EA - ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH?

[The Ironist]

EA on How To Destroy The Second Hand Games Market

US, May 10, 2010 - EA Sports is going after the used game market.

Starting with the release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the publisher will introduce a new Online Pass, a one-time registration code included with each brand new copy of the game. The code allows players to access "online services, features and bonus content."

Those who purchase the game used can buy an Online Pass for $10 or sign up for a free 7-day trial. The pass will be implemented for NCAA Football 11, NHL 11, Madden NFL 11, NBA 11, FIFA 11, and EA Sports MMA as well. The pass offers different features for each title, however, players will not have access to basic multiplayer features if purchased used.

"You will be unable to play multiplayer online game modes or use your downloaded content in online game modes," EA says. Online leagues, dynasty and franchise modes are also only available with the Online Pass. The break down for each title can be seen on the publisher's official website.

"This is an important inflection point in our business because it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhance premium online services to the entire robust EA SPORTS online community," said Peter Moore, President of EA SPORTS.

Despite being the leader in used game sales, retailer GameStop, which acknowledged it plans to focus on digital content in the future, supports Electronic Arts' new direction.

"GameStop is excited to partner with such a forward-thinking publisher as Electronic Arts," said Dan DeMatteo, Chief Executive Officer of GameStop Corp. "This relationship allows us to capitalize on our investments to market and sell downloadable content online, as well as through our network of stores worldwide."

Source: http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/108/1088621p1.html

I would understand if it was on PS3 but we already pay for Xbox Live on 360 and they want us to pay an extra fee to play their games online if you buy it second hand. It seems it will include all online features like roster updates etc also.

 

[Sym0n]

LOL WTF is that about? On either console online play won't have anything to do with their servers so how can they charge for it? Pure greed by, IMO, one of the worst game developers/publishers around.

 

[Sargara]

Its probably just this game to pay for Tiger Woods royalties lol

 

[SharkyUK]

It's not greed - it's a very sensible move that I hope other game publishers and dev hosues will adopt. This should have happened years and years ago.

 

[The Ironist]

How is it not greed extorting second hand buyers? These people buy games second hand because they can't afford to buy them new. So lets extort some more money out of them just to use the game as it should work straight out of the box and get them to pay for something that they are already paying for. Especially when were already releasing a new game every year for every type of sport which they have to buy to play online with their friends who have also updated...

 

[sargey]

That's a bit of a pi$$ take tbh, but I buy most of my games new anyway.....

 

[Rob]

Are you on crack?

So because I buy a game second hand, I have to pay more to be able to use it online?

What a jipp.

Utter nonsense, although there is an easy way around it, buy game new and second hand, swap discs, take back.

 

[The Ironist]

Are you on crack?

Utter nonsense, although there is an easy way around it, buy game new and second hand, swap discs, take back.

It's not to do with the disc its a card inside each new game, so every person who buys an EA game new gets a free card for the game which means they have to enter an annoying long code in just to play it online. The card won't be useable again so a second hand buyer need to pay for it when they try to access online features.

I'm intrigued to find out what the codes actually cover. Is it a machine or is it a gamercard? If I buy a game it usually ends up being played by multiple people with different gamercards @ uni, are each of them going to have to pay a fee to play it online on their gamercard. Even if it's by console, it's still going to mean people with multiple consoles having to pay to play it online on more than one. Also stops you lending a game to a friend, as they will have to pay for online just to borrow it. The sports games must be the most handed around games between friends so this would be particularly annoying!

EDIT: Just checked out the site. It covers your gamertag and the machine so anyone who plays on the initial machine can use online and you can use it online on any machine as long as it's with the gamertag you first used the code on. Still a bit of a pain, it means if I paid for it and took the game to a mates house, I could use online features but nobody else could, only if we were using my console. I guess a lend to friend could use a 7 day free pass but if it's for multiple sessions you're fooked.

 

[Cookie]

It's not greed - it's a very sensible move that I hope other game publishers and dev hosues will adopt. This should have happened years and years ago.

The only people it's good for is publishers, f**ks everyone else over.

 

[Snakey]

What a load of b****cks, so 360 owners have to pay for they're Live account, then buy say Fifa (which most will buy just for online play) Then pay for a code to access dlc, then pay to download content!

I dont even have a 360 and think it takes the piss.

