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Sony Joins the Offensive Against Pre-Owned Games
BanjoTed writes "In a move to counter sales of pre-owned games, EA recently revealed DLC perks for those who buy new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Now, PlayStation platform holder Sony has jumped on the bandwagon with similar plans for the PSP's SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3. '[Players] will need to register their game online before they are able to access the multiplayer component of the title. UMD copies will use a redeemable code while the digital version will authenticate automatically in the background. Furthermore ... anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online."
If memory serves, isn't the PSP one of those systems it's (relatively) easy to pirate for?
I have a feeling Sony has traded getting no money from resales to getting no money because everyone's downloading a cracked version.
Doesn't look like a smart move to me after all the bad press with the sony DRM and rootkit.
They really are completely delusional. What benefit does this provide to the consumers that they'll react positively to? Is there even any theoretical benefit to the consumer? Maybe the research was done entirely among Sony executives.
This sentence no verb.
Nothing like discouraging people from wanting to buy their product -- new or used. I knew Sony was an evil empire (coming from someone that worked for them far too long), but this is just stupid.
I know car analogies are old on slashdot but I seriously wonder how long before car manufacturers start building the electronic components of their cars such that they are needlessly dependent on some online system run by the manufacturer so that your fuel indicator only works correctly if your car has been able to update this month from the manufacurers online fuel level measuring methods database and your aircon shuts down unless authenticated with a secure server on a regular basis as a "car theft prevention measure".
Idiot lawmakers make bypassing or removing the "anti car theft" systems for any reason a crime.
Drivers pay through the nose to have an account with the manufacturer.
Manufacturers get more profit since now people have an incentive to not buy used cars.
Shills start trolling car enthusiast message boards talking about how it's a good thing because this way the car companies get more money to build better cars and everyone wins except those dirty car thieves.
I can honestly see it happening.
Why on earth do they do everything in their might to discourage people from buying games and instead pirating them? Im starting to believe its intentional and that for some reason the media industry think they will make more money out of lawsuits than from selling games the normal way.
HTTP/1.1 400
If you pay for it, its yours to sell forward. This applies to resale of licenses as well.
Should we try the hollywood approach here instead?
You wouldn't sell a car..
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
EA/Bioware adds little perks for people who buy the retail version of the game or preorder it even (a suit of armor, a downloadable character) that you really want to have in a game you have a strong desire to play (Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2). Sony utterly gimps your gameplay experience. I am not bothered by one (and hell think it's a good idea) guess which one that is.
I used to be a fan of my C64 games as a kid and I loved playing PC games for years. So much in fact I tried breaking into game development and ran the local IGDA chpater for some years. My heart is still with games and I think they are a wonderful extension to the artforms of literature, cinema and storytelling. When I see how the game dev industry treats its customers these days, I really get the feeling they are way beyond stretching their welcome. Games (especially console games) are so icredibly overpriced and lacking of creativity and intellectual depth that I wonder why gamers are still interested in buying/playing them. I haven't upgraded my gaming pc for almost 8 years now and I only have a Wii because my wife like the balance board games (and admittedly I love being her audience). The only games I occassionaly play are the really old ones, like Civ II/III Baldur's Gate stuff, the good old Sierra point and clicks (Larry, 2D King Quest) because of the humor and fun in these games. Also I really love firing up the C64 emulator for a quick round of classics. When will they stop squeezing customers for every penny and drop the incredible graphics/hardware performance race that has been polluting the game content for the past decade. I don't give a damn about 3D performnace or yet another FPS, come up with something new, interesting exciting. Something that doesn't insult my intelligence and challenges and entertains me in a more subtle way. Dear Douglas Adams I miss you, you were well on your way to solve this problem but you passed too soon. Oh god, is no one going to change this rotten game dev industry we're having? Perhaps I'm just an old fool blabbering about the lost good old days, but doesn't anyone agree that it's not supposed to be like this? *sigh*
I don't buy a Sony TV because of my past experiences with Sony's car radios etc. The whole DRM thing is useful to tell the good ones from the bad ones.
Having such cool products.... I wonder if they fully appreciate what they're doing to their brand.
