Online passes are total BS. And here is why:

1) They raise the price of used games. Now, you might think that the only loser here is the guy who buys used games. Not so. In response to a lower sale of used games, places like Gamestop, that rely on such purchases, will lower their prices. They will do this by shelling out even less for trade-ins. Those trade-in returns are often used to purchase new games (like trading in last year's CoD to get some money to afford this year's, for example). So, in the end, it is the publisher themselves that takes the hit - along with everyone else that cannot buy as many games as they want.

2) Used games are phenomenal for free marketing of a series. Take Crackdown, for example. Used game sales were blamed for it not selling very well. But, in reality, Crackdown 2 became a best seller. Why the difference? Because millions of people that weren't willing to shell out the $60 price for a new IP were more willing to risk it for a used copy that only cost $30 or $40. And liked it, which cemented their decision to get the sequel when it was announced. I know - I was one of those people. This is why sequels for games that are good usually sell better than the original. But who takes the hit for the lower interest that results - the publisher. (And of course, all the people that miss out on a good game.)

3) What if the system fails? Answer: no online access. This has already happened, twice. FEAR 3 had a problem where you couldn't buy the pass - all gamers that bought the game used had absolutely no way to access the multiplayer part of the game until it was fixed, diminishing their experience, and that of the players that had fewer people to play with to a lesser extent. It also failed with Dirt 3 on the PS3, which was released during the PSN outage, leaving ALL players without access to multiplayer they had paid for for some time after the PSN issue was fixed.

Online passes are, on every level, shit. And they aren't just shit for gamers that buy used - they are shit for EVERYONE that has anything to do with the gaming industry. EA and THQ, if they have their way, would drive online gaming into the dirt.

You ever wonder why most games on PC don't do as well? This is why. PC developers have to work to create a highly unique, attention keeping game or they fail. Except for diehard PC gamers, multiplatform games don't even sell on the PC. PC-only games are highly limited - mostly Blizzard games, other RTS games besides Starcraft, and MMOs. Lots of MMOs. But if they created a console that allowed a keyboard/mouse interface for RTS games, and created a few decent MMOs on the consoles, PC game would die. Hell, even Blizzard is looking into potentially branching into consoles with Diablo III.

I disagree in general.

In specific:

1. You get like 5 bucks for a used game. If you hadn't been buying used games you would of had that 5 bucks to begin with. I think I'll pull a statistic out of my ass, and say "most people who sell their games back, do so to buy more used games". Thus the publishers gain nothing and don't care if gamestop lowers their trade in price. Fuck those guys anyway.

2. Free marketing? BS. Publishers reduce the cost of their games over time anyway. Gamestop just stays $5-10 ahead of them. Sure this makes a difference for some people. However, the publishers would rather you bought 3 games a year from them instead of 4 games a year from gamestop. Jerks!

3. Well, I don't really have an answer for this. It sucks. Fortunately, it is becoming more and more rare. Internet connectivity is only getting more reliable as time goes by reducing the value of this concern. Maybe it's God telling you to go outside?

PC games don't do as well because they have a higher cost of entrance. 250+60 (console) is far less than (pc + 60) generally.

Diablo III on console? Ugh. I'm sure they looked into it. I doubt it will be a reality. Console adaptations are on the whole complete shit, and bad for everyone. But that's probably another thread.

Arres wrote:You get like 5 bucks for a used game. If you hadn't been buying used games you would of had that 5 bucks to begin with.

You only get that little if you wait a long time to trade it in, or if you bought it used in the first place. However, I have, many times, purchased a full price game, played it for a couple of months, and then traded it in for $30 towards another full price game. I am currently doing that with a couple of the games I have traded in to pay off my Skyrim preorder at Gamestop.

I think I'll pull a statistic out of my ass, and say "most people who sell their games back, do so to buy more used games". Thus the publishers gain nothing and don't care if gamestop lowers their trade in price. Fuck those guys anyway.