Even if the additional fee is for used titles they're only about 5-10 quid cheaper during its first year of release... So EA are either trying to milk the cow or wipe out the second hand game market

 

[Cookie]

What a load of b****cks, so 360 owners have to pay for they're Live account, then buy say Fifa (which most will buy just for online play) Then pay for a code to access dlc, then pay to download content!

I dont even have a 360 and think it takes the piss.

Even if the additional fee is for used titles they're only about 5-10 quid cheaper during its first year of release... So EA are either trying to milk the cow or wipe out the second hand game market

You've missed the point slightly

Those who buy the game new will already get the code. They will charge 10 dollars for a new code, which will be the only way to play multiplayer if you sell the game on

 

[Munson]

Used media sales have always been a bone of contention for the IP holder. Technically, used sales bring them zero revenue, thus their IP has been stolen.

You may pay for a used game, but none of that money goes to the publisher. I'm not at all surprised by this. It seems they're effectively closing a piracy loophole. Sorry but it's a fact, no matter how much it inconveniences you. The argument about not being able to afford new games is not the publishers problem. It's yours.

 

[Rhino172]

Used media sales have always been a bone of contention for the IP holder. Technically, used sales bring them zero revenue, thus their IP has been stolen.

You may pay for a used game, but none of that money goes to the publisher. I'm not at all surprised by this. It seems they're effectively closing a piracy loophole. Sorry but it's a fact, no matter how much it inconveniences you. The argument about not being able to afford new games is not the publishers problem. It's yours.

as much as I agree with that, for people like myself it's bit of a fucker tbh. I don't really follow football, golf etc so never in a rush to buy the games new/when they are released.

If and when I buy that type of game I normally wait till pre owned ones appear just so I can have a few goes online with my mates and for something different to play rather than running around shooting people or driving games etc.

If and when this goes into force I'll not buy any of this type of game again as it's simply won't be worth the money for me.

 

[Snakey]

You've missed the point slightly

Those who buy the game new will already get the code. They will charge 10 dollars for a new code, which will be the only way to play multiplayer if you sell the game on

My point was in relation to pre-owned games.

The fact they have to now pay an additional fee when purchasing second-hand games leads me to believe that if EA start to make a fair profit out of it others will follow suite.

So if game's rrp is £40 and it is available second-hand for £30 where is the bargain in that when you will have to pay an additional £10?

 

[Rob]

Used media sales have always been a bone of contention for the IP holder. Technically, used sales bring them zero revenue, thus their IP has been stolen.

You may pay for a used game, but none of that money goes to the publisher. I'm not at all surprised by this. It seems they're effectively closing a piracy loophole. Sorry but it's a fact, no matter how much it inconveniences you. The argument about not being able to afford new games is not the publishers problem. It's yours.

As much as I agree, second hand sales is just part of society, the publishers still make more money on the new user paying to download new content (which I think is outrageous anyway) and such things.

Maybe all our sofa's tv's etc should be placed in one location, and then GPS tagged, once moved more than 50ft from its original location it could implode? Sofa's could produce giant spikes from the seats so they are no longer useable unless the manufacturer is contacted and paid for a retrim of damaged items.

Maybe cars should autolock once the V5 registration has been sent off and the only way to unlock the b*****d is to go to the dealer and cough up for a new key assigned to you.

 

[Rob]

My point was in relation to pre-owned games.

The fact they have to now pay an additional fee when purchasing second-hand games leads me to believe that if EA start to make a fair profit out of it others will follow suite.

So if game's rrp is £40 and it is available second-hand for £30 where is the bargain in that when you will have to pay an additional £10?

Second hand game prices will sink, badly. So I suppose it'll even out.

 

[The Ironist]

As much as I agree, second hand sales is just part of society, the publishers still make more money on the new user paying to download new content (which I think is outrageous anyway) and such things.

Maybe all our sofa's tv's etc should be placed in one location, and then GPS tagged, once moved more than 50ft from its original location it could implode? Sofa's could produce giant spikes from the seats so they are no longer useable unless the manufacturer is contacted and paid for a retrim of damaged items.

Maybe cars should autolock once the V5 registration has been sent off and the only way to unlock the b*****d is to go to the dealer and cough up for a new key assigned to you.

That's what I think! It's retarded! It's not already being done because it's a stupid and unfair idea. The fact they are taking more from people that usually can't afford the full price game is the real problem. If they want to make more money find a way to charge rich people!

