Replace the phrase "I want my two dollars" with the slightly more complicated "I want you to pay me more money for a game you bought used, even though we received full price at retail originally," and you'll have a pretty good grasp on the situation here. For a while now game companies have been waging war against used game sales, most recently resorting to DLC unlock codes in games that can only be redeemed once, making the used purchase less attractive. However,
EA Sports has escalated this practice right out of the stratosphere with its new "Online Pass" feature. Basically, the original purchaser is bestowed online functionality, added features, and bonus content, out of the
kindness of EA's heart (and a fun-to-enter redeem code), while a used buyer will get a 7 day trial of those things, and then have to pony up $10 if they want to keep at it. Yeah, you heard that correctly: you'll have to pay $10 to play
FutureMadden: Robots in the Red Zone online if you bought it used. The first title to get this special treatment will be
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, and after that? Well, we're really hoping this doesn't take off, but the most unfortunate aspect of this diabolical scheme is we really don't see how this could possibly hurt EA's bottom line. Sure, it's evil, but that's never stopped them before.
posted May 11th 2010 10:04AM
@Vrmithrax
Having worked in the car industry (for Ford) and specifically in the parts and pricing department I can tell you that there are ver very few parts that have to be bought first party. The vast majority of parts are available 3rd party from pretty much the start (and the manufacturers quite often use them themselves). The servicing is only carried out by dealerships in the first few years and even these are not part of the car company (although they are more likely to use first party spares - but do not always necessarily use them). Licensing fees are to the government not the car industry and to all intesive purposes a game has a lifespan only as long as a console is current (or in the case of many EA games for 12 months until the next version is out and the user then quite often purchases the new version) So it is not all that ridiculous at all is it?.
@Desco
EA doesn't need another $10. They ALREADY got their server maintenance fee recouped when they sold the game. When that original $50-60 was dropped on Madden that should have covered the cost of development, advertising, distribution, and on-line support. If it doesn't then EA is taking a loss on every title that is not resold? Doubt that since I'm willing to bet that 75%+ don't hassle with selling PC games.
Like someone else pointed out, this will really hurt the game market. Many people buy, play, and then beat a game in a short period of time. They are willing to pay $50-60 because they know in a week or two they can recoup $40 on the open market. Once that resell number drops to $20 suddenly it's harder to justify that purchase. And in the cases where games are tied to a season (i.e. Madden) it absolutely kills the resell market. It's hard enough to unload those titles today. Now tack on another $10 fee and your NBA, NFL games are worthless the minute you buy them (from a resell perspective).
I'm not pissed about having to pay $10 ... I'm pissed at EA charging $10 for something that costs them NOTHING.
@JeffTXD - "I would argue used sales help out the game industry in a large way. When kids turn there last 7 games in at Gamestop where do you think they immediately spend the money most of the time?"
On used games so not helping the industry.
@E71
Do you actually sell your PC games used anyways? i mean really? after you used the code?
your either a douche, or the people you sell them to are idiots.
@FireMonkey
Well that is just not true. Many people trade in a game in order to buy the latest version, while those that buy used games often buy them to try games that they were not willing to pay full price for. If they like this used game then they too may well buy the next version of the game.
So the industry benefits greatly from used games but like the music and film industries they are too greedy and too short sighted to see it.
@coolblue2000 - "Car manufacturers do not make any money off used car sales so why should games companies make money off used games?"
Car manufacturers do make money from older cars as when you take them to an official garage to be serviced or you buy a spare part money is going back to the manufacturer.
Games do not deteriorate. The only thing that goes wrong is scratched discs which get checked for. This is effect an artificial deterioration of the game.
@FireMonkey
Guess what? I don't HAVE to buy OEM parts. If I want DLC, I HAVE to buy it from EA.
Car companies see very little post sale money. Car dealerships are the ones that make money from service.
@SewerShark
Would've ranked up if you'd used better grammar.
@FireMonkey wrote, "Games do not deteriorate."
Game values deteriorate very quickly.
@coolblue2000 - actually, yes it is still ridiculous. You make valid points about what/where you have to spend for the car, but you are still making my point... You don't have that overhead for a game. Oh, and they also don't upgrade the road system and make your cars obsolete every 4-5 years. Or make you pay for a new garage that will only house that new car, not the older models... Starting to see how silly the comparisons can get, if you apply equal logic across both platforms, rather than just selectively picking out one detail and calling them analogous?
The bottom line is, automobiles are a capital investment, and a useful (often necessary) tool that will see tremendous usage through its lifespan. A game is a small luxury item that serves no purpose other than entertainment. They are about as far on the opposite spectrum "apples to oranges" as you can get.
Now, compare games to music CDs or DVD movies, and you are WAY closer to actual coherent comparisons.
@Vrmithrax
You are now going off on a complete tangent. I am not arguing that cars and games are the same! The argument is that the basis for trying to make money off resales is not reflected in most other industries. Cars have many additional costs which do not result in car companies making money from resales (or at least very little). Yes they make some money from parts but this is generally only while the car is new (and likely with the original owner). Once the car is older and used most people will be purchasing third party parts and the car manufacturer will no longer make any money from it.