I think that statistic you pulled out your ass is totally wrong. Now, I can't find any actual statistics on this - but I can rely on my experience as both a gamer that trades in old games and someone who worked at Gamestop for a while in high school. The vast majority of people that traded in games used them to either preorder new ones, or buy them off the shelf. Those that didn't were mostly parents that wanted something really cheap for their kids to play.

The key is in what games these Online Passes are used for. The majority of these are sports games. And if any game can be said to be traded in for some money towards the newest version each year, it's CoD Madden, NCAA, FIFA, etc.

Yeah, I know. The plural of anecdote is not data. Still, since your claim isn't actual data, but a hypothesis, I think it will suffice.

Free marketing? BS. Publishers reduce the cost of their games over time anyway. Gamestop just stays $5-10 ahead of them.

That $5-10 can make a big difference, especially when you are buying multiple games or trying something totally new. Especially since not all publishers do reduce the cost of their games over time. (I'm looking at you Nintendo. Do you not want me to play any first party DS games?)

In addition, when the publisher reduces the cost of a game, they are essentially doing it for cheap marketing - they don't make nearly as much money off it. Gamestop, and other used sales, just take that small amount they would have made and shift it to someone else - that person that traded it in. And as I have argued, that money is then usually spent on new games anyway.

Used sales turned Crackdown 2 into a bestseller, despite the lower new sales of Crackdown.

However, the publishers would rather you bought 3 games a year from them instead of 4 games a year from gamestop. Jerks!

Trading in used games is how I can afford 3 games a year from publishers. Without it, I could not afford half the games I buy new. I can't speak for anyone else, but I buy new games. However, the Online Pass lowers the value of used games to Gamestop, so when I trade them in, I get far less to put towards the new Elder Scrolls, FIFA, or CoD. I've already had to pass on FIFA 12 and MW3 (both bought new) because I could not get as much for my used games this year.

Well, I don't really have an answer for this. It sucks. Fortunately, it is becoming more and more rare. Internet connectivity is only getting more reliable as time goes by reducing the value of this concern. Maybe it's God telling you to go outside?

I think you missed my point, here. I'm not saying that the Internet connection is down. I'm saying that, despite having multiplayer in the game, and a working Internet connection, I still cannot play. Why? Because there is a bug in the code that verifies the Online Pass.

PC games don't do as well because they have a higher cost of entrance. 250+60 (console) is far less than (pc + 60) generally.

While this is true to some extent, the cost of entrance is exaggerated. For one, most people already have a PC of some sort - so the cost is really some additional PC cost. Usually around $300-$400, if you are willing to build it yourself. In addition, games are actually $10 cheaper at $50.

But that isn't the whole reason. There exist people like me that have computers that can handle pretty much any PC game on the market (my $700 computer has a quad-core AMD CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a fairly hefty GPU). Yet they don't buy games for it. I have Starcraft II and Civilization V, and while I plan on getting Diablo III, that pales in comparison to even what I am going to get for my 360 this fall. The ability to trade in my console games when I am finished with them is a big part of my decision not to get the same games (such as Battlefield 3) for PC, even though I could.

Diablo III on console? Ugh. I'm sure they looked into it. I doubt it will be a reality. Console adaptations are on the whole complete shit, and bad for everyone. But that's probably another thread.

The idea is that it would be an identical game, except with console controls. They have already said they will (eventually) patch gamepad controls into the PC version. To quote game director Jay Wilson, "One of the reasons why we’re exploring the idea of a console version of Diablo III because we feel that the controls and the style of the game lend itself to a console. With some of our early experiments in putting a direct control scheme into the game via a 360-like analogue controller, I’ve been ‘Oh this feels even better, with direct control…'"

Seriously, though, it wouldn't even be hard. Map the four skills to the face buttons, the mouse buttons to the two triggers, and movement/camera angle to the two analog sticks, and you are pretty much set. Minor adaption to how items are picked up, and controls for inventory and other screens, and you are ready to go. Treat the console graphically as a low-to-mid-range computer, and while it won't look nearly as good as a top-of-the-line gaming PC, it would still look pretty good (at least as good as on a cheaper computer).

