signs point to mw2 being fantastic as well. So why should the people that have invested the blood, sweat, and tears into a project, especially during crunchtime when they are away from their families for so long be punished? I'm a proponent of buying new because I want to support the creators; I don't buy used because I don't want to support a brick and mortar middle-man that has fuck-all to do with a game I like.

On a third semi-related point, which I won't elaborate on because it's been discussed to death on every gaming board ever, this practice of selling used games as new is complete horseshit.

TL;DR gamestop has shitty business practices

I thought EA was evil.