The War on Used Games
Most notable is Electronic Arts (EA), which became the first publisher to develop the practice of charging players, buying used games, access to game codes. In addition, Downloadable Content (DLC) codes are included with new copies of a particular game and only with those codes, where the content can be accessed. EA has expanded its project to include playing games used online. Players will now have to pay $ 10, in addition to the cost of the game they purchased, in order to access the online parts of their game. Ubisoft has followed suit, needing to go online with its games. You can identify games that need to go online as it has the "Uplay Passport" logo, in the box.
Ubisoft has decided that they will take drastic action and implement Digital Rights Management, a practice often associated with a DVD or CD of anti-crime efforts. Assassins Creed 2 was the first game to be made of this practice. To play the PC version of Assassins Creed 2, players are required to create an account with Ubisoft and log in to that account in order to play the game. This means that if you lose your internet connection, the game will stop automatically and try to reconnect. However, if you are unlucky not to be able to reconnect to the Internet you will have to continue from your last saved game; to lose any progress you may have made since then. This will be the case for all Ubisoft PC titles, whether you are playing one player or multiple players. Although Digital Rights Management has been used to fight DVD and CD crime for a long time, this will mark the first time it has been used for video games. Due to Ubisoft's use of DRM, Matthew Humphries of Geek.com, warns that in the end, the console games will also need to be registered online to play it.
So what is the reason for all this? According to Denis Dyack, head of Silicon Knights, the sale of used games kills the market capitalization of basic games. He also said the market for used games is causing the price of new games to rise. His proposed solution is to move away from portable disks and embrace digital distribution. In fact, he would like to see services like Steam or EA's Origin replace the hard copy of the traditional. There are also rumors that the X-Box 720 will accept exclusive use of digital downloads and use no disks at all. Whether Microsoft will really follow that plan remains to be seen.
One could argue that Sony has already done a great job of preventing used games from operating on their future system. At the very least, they have already put forth great effort to make the games used less desirable. Kath Brice, of Gamesindustry.biz, reported that the latest SOCOM game for PSP, SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, Fireteam Bravo 3, will require customers who purchase used copy to pay an additional $ 20 for a play code online.
I would like to see concrete evidence to support the claim that used games actually undermine the sale of new games at all. Apart from the real facts, to me, it sounds like a lot to do nothing. For example, within 24 hours Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 million copies, making $ 400 million in sales. Correct me if I am wrong but you have never heard Infinity Ward complain about the game market used and affect their main goal. That's because they are so busy counting the money they have earned by creating the games that people want to play. Just think. Perhaps the problem is not that the games used have a negative impact on the sale of new games but, the problem instead is that game developers need to make better games that gamers are willing to pay for the full price.
In my opinion, not every game costs $ 60 just because it is a recommended retail price. If you look at things in the right way, not every game is equally made, so not every game is worth $ 60. Either because that particular game failed to live up to expectations and lived up to its hype or because it did not have the kind of play value again. It is ridiculous to argue that players have to pay a high dollar for every game especially if they often turn into horrible disappointments, like Ninja Gadian 3, or full of problems like Skyrim.
I suspect the Used Games are just a forgery of developers, annoyed that they are not able to make money in a lucrative market. To put it in dollars and cents, in 2009 GameStop reported about $ 2.5 million in revenue from the sale of used consoles and games used. And not a single penny of that profit goes into the pockets of game publishers. Greed as an incentive for the declaration of war on Used Games is obvious. Especially when you consider that when GameStop started splitting their revenue from new games and using games in their financial statements, EA then invested its $ 10 million in used games.
If there is no physical evidence, I will have to answer for anecdotal evidence. I will use myself as an example. I plan to buy a used copy of Ninja Gaiden 2. I have never been a big fan of the series. I didn’t play the first one because I didn’t have an Xbox and at the time it was a special Xbox. And I never played the first version. Needless to say, I have never cried about playing Ninja Gaiden 2. However, the new structure in the second body of the game, which allows you to dump your enemies in the gut, is enough for something new that I would like to play at some point. . I can buy it now, used, for about $ 10. If it was only for sale at a full price I would not be able to play it completely or even rent it. My point is that game developers do not lose money because of the games used; you can’t miss the money you wouldn’t get anyway. They just don’t get the money they wouldn’t start with.
