EA Does it Again

[Nom Pretentieux]

But for online content which they have to use money to keep running then I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to charge people for it.

See, here's why it makes no sense. If you buy the game new and get online MP for the life of the game disc, what changes when that disc changes hands? The disc is still only allowing one person to play online at a time.

Does it cost more to let another person IN YOUR PLACE play online? No, this is a money grab.

Well, if you care at all about the developer then buy new. Jesus. It's that simple. Just buy new, support the developer. I am NOT saying people shouldn't allow a game to change hands, I am saying that neither YOU nor EA are the ones who should be punished!

The ones who should be punished are Gamestop. They should be forced to pay HUGE amounts of royalties for selling used games. That way they couldn't take up to like 40-50 dollars profit RIGHT IN THEIR POCKETS from delivering the service of taking your game that you bought new, putting it up on a shelf and allowing it to be sold again.

Why should Gamestop or Play N Trade be punished? Should used car dealers be punished? Should used furniture stores be punished? How about used CD/DVD stores?

Ya know, if not for used games the prices would rise even higher. The game industry is already running the scam of a lifetime with no return policies while knowing full well that EULA is on the INSIDE of the box. The industry is not your friend.

Does a team of maybe a 100 developers use several years to make a chair? No. Does a car manufacturer sell their cars for about 60 dollars new? no. That's the thing, the amount of resources and time that goes into creating a game, compared to how much we pay for them, make the Games industry incredibly fragile.

Don't be pissed at EA, be pissed at Microsoft for charging you NO MATTER what for elementary features, be mad at Activision for giving nothing back to their customers and taking incredible amounts of money for half assed extra content. Be pissed at Activision for using your money to get fucking Eminem and Usher to hold a concert for a SELECT FEW people, and not even filming or streaming it, or giving its core customers ANY way to take part in their apparently spectacular press conference.

Be mad at the developers who have incredibly popular games, but refuse to patch them properly, like say Bethesda. There's so many other places to put your anger than especially at EA for this online pass. You don't have to agree, but then again if the person before you was so eager to just get rid of his game so quick, he was a dick to redeem his online rights first, wasn't he? be mad at him!

=D

 

[Nom Pretentieux]

Well maybe we shouldn't accept for Gameestop to give us like 5 bucks for a game they're then going to sell for 40. Seriously. That's where my gripe is. And why I don't sell used.

You know, abut ea, I'm actually the wrong guy to talk to, simply because in my eyes, "Sports Game 2010" and the annual sports licensed games they give out is basically the milking cow that pumps in enough money so that they have the capita to dare on a game such as Mirrors Edge.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

Meh, I don't really care, since I don't buy games used. And even if I did, I almost never play online anyway.

 

[halbarad]

I'm sticking by EA on this one. Where is the incentive for EA to make features and whatnot just for people to buy a game used or sometimes not even buy it at all?
Let's face it, if you buy it used no money goes to the Dev or Pubs. They've done it with Sports games and it's working with games like Mass Effect 2.

Blaming them for wanting people to actually buy copies of their games that generates income for them and not simply for a shop is illogical.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

Once again, if a game is up for sale used, then the devs and pubs have already been paid for it.

Yes, but they're still losing out on a potential new sale. If someone buys it used, they aren't buying it new.

 

[Altorin]

Why do publishers have to be restrictive instead of rewarding? At least with Bioware, if you bought new you just got more stuff, DLC you would have had to pay for, maps, etc.... People should be rewarded for buying new, not punished for buying used.

How is that different? Bioware doesn't do multiplayer (not including that mmo thing) so they don't have multiplayer to use as incentive to buy new. You say Bioware is doing the right thing when its almost identical to EAs plan, I really don't see the harm in this. Buying second hand the developers don't see the money,some of that money is used to maintain servers etc, if you buy used really you aren't helping maintain the servers you will be using when you think about it its really not that big a deal, want the feature buy new, if you don't care, don't.

Uhhh, Bioware's plan IS EA's plan. Mass Effect 2 was published by EA.

The key difference is in what they're making you pay the extra $10 for. In Bioware, used owners can choose not to get the DLC that comes with the new game and they're out a playable character and some decent side missions. In NHL, if you buy used and choose not to pay the extra, you're cut off from online multiplayer, probably the KEY selling point of the game. To make Mass Effect like NHL 11, you would have to say that anyone who buys the game used can't access the Normandy.

yes, but you're attributing something to Bioware that has nothing really to do with Bioware.

Both are EA. They may be wrong when it comes to NHL11 etc, and right when it comes to ME2 etc. But it's both EA, and to complain about the EVIL EA PLAN against the SUPER AWESOME BIOWARE PLAN is silly, because it was never Biowares plan in the first place, although they did fully embrace it.

That sort of thing - extra free promotional DLC - falls RIGHT into the hands of the publisher.

 

[HigherTomorrow]

...where the hell have you people been? This has been going on for months!

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

Once again, if a game is up for sale used, then the devs and pubs have already been paid for it.

Yes, but they're still losing out on a potential new sale. If someone buys it used, they aren't buying it new.

Potential????

So is GM every time someone buys a used GM car but if they went to court demanding to be paid for a lost POTENTIAL sale, would they get laughed out of court? Would you support GM the way you are supporting the game industry?

Potential is not a guarantee.

This is the point at which this argument ALWAYS breaks down, when one person starts comparing video games to automobiles. Very funny, that.

 

[halbarad]

I would love to know how people get the car comparison to a video game.

