Sony Says All Future Sony Games Will Require Code To Play Online

For someone like me, who's not a huge online gamer, but will pop on multiplayer occasionally, this will absolutely kill multiplayer access from now on. I buy used 99% of the time, (I'm poor, and buying used is pretty much the only way I get to game), and def not paying $10 or whatever extra per used game to get on once a month and get ganked by 24/7 online players.

Everyone wants more money, but no one wants to give anyone any type of raise to meet the increased prices.
 
[quote name='SynGamer']I don't really consider used games customers to be actual customers. At some point, someone is going to buy the game I'm trading in, which ultimately hurts the developer.[/QUOTE]Unless the used game customer buys dlc, or the sequal new. Do you honestly think people would buy as many new games @ $60 if they couldnt ever sell any of the games when they are done? Used games are a huge net plus for developers. Those who want to do away with used sales completly are short sighted.
 
[quote name='Narcisstalker']
The reality is that there are used markets which exist for nearly every single damn industry in the world. Deal with it or don't play ball with those who resell but don't shit on the hapless consumers trying to save a buck. (and I don't even sell games or buy them used cause, ya know, they smell funny;))[/QUOTE]

That's because the games industry was never in on the ground floor for doing that, they produce and sell new, and since they still aren't equipped or want to deal with old product they can't get the money that Gamestop or anybody else gets from the secondary market except this way.

I'd say the auto industry would do the same if they didn't have a piece of the pie in used sales. Hence the push for DD and now 1-time online access codes.
 
[quote name='uncle5555']...[/QUOTE]

What do you think about my first point? (just speaking to physical copies of course)

If publishers and distributors were actually willing to stand by their convictions and their misplaced disdain for the used market then they'd stop selling games to each and every place which participated in said used market instead of passing the buck onto us.

Seems like an abundance of greed and a complete lack of testicles.;)
 
[quote name='Narcisstalker']What do you think about my first point? (just speaking to physical copies of course)

If publishers and distributors were actually willing to stand by their convictions and their misplaced disdain for the used market then they'd stop selling games to each and every place which participated in said used market instead of passing the buck onto us.

Seems like an abundance of greed and a complete lack of testicles.;)[/QUOTE]

They won't do it because Johnny (Sheep) Gamer buys most of his stuff at Gamestop because he's A.) Too lazy to shop for a deal. B.) Doesn't know any better. My 13 year old nephew who games doesn't know any better and shops at Gamestop period. There are no other game stores to him.

So taking that into account, and the other countless like him, they shop at Gamestop, Gamestop has the publishers by the balls because of the sales market they represent, which is HUGE (and how would Gamestop get so many exclusive pre-order bonuses if the Publishers were at odds with them, good question there, who's going to bite who's hand there) and they don't want to kill that sector of their cash flow because people trading in old crap they don't play anymore for new crap and getting it cheaper.

It's a cyclical effect, I bet if that trade-in route did go away new sales would take a serious hurting, even on AAA mega titles like COD or Halo.

So yeah more talk than deed being done here because they know it will have an extreme detrimental effect on the bottom line if they fight back against their #1 proponent of sales who are their #1 opponent of used merchandise. There is only one way for the publishers to combat that like I said, is to use this online pass thing and DD.

They might not like the sleeping giant (Gamestop, and other big retailers selling used products), but aren't in any position to try and kill it anytime soon either. And also with other big retailers (BB and WM) jumping in it's only going to get worse for the publishers to fight this battle, this issue isn't going to go away anytime soon.

You'll just see more gimmicks like this or more perceived value items packed in for early adopters and then eventually keys to use the software that has been locked to your system and not playable elsewhere, yeah it's coming especially if they don't totally phase over to DD totally in the future.

Pricing is a huge part of this too, everyone complains about $60 games, publishers say they need it for dev. cost, however most of the big titles released in the last few years drop to $40 a few weeks after release, how can this be possible? Because they overprice stuff, if the $40 price point was to become standard again, I'd say new sales would increase again, we all know they won't own up to this, nor will it happen. I'm more curious if they have the big brassy balls to jump to $70 a game next generation of systems?

Big questions and no easy answers I'm afraid.
 
