I think what EA is actually talking about is expanding on the Battlefield:Bad Company model. Make the gameplay online centric so they don't play through it once (or rent it once) and then immediately trade it in. Furthermore, they can then try to charge for online "features." You pay for DLC (which can't be returned) to get new guns ect.
To take this one step further: What if the game company didn't care about the media after the initial sale? Sell it, trade, it whatever. The value proposition for them would be the value add post initial sale.
Basically your trojan horse model, where the physical/electronic install media is simply the gateway to the product. You don't really care about monetizing that part of it (just breaking even on the distribution costs).
In this scenario, you WANT the secondary market, as it exposes more consumers to your product.
Actually, wait, I've seen this done already. Those $1 WOW demo cd's at gamestop. Le crap. Ok, never mind.
This comment was edited on Aug 30, 17:09.