Torchlight is a really good example of how to do a Diablo-style game on a console. Pretty much change the story and the graphical style, and it is Diablo.

Considering that the future is hand-held phones, I think there is a decent chance that consoles will go the way of the PC games.

Been watching the Jimquisition eh?

But yeah, online passes are a bad bad thing, and will probably result in the publishers screwing themselves in the end.

Are they such a bad thing, really?
Sounds to me like it's simply publishers trying to close a massive loss in revenue that stores like Gamestop and whatnot are causing for them.
You buy a game new, publisher gets the money.
You buy a game used, for a reduced price, you get the full experience of the game and the store gets the money and the publisher doesn't see a penny of it.
Now, I'm not going to call second hand games piracy, because that would be retarded. However, the impact it has on publishers is just the same, where people are playing their games and they're making no money for it.
Now money for the publishers. No new games.
Online passes sound fair enough to me.

Blackjack wrote:Sounds to me like it's simply publishers trying to close a massive loss in revenue that stores like Gamestop and whatnot are causing for them.

But the gap isn't closed at all, really. All the money that is spent on used games comes, eventually, back into new games. Like I said, Crackdown 2 was only a big success because of the used sales for Crackdown. I, and many other gamers like myself, commonly trade in games to purchase brand new ones - and that has become harder to do.

It's the broken window fallacy here. Publishers look and see that EA made $15 million off of Online Passes and don't realize that it probably lost just as much as people didn't have the extra $10 bucks they needed to make their purchase of the next years game happen.

Here's an example. I only have $100 to spend on games this school year. Because of trade-ins, that is actually enough to get me Skyrim, Forza 4, Halo: CEA, BF3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Mass Effect 3 before next May - all brand new. Without trade-ins, I would be getting Skyrim, and maybe also Halo because that is only $40. Online Passes have already caused me to not be able to get FIFA 12 as well, due to the lowered trade-in value on games that have them.

Another example: let's say that I am buying a used game with my $100. Perhaps it is FIFA 11, which costs about $35 (after tax) used. Now I like that game, so decide I want to play it online. I pay another $10 for the Online Pass. Now, even assuming that I didn't have to buy Xbox Live points in $20 increments, I only have $55 left. I guess my newfound love of FIFA will not be enough to get me to purchase FIFA 12 new, despite the fact that I really want it after playing last year's version. In getting that $10 from me for that Online Pass, they have incurred the hidden cost of a lost sale of a new game - which is worth more than $10.

Now, I know these scenarios don't apply to everyone. But they do apply to some people, and I think that it is enough people that, when combined with the people that just stop playing your games (because they choose games without the need for the Online Pass), the publisher is, in actuality, merely breaking even, if not taking a rather significant hit to the bottom line.

Now, I'm not going to call second hand games piracy, because that would be retarded. However, the impact it has on publishers is just the same, where people are playing their games and they're making no money for it.

And now, I'm not playing their games. Many others aren't either. In fact, excepting FIFA and Battlefield, I will not buy an EA game with multiplayer new anymore, and I will not pay for an Online Pass - and it has nothing to do with price. And even with FIFA, I only buy a new one when the one I have is being taken off the servers (I used to get FIFA every year or two, depending on my financial situation). Many people don't buy PC games because they cannot be traded in - you have to be prepared to lose every cent you put into the purchase price of that game. Making console games work the same way will only reduce demand, much like stringent DRM has done.

I think the biggest point I can make here is this, though: the biggest games sell in the tens of millions without these stupid passes. If you really want to get people to buy your games new, make them good. Make them the next Halo, or CoD, or Uncharted, or what have you. Don't punish some of the consumers because they bought a product someone else traded in. It's roughly like having a used book store like Hastings cut out the end of each used book and then have the publisher sell it on their website for an additional $2.50. Total bollocks.