All this talk about licensing, road maintenance and garages (?) are irrelevant to the argument of used sales. What has road maintenance got to do with the value of a used car to the manufacturer?
Screw EA!!
There games have been getting worse every year (ex. Madden, Need For Speed, Skate, etc.). They are making minor changes and charging still ridiculous prices for their games.
Now they expect people to pay an EXTRA $10 if they buy the game used to play online!!!??
Does this mean used games will go down $10??
Hey EA: F*** YOU!!!!!
@cabose369 EA doesn't set the used market pricing. But just to make this clear to everyone here, this means that if you buy a new game at retail and typically resell it, it's worth less to you than ever before. Just a heads up in case you are only looking at this from the vantage point of those who buy used games.
@juanvaldez - If you resell to a shop you are being ripped off anyway. A few quid / dollars for a fairly new game when they are going to sell it for 30/40. That's a huge profit for absolutely nothing.
@cabose369 - Stores may have to bring the price down $10 to keep competitive. If so, then if you don't want online then that's a bargain. If you do then there is no loss to you unless you want to trade in (and there is no way the stores can cut the trade in price by $10 as they are currently so low, you'd end up paying them to take the game from you)
@FireMonkey
I give $35 credit/ $30 cash for new release games at my store. I'm so sick of this few dollars for a $40 game BS. Anyway, the way I'm going to deal with this is I'm going to sell all EA sports titles for $15-$20 less than retail. So if you buy it used from me AND pay EA $10 to play online you still come out ahead.
Still Making Tiger Woods games?
Gosh I can imagine all the nasty jokes now...
@Mars478
I think tiger woods paid more than $10 to get his used... :) there's one joke.
@Mars478 Well, the one on South Park didn't seem half bad. Except for the la,e part about the ball and the grass.
No more EA for me! Ditto!
@trouble2000
Did you just 'ditto' yourself?
@NHAnimator Yes :D
@NHAnimator I.... I do believe he did
If only online gaming had stayed like in the Quake era...apps like Gamespy and dedicated servers that had nothing to do with the game publishers. You can still log in something like Quake 2 with the original disc and public servers...
Its too bad these big "game" companies keep buying up good IP and ruining it.. now i have an even bigger reason to never buy an EA game.. ever. This is racketeering
smh.
I hope who ever came up with this idea gets herpes
@From My Cube Well that could happen if you go around indiscriminately screwing your customers like that....
I can see the argument that there is a cost to run the servers, administer a new account for a 2nd user etc. but you have to see it as a cynical way to devalue used sales. I doubt it's going to lead to a big upsurge in people who would have bought 2nd hand buying brand new though.
EA can kiss my @$$
ruh roh, what about gamefly?
@From My Cube Everyone gets a 7 day free trial for the online modes for each game, so it doesn't really affect renters much.
@ashleydb It affects gamefly users very much so. I rent games for much longer than a week. It's the very reason I quit using Blockbuster.
well looks like tiger woods10 is the last for me. what they need to do is take a cut of the insane markup gamestop makes on used games. i can trade in a $60 game the day its released and only get $15 or $20, then they turn around and sell it for $50 or $55.
@chrisnorth sell it on Ebay where the buyer and seller set the same price and cut out the middle man if you are worried about getting shorted. Also, we don't want EA or other publishers getting their hands on the used markets (more directly) if you ask me.
@chrisnorth - There were talks about this but the stores basically threw out the idea as they wanted all the profits for themselves. Can't say I blame them, but in the end it's going to destroy them as publishers will start moving to download only. Then what will the stores do?
And when EA's revenues drop, they'll blame it on all those evil pirates. After all, it can't possibly be due to practices like this and the fact that their games suck.
@Jimbo
If there games truly suck why would anyone care about this as they won't be playing terrible games anyway?
@Jimbo
I don't understand this reasoning lol...
are you saying EA will lose revenue when people pirate instead of buying used?
neither of those gave money to EA anyways lol.
They are just asking for hackers...
Potential EA Response: "What are you going to do? Go to Activision?!?" Besides, as much as people bitch you have the wildly successful $25 WoW mount. So it's not like people actually vote with their wallets anyway.
Still better this than Ubisoft's strategy.
@berfarah This is to combat used game sales not piracy so there is no connection to ubisoft here.
@Kleptomaniac Not necessarily - don't you have to have one single Ubisoft account that's consistently connected to the internet? Doesn't that mean that you couldn't sell the game?
@berfarah Well thats just for the PC version. I'm pretty sure you can use any account with the one copy but you do have to be contsantly connected to the internet, that does not stop you reselling it though.
@Kleptomaniac I see - my mistake :)
Hello torrents and keygens!
I love every Better Off Dead reference you make on this site.
@collinrs
Chreeesss-mussss.
@collinrs
Came here to second that. Subtle. Very subtle. And very descriptive of EA. A++++!
This the right and just strategy to combating used game sales.
Blame the retailers that refuse to pony up a cut of their used game sales to the publishers. Blame Gamestop for their ridiculous used game prices.