I haven’t been able to touch the topic of used sales in videogames yet, but now might be a good time to at least brush on the subject. I learned today on Destructoid that EA’s Kingdoms of Amalur will include an online pass. This practice has been done before, but it definitely isn’t a common one yet. To me, this concept seems like a ridiculous way to milk a little extra money out of consumers.
What’s an online pass, you might ask? It’s a new practice established by EA fairly recently that attempts to cut a small profit for the company for used sales of their games. The content found in an online pass, which can only be found in a new copy of a retail game, originally came with the ability to connect to your game via the internet and play in online multiplayer. More recently, EA has been including bonus content in the form of free dlc slips with new games. Either way, the intention is to force the players that buy games used to still send some money to the publisher.
In general, I’m not a very big fan of the online pass, especially in its most basic form: a pass that enables you to play online. The argument originally presented by EA with the online pass is that forcing used copies to pay for an online mode will help pay for server costs. This argument is inherently flawed. Why would a used sale need to pay for a server cost? When someone sells their copy of a game to someone else, they are no longer using up any time or space on the server. Shouldn’t the money they paid in the first place have covered any one online spot for the server, no matter who takes it?
Offering free downloadable content with the purchase of a new game is a slightly better approach, but I’m still not that fond of it. One of the big plusses that a constant console connection to the internet has offered is the ability to develop new content after the release of a game. I’m by no means opposed to dlc in any way, but offering a game brand new with extra purchasable content from day one just reads as greed to me. For me, downloadable content marks a way for the publisher to release some kind of improvement upon the experience of the original game. One good example of this is the dlc found in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which features a new boss fight that took player complaints from the original game into account. When you’re giving out dlc on day one, the developer has had zero input, and thus can’t add anything outside of a few alternative missions or items.
Either way, I still can’t quite comprehend why videogame retailers feel they deserve a slice of the profits made from used game sales. Once you sell your product, that product becomes the property of the consumer. Just because GameStop buys and sells used copies of videogames doesn’t mean that videogame publishers deserve a cut every time a game is sold. If a game is genuinely good, I can guarantee that players won’t feel a strong urge to resell their copies.
And even if they do, that was their right as a consumer. What if I’ve finished a great game and want to share it with one of my friends for free? Why should my friend have to spend their own money for something that I’ve already paid for myself? I know that it’d probably be really complicated to keep track of who has activated online mode for their account or not, but it still seems silly to me that game publishers can still make money in situations where no money even exchanges hands between two people in the first place.
I definitely have a lot more to say on this issue for the future, but today’s post about Kingdoms of Alamur prompted me to at least get my thoughts out there. The simple fact of having to connect online on day one in order to unlock all the content for a single player experience just seems unnatural. I’ve been able to trade, sell, lend, or gift almost every single good that I’ve purchased in my life. Be it DVDs, sporting equipment, clothes, or trading cards, I’ve been able to do whatever I want with my items as I please. Just because videogames are a digital medium doesn’t seem to be a good excuse for discouraging the used goods market.
That’s my opinion, anyways. I know that videogames are an expensive medium to produce, but I believe there are much better ways to generate sales than a cheap gimmick like the online pass. Maybe I’ll touch on that subject later. Until then, what do you guys think? How do you feel about the used market, dlc, and online passes?
-Josh
