2011-07-15, 03:16 PM
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?
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?