 

[Cookie]

Most of the games I've bought on my 360 are pre-owned, but this still won't really affect me as I don't play many games online

The ones I do play online I bought new

 

[Sym0n]

Used media sales have always been a bone of contention for the IP holder. Technically, used sales bring them zero revenue, thus their IP has been stolen.
You may pay for a used game, but none of that money goes to the publisher. I'm not at all surprised by this. It seems they're effectively closing a piracy loophole. Sorry but it's a fact, no matter how much it inconveniences you. The argument about not being able to afford new games is not the publishers problem. It's yours.

I can see why they're doing it, increasing revenue. But as the games already been paid for as new they have made their profit from the sale of that one copy, this being sold on or left to gather dust on a shelf is none of their concern. The simple fact is that they have finally found a way to cash in on 2nd hand sales but it will only impact on those that want to play the game online, I'd be interested to see if there were any legal implications of them holding back updates; for those that have bought the software on the 2nd hand market, to fix bugs and glitches etc.

I'm not sure if purchasing a 2nd hand game would be classed as piracy, if it is then there are a hell of a lot of people and companies making a substantial and public profit from selling them.

EA and other publishers/devs no doubt owe a great deal of their sales and popularity to the 2nd games market, people who wouldn't pay full price or couldn't afford to buy a game brand new one year and instead picked it up 2nd hand may have then bought the next version brand new and others as a direct result. It's swings and roundabouts and the 2nd hand games market isn't going to go away unless they do something drastic like going to entirely online sales only with one console usage rights, aka. DRM; which hasn't worked too well for MP3 sales lol.

 

[SharkyUK]

Used media sales have always been a bone of contention for the IP holder. Technically, used sales bring them zero revenue, thus their IP has been stolen.

You may pay for a used game, but none of that money goes to the publisher. I'm not at all surprised by this. It seems they're effectively closing a piracy loophole. Sorry but it's a fact, no matter how much it inconveniences you. The argument about not being able to afford new games is not the publishers problem. It's yours.

Thank you Roy... spot on!

The second hand / used game market is a real thorn in the side for publishers and developers. I can't quote up-to-date figures but when I was working in the industry a £35 game would result in approximately £1.50 in returns to the developer, and (IIRC) about £7.50 to the publisher and the rest went to the retailers and distributors. And you wonder why the games industry is so f##ked up and dev houses regularly go under with 'financial issues?' The folks that MAKE the games get the smallest cut. To me that sucks donkey balls but people tend not to see that side of the coin (present company excepted, Roy).

Typically a second hand game (used) might sell for a few quid less than a brand new copy... the difference is that the second hand game is pure profit for the retail outlet. Not a single penny of that second hand purchase goes back to the developer. In times of multi-million pound budgets (even for modest games) then maybe you start to get some idea of why developers tend to find the whole second hand game market a little unfair in many ways.

And that's why I think it's a good move. Publishers trying to protect their investments and sufficient funds filtering their way back to the dev houses that actually make the games.

 

[Darren S]

Interesting thread. I can see the argument from both sides, tbh - though it doesn't really affect me as I bought one 2nd hand game for the Amiga and one for the PC back in 1994...... and that's been it!

Might just be me. If I saw a 2nd hand bin with a game I wanted for £14.99 and the brand new one on the shelf for £24.99 - I think I'd opt for the new one. Especially if I intended to go online with it. Single player online, maybe I'd take a punt and buy the 2nd hand one.

I'd rather pay a bit more and get a virgin-clean version than one that has the manual/DVD half chewed by the family dog or spewed up on by the rugrat.

I guess it does affect console owners a whole lot more as you really do get dry-bummed on the prices of games. PS3 owners, especially. I've seen mortgage payments that are cheaper than the latest title.

edit - would like to hear Lee's view on this. I'd guess he'd be in favour of it too?

D.

 

[The Ironist]

If they want more money why don't they just put the price up of the game when's it's brand new?

Most of the people that buy second hand do it because they can't afford it full price. So they're charging the poorer people for being poor. If they added the extra cut they wanted to the new game people would still pay it and they would be making it on many more games than just targeting second hand buyers so wouldn't need to put the price up by as much.

Games must sell hundreds of thousands more copies brand new than second hand so if they put the price up by £1 on new games they would make way more money than charging just the second hand buyers that want to use games online £5/6

And I don't see why they are getting just £1.50 a game when they have all the control. If they didn't make the game nobody would be making any money...

 

[Munson]

So charge customers more so that non-customers can use their servers for free?

