EA Says "Screw You" To Used Game Owners

[Orcus The Ultimate]

"FUCK EA!" should be made in everyone's T-shirt! it would be a Blast!

 

[Altorin]

real fans buy new, sports games get so cheap that adding 10 dollars to the price will still give you a really good deal if you want to go online.

 

[Jennacide]

Screw you too EA

Let the boicot begin

They'd love that. Last time a major boycott happened, well, you know, best selling game launch of all time and all that.

Yeah, and that L4D2 boycott went of swimmingly.

I'm siding with EA here, this is just another step in trying to force the hand of the exploitive used game market.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

I think this is a misappropriation. They aren't saying "screw you" to the used game purchasers, they're saying "Bugger off!" to the used game retailers. The problem is that a used game retailer will sell a title for almost pure profit just under the price of a new one, of course.

Honestly, it's a pretty ballsy move that will agitate a ton of gamers who are so upset to be losing what, 5 dollars at most? Is it really worth this much whining and crying?

 

[Sev72]

Actually for me worst game company award can be proudly held by Valve. Apparently TF2 simply does not "work" for some computers with Intel cards and it just sucks for you that 90% of the time you can't even load the game, let alone play. *grumble grumble*

Back on topic. This makes perfect sense from a moneymaking viewpoint.

 

[Runding]

I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that from a financial point of view it makes perfect sense for EA to take this approach.

Used games sales = no profit for EA, so they are fighting back.
They are offering DLC for online pass for $10.00, which still gives you the option to play online.

As others have pointed out, I think it's only a matter of time before other companies take this approach.

So that's it?

Ofcourse it makes sense for them. Pretty logical decision really. What bothers me is how openly they just roll with this, not many people seem to care. It's a definite lose/lose situation for gamers, if this gets famous it's going to go across with all major publishers and thus most mainstream games resulting in less (even fucking less) ownership of the product for the consumer and a serious hit to the used games market. Imagine if in 10 years time you'll have to think twice about picking up classics because you might have to pay something extra in some strange sheme to make you pay for what you have already bought. Screw that.

I don't think what they are doing is right. It's a big "Fuck You" to people that pick up old sports games, or atleast after a few months which I tend to do. I get it if publishers put extra goodies in new, pre-ordered copies to keep the used games a bit down but actually removing features from the main product? No, sir. I won't buy their games again, even though I tend to buy around 2-3 sports games a year. PES 2011, let's go.

Fortunately, we don't live in an anarcho-capitalist society and "it turns a profit" cannot be offered as a justification for a corporation to do whatever the hell it wants just because it's good for them.

Amen. Perfectly said.

I agree 100%. Companies that follow the EA business model can go fuck themselves. What they are doing in regard to used games benefits no one aside from themselves and has the potential to be devastating for industry retailers which would cost tens of thousands of people their jobs. Of course, developers that actually matter would probably never think of doing something like this, which is why people will continue to support companies like Capcom and Konami.

In light of this, I'd love to see every piece of shit company using "Project Ten-Dollar" and similar tactics to go belly up.

You guys should be excited about this prospect as more profits for EA = more investment in their games development.

I don't get why "developers that matter" would care about how much Gamestop is making in used game profits when pre-owned game sales ultimately hurt the developers pockets...

Also, I highly doubt that this business model is going to hurt EA in overall sales in anyway when the new Madden is released, if anything, this year maybe their most profitable year yet, which will make the stockholders happy.

Whether you agree or not, this is the direction that all the game devs are going to take as it helps them protects their investments.

 

[Andantil]

I'm getting pretty sick of all EA's shit. From now on it's all torrents from them.

 

[Tony2077]

good lord people can't we please show some common sense

 

[DracoSuave]

And here I offer the solution on how to make games that you won't buy used:


MAKE GAMES PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO SELL


There, solved the problem for you EA.

How do you propose they do that?

For starters:

Considering that they release a new version of their sports game every year, people would want to sell their old version of it since the new version will be better.

Don't do this.

While this is just about the multiplayer, there are very few singleplayer games that are worth replaying over a new game as well.

Don't do this.

Make games that have lasting power, games that have reply value, games that are not yearly hits, but constant revenue streams.

 

[AtticusSP]

Used sales on sports games is a problem?
I thought game stores couldn't get rid of them. Look at the fucking 10 dollar bins. It's entirely EA Sports games.