[quote name='LennyTheKenny']I don't really care since I buy my games new, but I certainly miss the days before these online pass things.[/QUOTE]
hey man we be living in bad times mans, oh and i just bought like 5 games on gamefly for the price of a "new game"
 
Used-game sales benefits developers to a degree, but not as much as say piracy does for PC developers. This is mainly because a casual customer will walk into Gamestop to buy a game, willingly for $60 new, but then be easily persuaded to buying it for $55 used by the store clerk.

It's still a questionable move, and I'm not sure what the outcome will be. There are so many gamers, not calculated, that pick up hit games later in time either from friends or at a low used-price, and this garners a lot more attention to future titles the developer releases, as well as DLC. People will be very unwilling to try out a game if it stays in the $40-60 range 1-2 years down the line. That will only work for Activision, EA etc... who have a very loyal flock of fans. If you can convince people to pay $15 for new maps, you can pretty much get away with anything.
 
[quote name='orangecrush']Unless the used game customer buys dlc, or the sequal new. Do you honestly think people would buy as many new games @ $60 if they couldnt ever sell any of the games when they are done? Used games are a huge net plus for developers. Those who want to do away with used sales completly are short sighted.[/QUOTE]

^this

I have the BBV pass now and i won't be buying any more games new, I'll be renting, sucks for the developers
 
^sucks for you though, because rented games don't come with these passes so you won't get to enjoy a lot of the content.

I buy new, so this only bothers me from the perspective of TIVs taking a hit. Like one of the above posters said- i buy new with credit earned through trading in the last batch of games, so this will impact my bottom line eventually.
 
[quote name='nbballard']^sucks for you though, because rented games don't come with these passes so you won't get to enjoy a lot of the content.

I buy new, so this only bothers me from the perspective of TIVs taking a hit. Like one of the above posters said- i buy new with credit earned through trading in the last batch of games, so this will impact my bottom line eventually.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it certainly does suck for me that I won't be able to play the content that I don't ever play anyways :p

I never play online with my ps3, if I want a game that's for online I buy it for pc, Single player games are for ps3.

Scratch that. I am buying Uncharted 3 and Batman AC because I believe that Rocksteady and Naughty Dog deserve the money. I will continue to buy new on the basis that the developer deserves it. If I rent it and it is awesome then I will buy it anyways.
 
Meh, i buy the majority of my games new so i couldnt really care either way. They deserve to make the profits for the game they spent all that hard work making.

Though, it gets a bit annoying depending on HOW much of the game gets locked out if you dont have the code. (Either way, makes me glad i dont use Netflix or anything like that)
 
I'm just tired of these jackasses complaining about the used market and claiming that they are losing money when they won't even attempt to play hardball.

They could cut-out used retailers, go purely digital, develop some sort of in-house trade-in which would at least keep the dollars within the confines of the publishers, or any number of other intelligent alternatives.

What this all really cuts to is that most games aren't worth $60 period. A lot of people either buy used or wait for the inevitable sale a few weeks later or they keep their full-price purchases to a bare minimum where expansive content is rewarded and 4-8 hour experiences are only bought out of the bargain bin.

Industry people keep saying that there's no room for the games in the middle when really it's the console games pricing structure which doesn't allow for them. Or rather there are plenty of middling games but people simply wait until they are $20-$40 anyways.

It would make so much more sense to release your 'meh' game at an honest $30 and then never lower the MSRP instead of adhering to the $60 model only to have Amazon slash the price for you when it sells like ass.
 
Used sales are NOT what's killing the game industry. It's sub-standard shitty games that are killing it. Why even bother making a good game when your multi-million dollar ad campaign will sell millions on release day anyway no matter what? A good example of this is Bodycount, that game suuuuuuucked, but because they held back reviews until it was out and had a big ad campaign I bet it did well. When Game manufactures stop churning out shit then I will start buying everything new, but they have gotten so lazy lately that automatically buying new usually ends up burning me for 60 bucks.

I will continue to support companies that put out good game by buying new. What I will NOT do is support shitty games as it just encourages them to keep churning out the crap.
 
The only thing I'd like to see Sony change with this new policy is to include at least a 1-hour trial for online play. At least give potential customers a chance to demo your product before making the decision to buy it.
 
The used game market is not hurting original sales that much - many used games that people purchase are no longer sold brand new at stores anymore. Plus those games that are sold used had to have been bought new at one point. This just makes me want to buy them used anyway, just to spite them.
 