Many games today are like rentals. They play like rentals. You have a 6-8 single player campaign that you can blow through on a Friday or Saturday night, and then its multiplayer until you get bored of it - and that happens fast if you haven't made Halo, Battlefield, or CoD. Of course they trade in their games. If publishers actually hired developers to make decent games that people would want to play for a while - a game like Oblivion, or Portal - they wouldn't lose so much to used sales. But if you release a game that seems like it is destined to end up on a used game shelf, then you have only yourself to blame when it ends up there.

I thing auto manufacturers should begin requiring the equivalent of an online pass, where you can't drive the car unless you buy from them the ability to start it, like through OnStar or something similar. If you buy the car new, then it's included. But if you buy it used, you have to pay the manufacturer a fee of 35% of the price you paid for the vehicle in order to actually drive it.

After all, they don't make money when someone buys a used car...

The other thing too is a lot of games from the 1990's and onward have online components that probably wouldn't be worth playing without paying for keeping those archaic servers running. For instance, the original Neverwinter Nights had a DLC (or lack of a better term) called Kingmaker that required an active server in order for you to play the full side-game. There were three or four of those, and you can't play them now since those servers are gone.

Deacon wrote:After all, they don't make money when someone buys a used car...

A used car is inferior to a new car.
Used media is identical.

Blackjack wrote:

Deacon wrote:After all, they don't make money when someone buys a used car...

A used car is inferior to a new car.
Used media is identical.

Nonsense - used media is just as likely to be damaged as a used car, through scratches on the disc, etc.

Furthermore, when comparing a used car to a new one, there is a difference in the year - and thus the new car has fancier things associated with it. This also applies to games - a used copy of FIFA 10 is considered inferior to a new copy of FIFA 12, any day.

Forgive me replying to Deacon before this one, I didn't have time to go over the whole thing. (It was 1am, give me some slack)

collegestudent22 wrote:But the gap isn't closed at all, really. All the money that is spent on used games comes, eventually, back into new games. Like I said, Crackdown 2 was only a big success because of the used sales for Crackdown. I, and many other gamers like myself, commonly trade in games to purchase brand new ones - and that has become harder to do.

It had nothing to do with the massive marketing it had to back it? Or even the fact that everyone who bought it got into the Halo 3 MP beta (Cocaine, essentially)?

It's the broken window fallacy here. Publishers look and see that EA made $15 million off of Online Passes and don't realize that it probably lost just as much as people didn't have the extra $10 bucks they needed to make their purchase of the next years game happen.

Here's an example. I only have $100 to spend on games this school year. Because of trade-ins, that is actually enough to get me Skyrim, Forza 4, Halo: CEA, BF3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Mass Effect 3 before next May - all brand new. Without trade-ins, I would be getting Skyrim, and maybe also Halo because that is only $40. Online Passes have already caused me to not be able to get FIFA 12 as well, due to the lowered trade-in value on games that have them.

Another example: let's say that I am buying a used game with my $100. Perhaps it is FIFA 11, which costs about $35 (after tax) used. Now I like that game, so decide I want to play it online. I pay another $10 for the Online Pass. Now, even assuming that I didn't have to buy Xbox Live points in $20 increments, I only have $55 left. I guess my newfound love of FIFA will not be enough to get me to purchase FIFA 12 new, despite the fact that I really want it after playing last year's version. In getting that $10 from me for that Online Pass, they have incurred the hidden cost of a lost sale of a new game - which is worth more than $10.

Are you entitled a "try before you buy" scheme now? It's a sensible idea, convenient too. Publishers disagree.
If you happily bought Fifa 11 preowned, what's to stop you from buying Fifa 12 preowned too? These games last a year, don't they? Are publishers to simply take your word for it? Let you try the first one for, as far as the publisher sees, free before you decide if it's worthing giving them money for their merchandise?

Now, I know these scenarios don't apply to everyone. But they do apply to some people, and I think that it is enough people that, when combined with the people that just stop playing your games (because they choose games without the need for the Online Pass), the publisher is, in actuality, merely breaking even, if not taking a rather significant hit to the bottom line.

