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Fight Night 3 players charged

To play the PSP game online.

US gamers who purchase EA's Fight Night Round 3 for PlayStation Portable will have to pay for the privilege of playing the game online - or agree to let ESPN send them all manner of junk mail instead.

That's according to gaming blog Kotaku, which found that anyone attempting to take the game online must either cough up $2 or hand over their details to ESPN.

The terms and conditions of the agreement, as reported by Kotaku, are as follows: "By clicking Accept, I agree to ESPN’s sponsorship. I understand that if I am at least 18, ESPN will contact me with offers and promotions and I am authorizing EA to share my EA account membership information with ESPN in the United States. ESPN’s use of my account information is subject to the ESPN Privacy Policy, which I have read and I accept."

This raises a number of interesting questions, such as whether the move will set a precedent for online gaming on the PSP. It's also not clear whether EA will be advertising the fact that you have to pay to play online on the FNR3 box - a failure to do so will surely anger gamers who don't want to fork out just to keep their inboxes free of ESPN advertising.

So will European gamers also have to pay if they want to beat each other up over the Internet? There's no word as yet, but we'll keep you posted.