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So, if you guys have boughten any games from EA lately, you know about Online Passes; You get one free with the game that gives you complete access to the games functions, but if you buy used you have to pay an additional $10 to be able to play online.

I like this. Since I have always had a problem with buying Used games (you never know what the hell the other guy did to it...), and I hate Gamestop, this allows Developers to combat the loss of sales that comes from Used games. Because, you know, if You buy a game for $60, sell it to Gamestop for $20, and then they sell it to someone else for $55, that's a whole game that the Developers didn't get payed for. And since more money made equals bigger budget sequels, Used games sales are (In My Humble Opinion) hurting the whole "Game Economy" as a whole.

What brings this on is the latest game to follow this trend; Mortal Kombat 9. Fans are in an uproar, because "You have to pay $60 for the game, and another $10 for the online capabilities, not to mention that they have already announced DLC Characters!". This is not true, however, because if you buy the game New, you get the $10 item for free.



Conjecture: I think it is entirely possible that people are getting too used to the Music Industry and that mindset of "I want it, and I want it for as cheap as I can get it (Free, preferably) and let all my friends have it, too." is seeping into Gaming as a whole.


What do you guys think?

I cannot express my opinion on this and stay within the site rules.

Could you try? It's less fun debating with people who won't actually debate

Well I hate selling used games when they first come out. I only do it if I especially hate the game. I sold two last year (Final Fantasy XIII and Demon's Souls) and I bought them back just yesterday.

The thing is, I like used games because they give you a chance to play it and hate it if needed. You can take it back and actually get something worth the money the other one was valued at. Demos just don't show you enough of the game to like it or hate it.

I like the whole $10.00 thing, but it should be for extras. If I bought MK 9 new and got 4 characters that a used copy wouldn't get, then I would be happy. I think the lack of online capabilities unless you pay the $10.00 is pretty crappy. That means if you buy it new and want to play it online you pay $60.00. If you buy it used within the first few weeks you will have to pay $65.00.

Dragon Age did it right. You got the Blood Dragon Armour and Shale (unless somebody didn't use the codes).

Technically good.
EA is doing it because they realized they're not getting money from it. Let's face it, companies like GAME, Gamestation (in the UK) and whatever US companies rip people off. They buy for half the price then sell it at double what they paid for it. That means they're getting that 50% profit whilst EA get nothing.

However, cutting out chunks of the game, not so good. I agree with Scythican, when it's like missing characters, or content you have to otherwise buy.

Lord Scythican wrote:I like the whole $10.00 thing, but it should be for extras. If I bought MK 9 new and got 4 characters that a used copy wouldn't get, then I would be happy. I think the lack of online capabilities unless you pay the $10.00 is pretty crappy. That means if you buy it new and want to play it online you pay $60.00. If you buy it used within the first few weeks you will have to pay $65.00.

Dragon Age did it right. You got the Blood Dragon Armour and Shale (unless somebody didn't use the codes).

The problem with four characters other people would have to pay for is that MK is being built from the ground up as a Tourney fighter, or at least, that's what I'm told.


Also, is a set of armor and $12 expansion really worth the $60 that the company itself would have lost?

I would rather have online fighting capabilities than other characters. Then I could buy the others at my leisure.


Well how about this then? A reward program. You buy the thing new, you get a stamp or something. A code perhaps. If you get like 10 codes you can get a free game. I would buy everything new if they did that.

I guess this system helps mostly against piracy, not used games.

n0t_u wrote:I guess this system helps mostly against piracy, not used games.

I am all for that.

Lord Scythican wrote:I would rather have online fighting capabilities than other characters. Then I could buy the others at my leisure.


Well how about this then? A reward program. You buy the thing new, you get a stamp or something. A code perhaps. If you get like 10 codes you can get a free game. I would buy everything new if they did that.

Whose going to do that? The company that spends 3 years making a game, or the Retail store losing out on lots of money from New Game sales?

n0t_u wrote:I guess this system helps mostly against piracy, not used games.

How so?

Without this pass would the game be capable of online play? While they can work around detection a fair amount of time, the pass system might at least provide more of a speed bump in addition to it. Kind of like having multiple locks on a door, won't stop everyone but it will stop a fair bit.

n0t_u wrote:I guess this system helps mostly against piracy, not used games.

Actually, EA has pretty much said it's only to combat people buying Pre-owned games.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eas-project-ten-dollar-explained

Interesting, first I heard of it was on this thread.