It doesnt bypass anything. The first sale doctrine still applies, and Sony has to allow the transfer of DLC to other accounts. Of course someone has to sue them first to force them to respect the law, until that happens they can flaunt the law all they want.
By the reasoning that you've used, I think that one has to endorse what Sony's doing here. After reading through most of the comments, I think I do anyway. All Sony's doing, after all, is competing more effectively. Their competitor is a reseller. Therefore, is there really anything wrong with Sony creating a product that is more useful when purchased new than when purchased from their competitor? Let's try a different spin on this: Sony isn't selling crippled software. They're selling software bundled with a one-time use subscription code. $30 for the software, $20 for the code. Sorry, no refunds, though. If you're interested in just the single-player experience, you should buy the game used. It's fine if you choose to sell the software but the new user will also have to subscribe.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
Perhaps it is a different market, but the concept here is basically the 'right of first sale', 2nd hand sales etc... not piracy. No, the car cannot be copied, but your right of reselling he car could very well be restricted.
Say a car manufacturer considered 2nd hand sales of it's cars to be theft, just as video game makers see 2nd hand sales of their games. So, you must register your vehicle with the manufacturer in order for it to continue to work beyond five minutes at a time with a ten minute 'cool down' period, the registration 'agreement' may or may not restrict you from reselling the car, and when it is registered the car is imprinted with some sort of bio signature that is unique to you... an imprint that cannot be changed without secret tools only the manufacturer has. So, after a few years you sell the car, and the new owner must pay the manufacturer MORE in order to drive it.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I may be overly cynical, but I think the talk of piracy while eroding / bypassing every consumer protection law under the sun is more for political reasons than to reassure their customers. They want to cover their asses in advance of the inevitable EFF lawsuits. If they lose any of those, they'll lobby for new laws.
They already tried something similar when cars first started having diagnostic ports - you had to use a special machine to read the diagnostic code which was only available from the manufacturer to franchised dealers. This is why OBD-II was developed and is now mandated in much of the world.
Of course it harms new game sales. If someone can buy a new game for $60 vs a used game for $50 then obviously some people would choose the latter. The money from that sale goes to store, not the publisher.
How much they're losing is the big question. I wouldn't be surprised if it were 10-15% of sales, more on some titles. Publishers should thank their stars that the likes of Gamestop are so greedy. If second hand prices were more reasonable I expect the % loss would be even higher.
How do publishers combat the issue or clawback money?
The obvious way, the way that the likes of EA and others are following is to start bundling redemption codes in the box. But it only works games with a substantial multiplayer / online element. Doing so means second hand owners get a crippled game (e.g. because other people have the map pack that they don't) and must purchase the missing component on line. Also, since the second hand game is crippled its resale price is less and therefore people may be discouraged from selling the game since they get less for it.
A better way IMO is to produce decent games in the first place and to support them longer. People sell crap titles, those with no replay value and those where the servers are dead. Raise the quality bar and people will naturally be inclined to hang onto their titles longer. The less games in the second hand channel, the more people are likely to buy new.
Personally I buy most of my games brand new but I restrict myself to games which are highly rated. I don't see the point of rewarding bad games or bad publishers.
This is a cycle, and I'm stuck in it. When the PS3 came out, first I waited simply because I wanted to be sure the platform took off. I eventually said to myself "It's going well, as soon as they drop the price I'll buy one." Well, they not only dropped the price, they dropped the emotion chip. ...so I didn't buy it. Later they were to drop the price, and they dropped the Emotion chip EMULATOR TOO, then Linux boot support, now they're dropping my ability to get good value on resale of games (since that $20 is getting passed to the consumer, my game is not $20 less valuable at resale, especially since most used games I BUY are only $20 or less, that's a huge hit). I was all set, finally just willing to admit there were few enough PS2 games I have that I'd actualyl play it was worth just keeping the PS2 slim i have around to play them, and I was going to buy a PS3 this summer when the price inevitably dropped again.
Sorry Sony, your screwed yourselves again. I'll just buy another PC based game or two, maybe a new Vid Card.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Woosh.