[quote name='SynGamer']Movies are a completely different industry. There's not cost to support a movie once it's released on DVD/Blu-ray (no patches or anything like that). They also get two MAJOR chances to make their money back; box office, and then retail. Games have one chance, that's it. Next time try to come up with a better comparison ;)[/QUOTE]

Two major but also a couple minor: rentals, pay per view, and syndication on TV.

Books don't cause millions and millions to produce.

And with the car industry, since this is the favored comparison, dealerships have their own used car program so they are still getting a large piece of this pie, and there is an insane profit margin on each car sold.
 
A good number of B list developers went out of business in recent years (Pandemic, Bizarre Creations, etc.) Pretty soon we are going to be left with mega budget and low budget games with nothing in between. This sucks but I support the developers because I don't want to see game selection decrease.
 
[quote name='62t']A good number of B list developers went out of business in recent years (Pandemic, Bizarre Creations, etc.) Pretty soon we are going to be left with mega budget and low budget games with nothing in between. This sucks but I support the developers because I don't want to see game selection decrease.[/QUOTE]

Except in all those cases you mentioned they were closed down by the companies who purchased them (EA, Activision) or some like Free Radical were scooped up by other companies (Crytek) or folded, reformed or something else. Or worse working on ports or licensed stuff for other companies (Treasure). (when was the last time you saw a new IP from them anyway, that wasn't a licensed product?)

The way I see it is more of these smaller devs who used to do big budget games are going to go smaller games ala PSN/XBLA and say screw it to AAA titles and their bloated budgets. (we're seeing that already, Eg. Double Fine Productions)

Who's to blame we are and the game companies as well. We DEMAND super high poly, 8.1 surround, 3-D Steroscopic, Motion controlled monstrosities and two man studios can't do that anymore.

Either we need to let the technology beast lie for awhile or accept the fact that unless a dev has unlimited money bags we aren't going to see that many AAA titles from as many studios as we used too. Sad but true.
 
i would have been more pissed about this if u3 wasnt as bad as it has been. that said most people who know will just wait to buy those exclusives at a reduced price since as far as i know they cant force you to buy them at 60 bucks.

add to the fact i have a decent sized backlog i can just wait.
 
If done right, similar to Codemasters, I would like to see small, but useful features unlocked like Youtube uploading, etc.
 
If companies made games that weren't glitchy messes that they have to patch out the wazoo every other month that had the addictive properties of World Of Warcrack to keep people playing those brand new copies perpetually, then there would be no used market for games since no one would ever trade them in.

But people get bored of the same rehashed crap year in and year out. You can only play so many clones of clones of clones of ideas that were original 20 years ago.

So yeah, I have no sympathy for the devs whining about losing money due to the used game market and saying they have 'no choice' but to resort to the tactic of game passes.

Sony(and any other company doing this) can suck a big, fat veiny one. I'll buy my games used to spite them, since I only play maybe 1-2 games online and as of now they're not doing this bs(though Rockstar DID do it with L.A. Noire but that was for extra content I believe and not an online pass).
 
[quote name='uncle5555']Except in all those cases you mentioned they were closed down by the companies who purchased them (EA, Activision) or some like Free Radical were scooped up by other companies (Crytek) or folded, reformed or something else. Or worse working on ports or licensed stuff for other companies (Treasure). (when was the last time you saw a new IP from them anyway, that wasn't a licensed product?)

The way I see it is more of these smaller devs who used to do big budget games are going to go smaller games ala PSN/XBLA and say screw it to AAA titles and their bloated budgets. (we're seeing that already, Eg. Double Fine Productions)

Who's to blame we are and the game companies as well. We DEMAND super high poly, 8.1 surround, 3-D Steroscopic, Motion controlled monstrosities and two man studios can't do that anymore.

Either we need to let the technology beast lie for awhile or accept the fact that unless a dev has unlimited money bags we aren't going to see that many AAA titles from as many studios as we used too. Sad but true.[/QUOTE]

Well said. Such measures are being put in place to protect the major AAA dev studios. The fact that they benefit smaller devs is only a byproduct of the measure. Think about how EA implemented their online pass program. It was in direct response to stagnant madden sales. The publishers are concerned about protecting their AAA IPs. I'm sure Sony wants Uncharted 3 sales to trump MW3 and this will go a long way in accomplishing that goal.
 
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