You’ve just forked out $120 for the brand new Skate game, take it home, and hook up to the game servers to find out what’s on offer at the store. There’s the usual micro-transactions you’ve come to expect of games these days – new clothing, new looks, new boards. But as everyone knows, Time is Money (especially those at EA it seems). And in the corner of your eye you see DLC that is so named.

What is it? Well, for those with more money than sense it is a way to bypass the usual unlocking routine within the game, and have everything unlocked for you – at a price. That’s right – having put down $120 for the game, you can be granted access to all of the content you’ve already bought, for a mere $6.67 (400 Microsoft Points).

In the past, we used to read magazines to find these sorts of cheat codes. Then came the internet. But why give these away for free when you can charge for them?

This is not the first game to do it – EA have previously offered the same paid unlock for Tiger Woods 07. But it is a bit of a slap in the face to be asked to pay more to access something you’ve already paid for. Of course you aren’t forced to do it, and you can instead play the game you’ve bought. It does still seem a little on the nose though.

The most ironic thing is that paying money to unlock the content reduces the time you’ll probably get out of the game.