Unless you have a significant amount of revenue and a lot of free time, you are probably like me and you prioritize what games you plan to buy and how much you are willing to pay for them. You decide which games you should have and which games you would like to play but you are willing to wait until you can get one. Then there are games you are interested in, but they often fall into the cracks because they are not so high on your radar and you will probably download them a few months later, or even years after its release, if you have downloaded them at all.
I find it strange that the impending death of a used game market could spell the end of GameStop, which is bizarre, forcing its customers to pre-order new games and buy them at full price. One would think that a game developer would like to inform you about this service and not hate GameStop and treat games used with such contempt. Pre-orders not only help to promote their games but also serve as a predictor of potential sales. Even Dave Their, a provider of Forbes Online, which describes GameStop as, "an infected bloodsucker who does nothing but mark discs and sit in a mall", sees the folly of shifting the market burden of consumer games.
I only pre-ordered the game. At the direction of J. Agamemnon, I pre-ordered Battlefield 3, which is a weird spot for EA. I paid the full price for this game and enjoyed it. For the most part, because I was given access to a few weapons and maps that I would have had to wait to download if I had not ordered it in advance. I suggest that instead of punishing players for wanting to save money they have worked hard for, the gaming industry needs to learn to encourage players to want to make a pony up to that $ 60 price tag.
I named the article War on Used Games in an attempt to make me laugh and joke that whenever the government declares war on drugs or terror whatever it is, they only succeed in exacerbating the problem. It should come as no surprise that the government tends to take a more serious approach to try to "solve" problems. The result is always the same; valuable time and resources are wasted, and the story is that it is much worse than it was before they intervened. If the gaming industry really goes down this way; they will injure themselves over time, fail to share the money they crave greedily, and worse, hurt their customers, keep the gaming industry in line with money.
It's very ironic and actually very fitting that it's EA who is spearheading the effort to attack the used game market when they themselves are one of the largest beneficiaries of used games. Chipsworld MD Don McCabe told GamesIndustry.biz that EA has what he referred to as a "franchise software house" in that they "upgrade their titles; FIFA, Madden; all of these are effectively the same title upgraded each year. And people trade in last year's for this year's." He went on to say that those titles are the ones that are most often traded in. Shutting down the used games market effectively destroys a tried and true method in which fans of EA's franchises keep up-to-date with each of EA's annual releases. Aside from nostalgia, what would be the point of holding onto FIFA 11, when FIFA 12 is right around the corner?
Don McCabe, an executive at Chipsworld, explains that "consumers won't prosper under this new system, as copies of the game will lose their resale value". He goes on to say that retailers will "just readjust [the price] bearing in mind you have to buy the voucher." The CEO of SwapGame cautions that "customers who trade in for cash or credit do so to acquire new games they could otherwise not afford." This means that ultimately it will be the publisher who ends up losing money because when retailers adjust their prices to reflect the increase in cost for used games, the resale value of the game will drop and new games are less likely to be purchased.
I'm a fan of several EA franchises, I enjoy Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed and I'm a die-hard Sony PlayStation enthusiast. As their customer, I'm outraged and offended by their current practices. I fear for what future methods they may use to further stifle or even kill the used game market. That said, I'm hopeful that these companies will be receptive to the outcry of their customers and adhere to our wants. I implore them to discontinue punishing their customers in an effort to capture what they perceive as missed profits. They risk not only alienating their customers but they risk finding themselves with significantly fewer customers and substantially less profit. And at the end of the day, that's really the bottom line.
- Carlisle better known as Prometheus of Punching the Walls of Reality [http://www.punchingthewallsofreality.com]
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