 

[Sym0n]

If the devs are getting such a bum deal, which personally I can't see as being true especially seeing the figures that Infinity Ward/Activision are being sued for by ex employees for lack of earnings including profit share and sales bonuses, then they have no one else to blame but themselves during the negotiation process with the publisher.

Plus the additional revenue brought about from this process would probably never even see the devs as it would be pushed by the publishers as they will be fronting the majority, if not all, of the cash.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the devs getting paid reasonably and fairly for their work but I don't think that this idea is going help them achieve that or help the games industry in the slightest.

I don't 100% agree with the arguement about not being able to afford the game for full price because in the majority of cases the games are sold at a much reduced rate if pre-ordered, i.e. MW2 was available for £26 and then bumped to something f**king stupid like £49.99 after release. Increasing the RRP will only once again line the publishers pocket.

 

[theduck]

I might be completely wrong, but isn't it technically illegal to sell second hand games, books, DVDs etc? I'm sure it says in the small print, along with the bit that says not for public display etc, that its illegal to sell on.

 

[SharkyUK]

Games must sell hundreds of thousands more copies brand new than second hand so if they put the price up by £1 on new games they would make way more money than charging just the second hand buyers that want to use games online £5/6

And I don't see why they are getting just £1.50 a game when they have all the control. If they didn't make the game nobody would be making any money...

The thing is that sadly they don't have all the control.

As for games selling hundreds of thousands of copies... again, this is not necessarily the case. Sure, there are those games that sell by the bucketload but these tend to skew public perception of how many units are actually sold. The sad truth is that many games are lucky if they recoup their development costs, let alone make anything like a reasonable profit. (I'm not talking about the high-flyers like Infinity Ward, Bungie, etc. - just your average dev house). I'm not naming names but a game I worked on a few years back was tipped to sell well... but it didn't. It wasn't a bad game and was reasonably priced yet sold something like a meagre 15,000 copies in 2 months. Even sadder is the fact that it was downloaded via torrent some 45,000 times over the same time period... :nono:

Another thing that boils my pee about used games is that a lot of them represent sod all saving on a brand new copy anyway. I can't see the point in saving £4-5 on a £30+ game to be honest.

I don't think there's an easy solution but as always there's more than one side to a story...

 

[Cookie]

The thing is that sadly they don't have all the control.

As for games selling hundreds of thousands of copies... again, this is not necessarily the case. Sure, there are those games that sell by the bucketload but these tend to skew public perception of how many units are actually sold. The sad truth is that many games are lucky if they recoup their development costs, let alone make anything like a reasonable profit. (I'm not talking about the high-flyers like Infinity Ward, Bungie, etc. - just your average dev house). I'm not naming names but a game I worked on a few years back was tipped to sell well... but it didn't. It wasn't a bad game and was reasonably priced yet sold something like a meagre 15,000 copies in 2 months. Even sadder is the fact that it was downloaded via torrent some 45,000 times over the same time period... :nono:

Another thing that boils my pee about used games is that a lot of them represent sod all saving on a brand new copy anyway. I can't see the point in saving £4-5 on a £30+ game to be honest.

I don't think there's an easy solution but as always there's more than one side to a story...

Just because someone downloads a pirate copy of a game, doesn't mean they were going to buy it in the first place

Downloads != lost sales

 

[Brazo]

They are basically trying to kill the second hand market, selling games used costs devs big bucks!

I suspect however the second hand market for online games will simply drop prices to adjust.

 

[SharkyUK]

Just because someone downloads a pirate copy of a game, doesn't mean they were going to buy it in the first place

Downloads != lost sales

Never said they were going to mate, just merely making a point. Regardless of whether or not they would have bought it that's still 45,000 illegal downloads and a kick in the nuts to those who just spent 2+ years working on it. Theft is theft no matter how much someone attempts to justify it. Anyways, piracy is a different issue so getting back on topic...

 

[.Ben.]

Being Devil's advocate: Isn't this akin to a car manufacturer demanding a share of the profits from any used car sales?

 

[Revels]

Exactly what I was about to say. It's backwards logic.

I buy a game for £40. They've got the money for that game. Anything else is irrelevant.

 

[paddymph]

yep, agree also.

They just want 2 bites of the same cherry. I can't see how it's "piracy" either Roy?

The last EA game I bought was Tiger 09, and frankly the online lobbies, ease of use, photoupload etc was terrible..I remember everyone complaining about it. They'd seriously have to look at updating that side of it I think.

