$10 passport for online play.

Ubisoft has now joined the crusade alongside Sony, EA, Warner Bros. and THQ to hurt the used games industry by adding an online passport to their new games. When you buy the game new, you get ONE copy of the passport for free. Which means you, and only you, can play the game to its fullest. No sharing with your siblings or friends -- unless they're willing to spend $10 each to play online.

The purpose behind this is to take money back from the used games market. People who buy games for $55 used when there's a new copy for $60 at Gamestop would almost certainly be stupid to buy what will end up costing them $65 after purchase. Which means Gamestop will have to start selling used games for $45 to get them to actually sell, and either way the company will make some money off the sale if the person ends up buying a passport.

I personally don't really like this even though I buy most titles that would use this new. I don't blame the publishers for wanting to continue making money to combat the used game market but I don't think this is the way to go about it. Especially in the scenario I pointed out before where you can't even share your game with your siblings any longer, unless the passport activates on up to five systems as long as they're linked to the original account (PlayStation 3) like any other download.

I think there's a better way for companies to combat used game sales. STOP KEEPING YOUR GAMES AT $60 AFTER A YEAR. I don't mind paying full price for something brand new. I do mind paying the same price as someone else quite some time after its release. Games used to drop in price after only 6 months. Even if it's a small drop, it would be incentive for me to buy it over buying used. They also don't publish "Greatest Hits" type copies at a cheaper price at a later date. Sometimes its impossible to find games and there's no choice but to buy used -- this is the publishers fault, why should they continue to reap benefits when they don't care enough to make sure I can actually buy the game new?

The point is, publishers aren't doing anything to get people to buy new after some time has passed. If they open up their services after a year or two have passed and just do this to deter people from buying the pre-owned $55 copies from gamestop then it's fine. But once a game is out of print, once the game is dated and still for some reason $60 new, we shouldn't be put-upon to pay for part of the games content just because we wanted to buy the game at a reasonable price. NOTHING ELSE WORKS THAT WAY IN LIFE, regardless of the retarded analogies IGN has pushed about used cars. Every used game was once new and that means used players are not adding extra stress to the online servers, which is how they're justifying this move.

What are your thoughts on this?

You're destroying video gaming!

This is why i don't buy anything anymore.

I like how the solution to many of these issues("piracy" , used games, etc.) is to punish the honest consumer.

I like how the solution to many of these issues("piracy" , used games, etc.) is to punish the honest consumer.

One bad apple spoils the bunch.

One bad apple spoils the bunch.

That doesn't work with customers, it only pushes them away to other competitors.

Dishonest customers ruin the experience for those who are honest.

I don't see how it "doesn't work".

Meh, I only have one multiplayer game that I'm consistently playing, so this doesn't really bug me.

Dishonest customers ruin the experience for those who are honest.

I don't see how it "doesn't work".

It creates more dishonest customers.

there is a reason why i refused to buy a 360, wii, ps3, or any of the new modern handhelds other than my ipod touch

and it is bullshit like this.

In the next move companies will start asking for a montly fee for multiplayer games after you have bought them for 50$+ >.>

One thing is fighting piracy and another thing is getting greedy, how you notice which is which? Hard to tell brosky.

In the next move companies will start asking for a montly fee for multiplayer games after you have bought them for 50$+ >.>

One thing is fighting piracy and another thing is getting greedy, how you notice which is which? Hard to tell brosky.

They already do this, it's called DLC

I'm not a console gamer so I don't have much of an opinion on used games, but I agree that the methods these companies are using to attempt to make money off used games are silly.

http://www.teamxlink.co.uk is the answer!

This would be like the automotive manufacturer requiring you to buy a new key from them every time a used car gets re-purchased.
It's absolutely absurd.

Tangible property is self limiting, it may very well be illegal for them to restrict the transfer of "real" property in this manner and profit off it repeatedly.
I'll look forward to the class action suit on this one because their only defense is to claim that rights to connect to special content are non transferrable, but those rights have no value to the 'original owner' if you give the physical game up so making them non-transferrable is just a needless consumer gouge to make up for their own inability to make a product people would consider buying retail.

http://www.teamxlink.co.uk is the answer!

For a brief moment (until I learned about the price of the broadband adapter, the dead community, and the lag) I thought I'd be able to play Kirby Air Ride online with people. I hope you understand that you just ruined my life.

I think the concept is perfectly understandable. Used games do NOTHING for the developer or publisher - the consumer just gives money to GameStop or whatever store is involved with the sale. So throwing back $5 or $10 to the people who are truly responsible for the game existing is fine.

I agree that I don't like the "one person, and one person only" thing. A lot of games we buy for the Wii are played by multiple people in my house. Although this hasn't come to the Wii yet, it would be a real shame if both me and my two siblings each had to pay $10 to play the game we bought for $50.

Good concept, not-so-good execution of it. Hopefully they'll refine it after the first few games.

I think the concept is perfectly understandable. Used games do NOTHING for the developer or publisher - the consumer just gives money to GameStop or whatever store is involved with the sale. So throwing back $5 or $10 to the people who are truly responsible for the game existing is fine.

Why would a game be different from any other product you buy used?
Should books give credit back to the publisher every time they're resold?
Should CDs?
Should cars?
Should houses repay the builder every time they change owners?

What you're saying is absolutely ridiculous. One product, one sale. Resale goes to the owner.

Why would a game be different from any other product you buy used?
Should books give credit back to the publisher every time they're resold?
Should CDs?
Should cars?
Should houses repay the builder every time they change owners?

What you're saying is absolutely ridiculous. One product, one sale. Resale goes to the owner.

I agree, but the problem is that unlike with other markets, in this one you've got companies like gamestop buying brand new games back for $20 and selling them for slightly less than the new price and pushing that on idiot customers who want to save $5 only days after release while there are still tons of new games sitting the shelves. I have to wonder if there's no way they can just hold GameStop accountable, but I think that would mean a lengthy court battle and fees, when it's easier for them to just push the costs off on the consumer.

So? The publisher still got their full price, why should they get paid a second time?
A car loses 40% it's value the minute it drives off a lot. They'll buy it back at less than half what you paid and sell it for up to 80% easily. This is how business works.
Who exactly is Gamestop hurting there?

So? The publisher still got their full price, why should they get paid a second time?
A car loses 40% it's value the minute it drives off a lot. They'll buy it back at less than half what you paid and sell it for up to 80% easily. This is how business works.
Who exactly is Gamestop hurting there?

People don't sell their cars back 3 days after they've bought them. People who sell their games used, without the help of gamestop, would usually have to wait some time to do it or go to some ridiculous efforts on ebay or something. Game companies used to be able to put more new games on the shelves because there was a demand for them, they didn't have to compete with the same game being recycled over and over.

This doesn't happen with cars (at least not while they're still full price, later on in their lives they get passed around a lot) it doesn't happen with CDs or even movies. Piracy does but there isn't a huge USED NEW CD market. A game company can sell like 6 new copies of a game to gamestop and those game can then leave their hands and come back 100 times. If that option wasn't available, there would be more new game sales, guaranteed. Maybe not 100 sales worth, but a few more. And the price difference is so negligible that there SHOULD be more new game sales. If someone can't pay that extra $5 near a game's launch then they should absolutely have to wait a few months to play it.

I don't think it's right for gamestops to be selling used copies of a game at near full price, especially when the game just came out. Game producers work hard on games--way harder than musicians and arguably as hard as movie makers--and they have a lot more pomegranate deal with between this and piracy.