Online Pass: A problematic solution

Demystification of this system increasingly adopted by videogame publishers.

[trainsinrdr]

I piss on the side of the toilet at night so I don't wake anyone up.

[zinkabassy]

me to,..

So back to topic.

Fuck them for doing that. Any publisher who does that is a greedy bastard ,..For Sony to do that is just painful. Whoever wants to justify this shit ,.. fu,.. How the hell is this good for me as a consumer and a gamer,..It is only good for greedy publishers and not for gamers,.. They want to lock me into keeping games forever (I apparently by their logic don't even own, lease only) forever...Many gamers trade in some old shit to buy new games,.. So how the fuck is that good for the industry,.. this will probably backfire, because people will be really careful what games they actually want to buy 'apparently rent from them' to keep forever,..

I know they all want to maximize the profits, but this generation is getting ridiculous for consumers,.. This is getting way beyond any need of money,.. Or they lock you in into a fucked up social system with investments you made (xbox live) instead of providing you games,..

We used to buy a product, now we get half of game and then they nickle and dime us with dlc,..Hell we get day one dlc. Or they repackage the same game with some added characters and make your game obsolete (Capcom loves this shit) Soon they won't even need to create any games,..
It is like we are playing games for their perverted pleasure. I am really getting slowly sick of gaming altogether,..

[dark-hollow]

*stealth trolling detected*

[Blazee]

Great article!

[Quagmire]

sure... if your'e Portuguese

[showtimefolks]

we have to agree used game sales is a big issue and we can not expect the publishers to sit back when gamestop alone is making billions and yes that is with a B

now with amazon,gamefly and bestbuy also accepting trade ins its only getting worst

online pass is not a permanent solution but its a start so hopefully down the road both retailers and publishers can come to an conclusion

[caseh]

Like someone said in another thread a few days ago. Pre-owned sales raise awareness of a companies games to people who may never have bought the game brand new.

if people are going to be expected to buy new or pre-owned with a pass then they may not buy the game at all.

Only reason I bought Infamous 2 for example is because I have the original pre-owned and had decided that Infamous 2 would be a day one purchase for me.

[thelogicking]

i cant believe the people who are agreeing with this bullshit!!!
who are you with??? the gamers???or the MULTI FUCKING BILLION DOLLARS COMPANIES?

it just a way to nickle and dime us as much as they can!

they want money??? will MAKE BETTER GAMES!

[GhettoBlasStarr]

Why can't people realise that these companies are trying to "Double Dip"? Every used copy was once sold as new at retail price.
If I buy something that I'm not satisfied with, I should have the right to sell it as I see fit. And when I do sell the game, it's less than what I paid for it. So I take a loss, not the Companies, They've gotten their money off top.
I play Playstation, I play Xbox, I play Games because I'm a Gamer. BUT I DON'T PLAY WITH MY MONEY!!!!!

[hazelamy]

tell me showtime, what right do they have to any preowned sales profits?

why do games publishers get what no other publishers do? that being more than their fair share.

they have no rights to any cut of a preowned sale, because legally, that copy is no longer their property, it's the property of whoever bought it.

[showtimefolks]

this online pass is here to stay and if this doesn't not work both PSN and XBLIVE are big enough to do all digital download next gen or down the road along with steam as their partner

caseh

you are talking about single player games you can still get them used. Rent first than buy new to support the devs

and i am sorry that i stand with the billion dollar publishers than the rip off known as gamestop etc,,,,

when you buy a game and don't like it you can still sell it on ebay or craiglist for $10 less than what you would have sold if there was no online pass

[MasterCornholio]

I agree with the article. The Pass should give you access to DLC instead of crippling the game by removing multiplayer. But we all know that taking away multiplayer is a lot more effective.

[hazelamy]

what gets me is so many people seem to think they have any right to a cut of preowned sales.
when the fact is, they don't.
no industry does, at least i don't think so anyway.

why should gaming be a special case?
why should games publishers get more than their fair share?
their fair share being what they get when any copy is bought new.

that is all they're entitled to, these drm systems that lock entire games to a single user should be outlawed as anybody can see they violate our rights.

[thelogicking]

nobody liked these bs untill sony got into the scene.
till that, a lot of fanboys changed their minds.
bu..bu...bu..but teh poor developers!?

[Jdoki]

The simple answer is 'because they can'.

An explanation could be... If a publisher / developer is providing online services or servers, then they incur an ongoing cost to support.

Lets say a publisher sells a game with online MP, and it is in some way locked to the person who bought it. In this situation a publisher could plan to shut down the servers / services after X amount of years once the game loses popularity and the community dwindles.

