MMOs have always been like that in the sense you don't own anything. You pay to have access to the game world in which you build your character and do various things. The good MMOs offer a world interesting and fun enough to make you want to do that, the bad just seem silly.
As to why everything is a cash-cow? FIFA online and NFS:World are both EA products. While EA is not the 'teh devil' as they used to be, they are still far closer to Activision than many want to admit. Just the presence of their name makes me a little skeptical, and if ME2 wasn't so good I would have had serious concerns about that franchise.
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