The Glade 4.0

Khross, I think you should elaborate. I only know what you're talking about because of the conversation we had last week.

It's far from common knowledge.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

So, after much research, I found out why the MUA2 downloads went away -- Activision was losing money on the PS3 version. Sony backcharges bandwidth for content downloads and online matchmaking to the game publishers, including EA because they don't support off-network connections. There's a reason your PSN is free: game publishers are subsidizing it. I'd much rather pay my $60 a year for XBox Live than constantly get screwed out of content by Sony's continued insistence on charging developers for "services" Sony "claims" to provide.

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I thought I'd follow up on this thread, as EA's not the only one doing this now. If you buy the new UFC 2010 Undisputed game, you'll also get to type in a code in order to access multiplayer. Without this code, you do not have access to anything whatsoever online. On top of that, they make you use a back door method to punch in their stupid code, due to the fact that their damn menu is broken or XBL isn't working properly with it. So not only are they making it a pain in the *** to get online and play by having the code, they're making it even harder at the moment by not implementing it properly. I'm guessing they heard EA was doing it and rushed it into their product right before it went gold.

Fortunately, THQ is being a little nicer than EA by charging only $5 for a code to play online if you buy the game used.

I can already tell you, I don't like this crap. This particular game is one I'm going to be selling back asap, and the game is already devalued enough by just being opened. It already drops at least $15-20 just by ripping the packaging off. Now it's going to go down another $5 (or $10 in the case of an EA game). Talk about depreciation. A new car driving off the lot doesn't lose value as fast as a video game with these codes after they're opened. My only hope is to find an idiot who has no idea what these codes are even about.

Companies should also consider the fact that second hand sales are a natural thing. For example, let's say your product sucks (like the one above). I want to sell it because I don't like it and maybe someone else will. Am I supposed to just hold onto this disc and never sell it again just because it might hurt THQ's sales? No. If they didn't want that to happen, they wouldn't need a code; they could simply make a better product so that game never entered the second hand market to begin with.

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Sony should stop charging content providers for bandwidth used by their games on the PSN.

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As assholish as the move is, I have a hard time feeling sorry for console gamers losing their second-hand game market.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Care to explain?

The moment we buy an EA game in the near future, it's value goes from $60 to $30ish. We aren't talking Gamestop trade-in $30ish. We're talking real, actual value, $30ish. Used copies of new games have routinely went from $40-48 on eBay in the past. Devaluing the game to $30 is a big hit for console gamers, considering they're the ones that support the frickin' industry. I know it's an effort for these companies to scrap some money off the surface, taking it out of Gamestop's pockets, but it's really going to ultimately be passed on to the consumer. Why again is the consumer getting screwed over a good thing here? The only positive I see here is that games will now be much cheaper used, so if you don't play online, you'll get a pretty good deal.

I do have a workaround for this assholeish move, which I think will work perfectly fine until every single game is like this, causing retail stores to create new policies for video games. Most retail stores won't give you your money back for an opened digital item, but they will exchange it for a new copy of the same item if you claim there's something wrong with it. With video games, you can say it was a glitch or some crap, cop an attitude, demanding to exchange it for a different copy of the same game. Most all retail stores will honor this dispute. Just like that, you've gained that $5-10 right back from EA by getting a new code with the new copy of the game. Sure, it's equally assholeish, but if they're going to circumvent the system with a new code process, why not have us consumers circumvent it as well by bringing back our used copies of the games in exchange for new ones? There's no way they can flat out afford to tell customers to screw off and to go back home with their "dysfunctional" game. The customer is always right, as they say. As long as there's a "dirty disc error" on consoles, people deserve the right to bring back games in exchange for new ones.

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Oh. It's nothing particularly against console gamers. It's more of a "welcome to the party" from a primarily PC gamer. PC games have never had a resale market, really, and have gotten along without one. The notion of "I'll buy this game, and then sell it back when I beat it" isn't really in a PC gamer's vocabulary to begin with.

I'd argue that it's the shift to consoles, with their resale market, that has driven up the cost of new games in the first place. 10 years ago, back before you got cross-platform games, PC games were $40 new, and console games were more because they had higher production costs than stamping a CD. But prices rapidly increased when stuff started going cross-platform last generation, as people resisted differential pricing for different platforms.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I've been at the party for a long time now, as a PC myself. It doesn't make me any happier about it.

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