However if that game remains in circulation, every time it is sold used that's a 'fresh' user. This means the publisher may need to extend the services/server life beyond the initial X years, and they get nothing for that.

Online pass (it could be argued) is a cost for a service. If we want devs / publishers to support games and services and servers beyond a point, they should get money for that.

Not saying this is an excuse, or saying Online Pass is right, but the only alternative to this is a subscription model. And I'm not sure that would sit easily with gamers at all!

[hazelamy]

it's not the passes in themselves that i have a huge problem with, though you could counter the extended life argument by pointing out that maybe the original owner would keep playing that game longer and not buy the new game if they made trading in impossible, which would be a net loss for the publisher.
but like i said, the pass itself isn't what i take issue with, it's the reasoning behind it, and where they will take this preowned war next.

look at the biggest pusher of these things, ea, and look what they'll do when they can, look at the ridiculous drm they've put on their pc games.
and ubisoft, are even worse on pc, i know they will try to push that to consoles as well.

if i could get a cast iron guarantee that this would never lead to steam style drm that locks whole games, i would have no objection.
well i wouldn't be happy about it, they are still deliberately devaluing the buyers purchase, but i wouldn't go as far as boycotting new copies of games that feature it, like i do now.

but we won't get that guarantee, and to be honest, i don't know that there's a single publisher out there who i'd believe if they did promise that.

[mcstorm]

It all depends on how you look at the Pre Owned Industry. Here in the UK the 2 big shops Game and Gamestation both do trade ins and new games. But they offer you good intensives to buy new games over pre owned games. For example when I bought Crysis 2 they had a offer of trade in 2 game and get an extra £5 off Crysis 2 so I got £15 off the game and I walked out wit the new game. So that was a + for the company's and a +1 sale too.

But then you have people who see a game for under £20 that they have heard is good but were abit unsure about it lets say for example UC. So they pick this game up and really enjoy it so they will pre Order UC2 and the other ones after it as most people cant afford £40 a game every week or so and most people buy a pre owned game months after the game has been out so I don't see how this will affect prophets too much as 99% of games that come out have high sales in the first 4 weeks at the most then the sales drop off.

[Jdoki]

The argument against Online Passes:
- Does not benefit the consumer in any way
- Buying pre-owned can creates a fan of a series, so they may buy a sequel full price. They may also create word of mouth advertising, telling their friends about a great game they played, and they in turn may buy the game new, budget or pre-owned (and the cycle continues)
- A pre-owned sale DOES NOT equal a lost full price or budget sale. Publishers don't seem to get this!
- Publishers are only doing this because they can (the car industry for example, could never get away with something similar)
- The problem exists between the retailers and the publishers, not the consumer and the publisher. If the publishers want a piece of the pie trade-in market pie they should negotiate with the retailers
- Stops game sharing with friends and family

The argument for Online Passes:
- Game development is high. Any extra revenue a publisher can make can be reinvested (we've seen a lot of developers go under this/last year)
- Why should bricks and mortar stores profit from a publishers/developers hard work (profit margins are highest on trade-ins)
- Maintaining the servers (where used) and other online services for games costs the publisher/developer an ongoing cost. The online pass could be seen as payment for a 'service'. (Would you prefer the EA option of closing servers every 2-3 years if an online pass could guarantee 5years uptime and give more services)
- If a publisher said to gamers 'What would you prefer... 7 games a year, and 3 of them will be new IP if we use Online pass; or 5 games a year and only sequels to successful IP if we don't use online pass?' I know my answer!
- For many gamers this won't be a problem. They buy full price or budget anyway.
- If a gamer waits a few months they can often get the game new or budget for a very low price
- In some cases trade-in prices, especially on AAA games, are not substantially lower than new/budget (in the UK anyway - I've even seen offers where the new game was cheaper than the trade-in!!)

I'm sure there's lots more arguments, but these are the main ones. Online Pass is here to stay. If people don't like it, then vote with your wallets and send the publishers a message. Anyone here going to boycott Uncharted 3 because of the Sony Online Pass? No? Thought as much!

Ultimately the Online Pass issue is only a problem for physical media sales. As soon as the various publishers/manufacturers go 100% digital download (probably two generations of console away) - this won't be an issue, because we will all be restricted by far harsher DRM!!

[ShadowKingx]

of course publishers are going to go with it. Why? let me think............"MONEY&q uot;.

sony #1 - how can we get more consumers money without losing any that we get now.
sony #2 - how about PSN Pass for online gameplay

3 days later.....

Publisher - we love you sony. hell yeah, now we don't have worry about used games anymore. we can keep putting out shitty games w online and not worrying about losing profit. want to get together on friday and discuss what else we can do to FUCK THE CONSUMER.