The pass combats piracy in the same way that serial numbers, online log ins and other DRM have in the past, except they are making money from it.

Asking players to pay extra to access parts of the game they are buying is a horrible idea imo, whether it is for online play, levels or characters. That a developer can chop 20% of a finished product out and charge extra for it a few weeks after release really annoys me. I applaud devs who support a game by continuing to work on it after release but asking for money to un-censor your game is akin to asking for money for patches.

Making used-game buyers pay to fully unlock the game is clever but also morally dubious. Used-car salesmen don't design or make the cars they sell but are surely entitled to the money they earn by filling a niche in the market. I see no difference at all with used-games.

The main problem I see is that games are steadily becoming shorter with less replay value. If you make an eight hour game with no incentive for replay people are going to use it and sell it on for whatever money they can get. I remember when you could take a game back within a certain time for a refund in case it didn't work/you didn't like it etc. They'd make no money at all if that was still an option.

Long story short, make good games and more people will keep them. Stop taking the piss with digital download taxes.

Slarg232 wrote:
Whose going to do that? The company that spends 3 years making a game, or the Retail store losing out on lots of money from New Game sales?

I would assume the game company. 10 EA Stickers gets you a EA game. Sort of like what they did with Darksiders. I remember getting a copy of the Red Faction game because I bought Darksiders. Retail stores should keep what they are doing. I like the classic skins you can get for MK by preordering.

I am all for making sure the talent involved in making quality games are paid for what they do, be it designers, developers or distributers, but to me this is another example of EA stepping over the line in the name of profits and it is going to push more people over to the dark side of pirating (ala the Spore drm fiasco). I think EA has lost sight of the fact that in a retail service, the customer is your life line(this seems to be a growing trend across all industries...at least here in the states). I can see how preowned sales can cut into new sales, after all who wants to pay $60us for a terrible game only to get $10 when you trade it in used? But there are better ways to address the issues.
I fully agree with Lord Scythican's concept of give the customer more to entise them to purchase the game new (Dragon Age was spot on with this) be it new characters, special in game mounts, armors, character titles, ect...when its a good game people will buy. Most of this type of 'gift' should not extend the studios and costs them extra money for development.

Soup and a roll wrote:

Making used-game buyers pay to fully unlock the game is clever but also morally dubious. Used-car salesmen don't design or make the cars they sell but are surely entitled to the money they earn by filling a niche in the market. I see no difference at all with used-games.

Only problem i see with this analogy, is that often times, the car company still makes money on the used car, because MOST of them are "traded in", sold, at an authorized dealer for another car.

The code thing is a nice idea, but the one problem that I have with it... I recently reformatted my PS3, and thereby wiped my data. Along with that wipe was my Medal of Honor info, including online code.. which is now invalid, even though i am online on the same exact account.

Requia wrote:I cannot express my opinion on this and stay within the site rules.

Bingo.

n0t_u wrote:I guess this system helps mostly against piracy, not used games.

It is utterly useless against piracy. A pirate will be mildly annoyed because they have to download a second file for the DLC. It's *sole* purpose is to violate right of first sale, which is part of copyright law.

In other words, EA is the pirate in this case.

My only issue with this would be if they put a time limit on what consists of a new title.

For example apart from the occasional tripe-A title I can't wait for. I am very happy to wait for 6months to a year, and pick up the games new from a shop but at less than half the price when it came out new. Or even after it goes Platnium (or whatever the format's re-release set up it.)

If they introduced a time period, and then after that no matter if the game was new or 2nd hand it cost extra to play online, I would be most displeased.

I remember when games lasted several times longer and costed 1/3 less.. Didn't have any downloadable crap. I paid for a game and I got the full game. I really, really hate the idea of DLC with all my heart. It is a cheap trick. I have never downloaded any paid, additional content (if it wasn't some huge ass standalone campaign) and I hope I never will.
I totally agree with Soup and a roll.

Macok wrote:I remember when games lasted several times longer and costed 1/3 less.. Didn't have any downloadable crap. I paid for a game and I got the full game. I really, really hate the idea of DLC with all my heart. It is a cheap trick. I have never downloaded any paid, additional content (if it wasn't some huge ass standalone campaign) and I hope I never will.
I totally agree with Soup and a roll.

This has been my thing for years. You see games were $50.00 a pop since what NES days? They only moved to $60.00 with the PS3 and 360. Now these companies were sitting around and thinking to themselves, if these people will pay twice as much for the system, how are we going to get them to pay twice as much for the games?