A car is a £6000-[insanely high amount] investment. A video game is a £5-40 investment. There is a serious bloody difference here and anybody who can't see it is simply a moron. It's incomparable.
-----
Garak : "The real comparison here is: Would you rather give your money to the publisher or the shop?"

You do realize the publisher only takes a certain percentage of a sale, as does the developer?

"Yes, it is a dick move. No, they aren't losing money and no they don't deserve to get paid twice for a single copy of the game."
You, sir, are a fool. EA have been losing money for the past few years. The main reason they've lost money is because they've made new IP's to try to stop the stagnation of the market, to actually help gamers. The fact that pre-owned sales are at record highs is another reason.
Get your facts right.

"Once again, if a game is up for sale used, then the devs and pubs have already been paid for it."
As rockyoumonkeys said, they are still losing out due to the fact that a preowned game can be sold countless times and pass through the hands of countless people but they only get paid once. The people who are getting enjoyment from the game after the first person are actually cheating the dev's out of payment for their work in making the game.

EA and probably other companies soon are being smart and circumventing this by charging people who don't pay them when they get their games.
At least you aren't getting charged a large amount after buying the game from them. Then it's unfair. In this situation, they're only taking their rightful cut.

 

[DSK-]

I can't say I like the idea of it, but I will still buy used games despite this.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

Again: Why are you surprised that a company is trying to make money? To a business, there is no such thing as too much money. L4D may have a different business model, especially since Valve owns Steam. It's not altruism. It's business.

Not surprised... but how far is too far? Do we just let this slide until we're charged hourly for gaming?

Really, it depends on us. We are the ones who buy used (despite the fact that until a game is older, Used copies are only $5-$10 cheaper.) and pirate games. That's money out of their pockets, and money that doesn't get reinvested into making games better.

Considering that a used copy of a two week old game is for the most part completely indistinguishable from a new copy, how can you blame someone who wants to save $5? The game stores need to make their money too. Everyone complains about the developers losing money, but what about the distribution channels? Surely Future Shop won't go out of business if they lost used game sales, but Gamestop, and even video rental chains would surely go out of business.

And where's the big outcry against rentals? This is complete BS by the publishers who are pushing it. They cry foul that they are losing money on used game sales. Well, if they lowered their prices in the first place, or lowered them after a certain period then used game sales would be less profitable for places like Gamestop.

Rentals are a bit different. First, I think they get the "Used" deal on what content and access they get. Second, someone who rents a game for a week or two and loves it is more likely to go out and buy it than someone who buys used going out and re-buying it new. I think long term rentals (such as GameFly) are a drastically smaller base of customers that the money they lose is far more negligible.

GameStop has already stated that they are adapting, and that losing used games as their primary income would not drastically affect them. I know GS is considered evil and awful, but where I'm at, they are AWESOME. I love going there. They have a great crew, and it's where I buy all my new games (rather than from Best Buy or something). They will just have to change with the industry, which is a part of business.

Cost of games do go down. They go down over the course of a year. I'm not finding any game that came out in the last year that is still at full price. Nintendo seems to only drop about $10 (though most of their games are already cheaper than others) with many games dropping 50% and including extras (Game of the Year editions).

Yes, the prices are high, but these games are expensive as hell to make. The average salary for someone on a game design team is about $90,000 a year. But say it's lower, say it's $90,000/year, but that number includes the cost of the benefits they offer to employees. Figure 150 people work on a single game, and it takes a year to produce (fairly common numbers). Also figure that for a $70 game, the game company (not retail or shipping companies) keeps $60.

90,000*150/60 = 225,000 copies need to be sold just to pay the employees. Add in all the other costs: maintaining offices, licensing fees, middle-market software fees, advertising, production, electricity, hardware and software upgrades, etc etc etc.

They need the money. And these guys are the ones work 60 hour a week to do it. It's hell. It's hard. It's not fun. They deserve the fruits of their labor.


You are also ignoring the fact that these things (DLCs, online play for non-MMOs) is still pretty new, at least in the mainstream and at the level it's at. Did you really think you were going to get those for free forever? The cycle goes like this:

1) Company tests out new features (online multiplayer global support, DLC, etc)
2) Company examines how the public reacts to it.
3) If reaction is positive, company examines whether or not it's just a short-term fad, or a new branch.
4) Company finds new ways to profit.

These things take a long time. We're just now hitting #4 when #1 started gaining widespread appeal 5-10 years ago.

 

[TPiddy]

yes, but you're attributing something to Bioware that has nothing really to do with Bioware.

Both are EA. They may be wrong when it comes to NHL11 etc, and right when it comes to ME2 etc. But it's both EA, and to complain about the EVIL EA PLAN against the SUPER AWESOME BIOWARE PLAN is silly, because it was never Biowares plan in the first place, although they did fully embrace it.

That sort of thing - extra free promotional DLC - falls RIGHT into the hands of the publisher.

The developer has to develop the DLC first before the publisher can decide what to do with it. Ultimately, I'm not saying that "EA should do what Bioware is doing", I'm saying the approach of free extras or rewards for buying new is better than restrictions and locks for buying used.

 

[TPiddy]

-snip-

Like I've mentioned previously. EA is in NO WAY hurting for sales or profits for that matter. Other successful and reputable developers and companies do not subscribe to this practice. If you must try to get a dig at the used market, do it through rewards, not punishments. I'm not saying that developers or publishers shouldn't get their share, I'm saying they shouldn't be taking it out on their own customers.