 

[Brazo]

^^Battlefield BC 2 is EA published and that has brilliant lobby/online system.

Ok its made by DICE but EA doesn't make Games just sells them! So maybe blame whoever makes Tiger Woods

 

[Gally]

It kinda crept in with add on packs if you bought new then played online you would register your code for the extras then when you sell it the new owner is pretty much bumped out of add ons.

It's not healthy imo. Used games sales are awesome, lets you try out games you would never buy new, people will stop buying used games as much.

Surely retailers are up in arms about it?

 

[Cookie]

Never said they were going to mate, just merely making a point. Regardless of whether or not they would have bought it that's still 45,000 illegal downloads and a kick in the nuts to those who just spent 2+ years working on it. Theft is theft no matter how much someone attempts to justify it. Anyways, piracy is a different issue so getting back on topic...

A person is guilty of theft if: he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.

http://www.sussex.police.uk/infocentre/text_version/content.asp?uid=449

Theft vs copyright infringement

 

[The Ironist]

Well they have obviously done it more for piracy than second hand games, they are just disguising it. It means all the people that download the game will have to pay £5 or whatever to play it online. I'm guessing they are going to make way more money from pirates than second hand game owners!

 

[Sym0n]

Eh?

So they will quite happily allow you to illegally download their £40, for example, game for free and then pay just £5 to play it online and take full advantage of the all the benefits those that acquired it legally have? No.

They won't make a penny from pirates, games with online subscriptions have existed for years and the majority of them are exploited in one way or another to allow the pirates to still enjoy online play for free; albeit not with the benefits of global tables or the full user base.

The issue is solely centred on the 2nd hand market and making a secondary profit from it.

 

[The Ironist]

Eh?

So they will quite happily allow you to illegally download their £40, for example, game for free and then pay just £5 to play it online and take full advantage of the all the benefits those that acquired it legally have? No.

They won't make a penny from pirates, games with online subscriptions have existed for years and the majority of them are exploited in one way or another to allow the pirates to still enjoy online play for free; albeit not with the benefits of global tables or the full user base.

The issue is solely centred on the 2nd hand market and making a secondary profit from it.

I'm talking about Xbox 360 owners that flash their console to play backups. They get the game for the price of the disc they burn it on. They can use online at the moment like any other person, but when this is introduced, they are not going to have access to a code from a box so will have to pay to play the games they want to use online. There are many more people downloading games than buying them second hand.

They have found a way to still get something from pirated games. If this proposed £1.50 a game is all they get from selling them the proper way and they get all of this $10 charge for "second hand buyers" then the developer will actually make more money from a pirated game that someone wants to play online than they will from a normal sale. So developers would actually benefit from piracy even if the publisher and store lose out.

This whole article is about Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 but it sounds like you may be referring to PC games...and even then I don't know any games that have a subscription service that people manage to play for free, just games that are usually free to play online but pirated copies are blocked but they find a way around it...

 

[SharkyUK]

A person is guilty of theft if: he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.

http://www.sussex.police.uk/infocentre/text_version/content.asp?uid=449

Theft vs copyright infringement

Cheers for the link - very informative.

For electronic and audio-visual media, unauthorized reproduction and distribution is also commonly referred to as piracy. An early reference to piracy in the context of copyright infringement was made by Daniel Defoe in 1703 when he said of his novel The True-Born Englishman that "Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates"[2]. The practice of labeling the act of infringement as "piracy" predates statutory copyright law. Prior to the Statute of Anne 1709, the Stationers' Company of London in 1557 received a Royal Charter giving the company a monopoly on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Those who violated the charter were labeled pirates as early as 1603.[3]

The legal basis for this usage dates from the same era, and has been consistently applied until the present time.[4][5] Critics of the use of the term "piracy" to describe such practices contend that it is pejorative and unfairly equates copyright infringement with more sinister activity,[6] though courts often hold that under law the two terms are interchangeable.[7]

^ Most of the above is waffle but you tend to find that, in entertainment/media terms, courts will rule copyright infringement/piracy as theft. As with most stuff like this, it's a grey area.

 

[.Ben.]

^ In the case of console games (that - on the whole - don't require you to have a HDD installation) why is selling something that I OWN - after I've had enough of it - infringing a copyright? I'm not unlawfully distributing or copying said item, just re-selling it intact, normally at a loss.

Guess what? I can do this with any of my posessions, should I choose.