Basically they take stuff out of the finished game and set it aside for DLC. By doing this, they have finally figured out how to raise the price of the games. Some of the best games cost $100.00+ now if you buy everything. So basically there you have it. The cost has been doubled, but we are made to believe we are paying for something extra that is beyond the finished product.

Now as much as I bitch about this sort of thing, I do realize that they had to increase the prices somehow. If everything else is going up why not games? Just check your milk and breads prices from 6 years ago. They went up along with everything else. Games should be at least $75.00 when compared to everything else out there.

This doesn't mean I have to like it though.

I hate online passes, I think they are stupid, and games that usethem are usually just piles of tripe, just look at MOHCODMW2, probably the worst FPS game ever released by EA and you had to use a pass to play its awful multiplayer which was actually worse than bad companies multiplayer, and that thing is shockingly bad.

no thanks, there is a reason why games like COD are successful and hold on to there value secondhand while MOH goes for next to nothing yet game stores still can't shift them.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 was good as you actually got the maps. Otherwise it is pointless and just cheating people out of content that is already on the disk.

The huge beef with DLC is also that it's often available long after you've finished the game. So there are two possible ways to introduce them to the game.
a) Additional missions after the whole game has ended.
b) Additional content during the original campaign, which forces you to replay the whole game.
This all leads to often poorly and forced alteration of original story and world. It often shakes the consistency of the original game.
First one often makes no sense - at the end of the game the hero defeated the source of evil, he died, he lived happily ever after etc.. It just doesn't feel right that after "the end" there is suddenly something to do.
The second one, as mentioned, forces you to replay the while game for brief interactions with new heroes or some area. This artificially makes the game last "longer" twice.

DLC are often shorter. Price to quality / length is much worse than in the original game.
ME2 is currently cheaper than all the DLC available for it.
How Long to Beat
Sims 3 DLC is like 5 times pricier than the game. This may not be the best example, but this shows how things could go in the future...

Extra content is another ballgame entirely.

I don't have issues with this charge for second handers as the number of studios dropping by the wayside or abandoned to die by their publishers such as EA have been harsh reading on occasion in the past few years. So the industry is not as healthy as some downloaders will insist it is.
How much of that is Publishers skimming off the top I'm not sure, but some of the talk that swings around about games is worrying. Such as deals where companies don't get paid if the game doesn't reach a certain score, or sale point.
You have to wonder why folks would sign up to that, but then you look at the power some publishers hold over their companies and forcing them to release regardless if the game is ready, it is a issue that hurts us all.

I'm not convinced this will fix it either, I agree that the length of games isn't helping, and willingness to introduce more interesting themes and not just roll out another franchise game they know folks will buy can be frustrating.

Sims 3 in particular sticks in my throat over its 'Sims 3 Store' opening on the day of release, with a good proportion of items that should have been in the actual game.

Of course not all DLC is like this, some has been good stuff added months after release, so they have been obviously working on it after the game shipped. However in general release day DLC is unforgivable imo, it stinks of greed and tbh they are taking the mick out of the gamers who follow their games by doing so.

It's certainly something that is not going to go away, I said to a friend just the other day. I am waiting for the first Publisher to go download only across all formats, I suspect it will be EA. It will also be the last day I buy a EA game. (With current download speeds anyways.) Sadly its like an oncoming storm, it seems there is little we can do to avoid the changes ahead.

As a gamer now of some Twenty three years, thats a little depressing.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:Only problem i see with this analogy, is that often times, the car company still makes money on the used car, because MOST of them are "traded in", sold, at an authorized dealer for another car.

Then the games company can bloody well pay for their own dealership! If they gave a better trade in price then the stingy stores they could sell the same game over and over and make money each time. As it is they are trying to stop enterprise and muscle in on used games without any justification. All it does is hurt honest consumers.

Pay extra for a complete product, limited installs, un-transferable games. None of this would be acceptable in other products.

Guys, guys, GUYS!

If you buy the game NEW, for $60, you don't spend a single cent, NOT. ONE. PENNY. extra in order to play online with these passes. This is only if you buy a game USED for less, because the Game Companies do not get anything from those sales.

They work on a product, you buy it new, they don't get a single cent of it. I think these things are totally justified, because how many of you guys would work for two years without getting payed?

The people who buy new get hurt most, because it drops resale value.

Requia wrote:The people who buy new without doing research get hurt most, because it drops resale value.

Not all of us sell our games, some of us do enough digging to know if the games will be worth our time.