I couldn't possibly give an educated guess ratios. Please don't try to yourself.

And now, I'm not playing their games. Many others aren't either. In fact, excepting FIFA and Battlefield, I will not buy an EA game with multiplayer new anymore, and I will not pay for an Online Pass - and it has nothing to do with price. And even with FIFA, I only buy a new one when the one I have is being taken off the servers (I used to get FIFA every year or two, depending on my financial situation). Many people don't buy PC games because they cannot be traded in - you have to be prepared to lose every cent you put into the purchase price of that game. Making console games work the same way will only reduce demand, much like stringent DRM has done.

As far as I am aware, you are in the tiniest of minorities in that group.
As far as PC games go, it's my experience that they're cheaper on average thanks to services such as Steam etc.
I can't say for America, but here in the UK I pay roughly £30 for a PC game and £40 for a console game(new). My point being that plenty of people do buy PC games, and trading in doesn't even cross their minds.
Then again, most people I know that play PC games don't usually bother with console games or trade ins or whatnot, maybe it's a cultural difference, for lack of a better phrase.

I think the biggest point I can make here is this, though: the biggest games sell in the tens of millions without these stupid passes. If you really want to get people to buy your games new, make them good. Make them the next Halo, or CoD, or Uncharted, or what have you. Don't punish some of the consumers because they bought a product someone else traded in. It's roughly like having a used book store like Hastings cut out the end of each used book and then have the publisher sell it on their website for an additional $2.50. Total bollocks.

Yes, because publishers don't deserve their due unless every single game they make is game of the year.
As for the book store similie, I don't possess a retort but it feels inaccurate somehow. Let me get back to you on that.

Many games today are like rentals. They play like rentals. You have a 6-8 single player campaign that you can blow through on a Friday or Saturday night, and then its multiplayer until you get bored of it - and that happens fast if you haven't made Halo, Battlefield, or CoD. Of course they trade in their games. If publishers actually hired developers to make decent games that people would want to play for a while - a game like Oblivion, or Portal - they wouldn't lose so much to used sales. But if you release a game that seems like it is destined to end up on a used game shelf, then you have only yourself to blame when it ends up there.

Because only crap games no-one wants to buy get traded in?

collegestudent22 wrote:Nonsense - used media is just as likely to be damaged as a used car, through scratches on the disc, etc.

Please don't be like that, it doesn't become you.
Broken media, like a broken car, are unusuable and frankly not part of what we're talking about.
A scratch on the disc will not effect the media experience in any way. If it does: Firstly, what the hell are you doing to your discs? Secondly, it's broken, not simply "used". I buy used media myself, don't get me wrong. Only on a rare occassion has there even been noticable scratches on it.
My point is, that media is very much a Works/Broken deal, whereas cars are a more gradual degradation that, in turn, lowers it's value.
If I shown you 2 movies on DVD, one new and one preowned, you could watch that movie both times, and you'd never be able to tell me which one was the preowned one.

Furthermore, when comparing a used car to a new one, there is a difference in the year - and thus the new car has fancier things associated with it. This also applies to games - a used copy of FIFA 10 is considered inferior to a new copy of FIFA 12, any day.

A new copy of Fifa 10 is also considered inferior to a new copy of Fifa 12.
However, a new copy of Fifa 10 is identical to a used copy of Fifa 10.
Apple and oranges, I don't care if they both have "Fifa" in the name.

Good lord, now I know why I never join these forum debates, so much typing!

I said a "used" car, not a "used up" car. Come, now. No manufacturer makes money on used sales.

Yes, but it's not the same is it?

When a car manufacturer builds and sells a car, they know it's going to last X years/miles/whatever. After that X, it's going to be dead and someone will have to buy a new car.
They don't really care who has their car for that X, because they've already made their money for X.

Blackjack wrote:When a video game manufacturer builds and sells a game, they know it's going to last X years/systems/whatever. After that X, it's going to be dead and someone will have to buy a new game.
They don't really care who has their game for that X, because they've already made their money for X.

I fixed that for you.