Wow...you are either a successful executive of a company that has merely a passing regard for it's customers (like, oh, say...Sony?), or the kool-aid has taken full effect. Either way, your misguided sense of what a corporation is able to do is quite amusing. Invoking the Bible is just icing on the cake. The first sale doctrine applies here, and my rights as a consumer are being diminished by immediately devauling the resale value of the product I have purchased. This is not like driving a car off the lot and losing intrinsic value due to depreciation; it's due to the corporate interest to maximize their profit by taking away my right to a fair resale value as determined by the used game marketplace.
That's fine assuming when Sony tells people to buy the game used, they still protect those people with the same warranty, otherwise they are certainly doing something wrong. If the subscribed content is distinct to the main content then they have to offer the main content for sale by itself, otherwise they're actually selling one single product and no amount of spin will change that, or the fact that if they cripple that product they're affecting its resale value. If they want to start offering single player games for $20 less but still new and covered by warranty then that's fine, somehow I don't think that's their plan.
So, what you're saying, is that it's ok as long as sony puts a sticker on the box that says "New copies include FREE code for online play! A $20 value!".
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Seriously, it is "used." I have no idea why used has become a dirty word. "Pre-owned" is a BS term, that is more complex than it needs to be. Used is fine.
Doctrine of first sale only prevents them from using legal means (i.e. suing you) to prevent you from reselling. It does not force them to enable you or help you or even make it possible to resell.
I agree with you, and more. My comment was intended to be satire. (Check my comment history if you doubt me.)
That so many people took me seriously is really an indictment of how absurdly far right the discussion has moved. If corporations were natural persons, they'd be seemed psychopaths, a danger to themselves and others, and locked up where they couldn't do any harm. It's absolutely preposterous that some people elevate them above a democratically-elected government.
The right to form a corporation is not a natural right. Let's not mistake it for one: freedom of expression, of assembly, and of religion: these are natural rights. Operating as a corporation is a privilege that we grant as a society because we expect to be made better-off overall through investment.
When that bargain ceases to be in society's interest, we must revise it. Corporations must be regulated to counteract their natural tendency to concentrate wealth and distort the political process for the benefit of a few. Arguing that the integrity of a contract or a charter is somehow more valuable than the happiness of real, breathing people is misanthropy.
do you think what will happen if this 'right to use' bullshit takes hold ? what if all service and goods providers take up on it and you end up buying your car as 'right to use' only ?
there is NOTHING preventing any business from selling their products and services with these type of contracts that will make you only 'own the right to use'. (whatever the fuck that is, since it can be so easily redefined by the provider)
you need to stop buying into this exploitative crap. if you buy a copy of a piece of software, you OWN THAT COPY and you can resell THAT COPY. thats why the term is 'copyright'. it means you can own a book, and give out or resell a book, but you can not COPY it and reproduce it. that was how the term copyright was created and used since last 300 or so years.
no half assed digital company has the right to 'redefine' terms to the detriment of people.
Read radical news here
They feel the need to screw their customers, and I feel the need not to buy their products.
Shine on, Sony. Shine on.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
So long as Sony is upfront about its policy (which may be in question given it is Sony) who cares.
There is a very easy solution. Vote with your wallet. Don't buy the game. If you feeling really pissed, don't buy Sony products. They will get the message eventually, or if they don't they won't be around much longer.
It really is that simple.
However if they "trick" people into buying their products, and then once it is too late announce that "Oh BTW that thing you just bought is now crippled by this DRM, you must be online or register online, etc... to actually play our game". That would piss me off to the point where I would be demanding my money back.
"anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online." The majority of gamestop customers is 15 yr olds without credit cards. I doubt this will work. Meanwhile an adult like me will just wait until the game is on sale for 20 bucks after it has been out a year.
http://wwww.zerospeaks.com
Wtf is wrong with the gaming industry? First Ubisoft closing down servers for relatively new games, then their crappy DRM. Now Sony and EA cracking down on things they haven't, and shouldn't mind. If they want to get rewards for their games, which are fantastic, don't you think that they should let people play them? It seems that the era of plug in and play games has ended.
</Rant>
I consider myself a pretty avid gamer. Games are my hobby, that's what I do when I'm not at school or work... I like to play games for their story, games like Modern Warfare 2, and other games with a high online population. I'm not much for player versus player, I don't like how people treat each other online, and to be perfectly honest, I'm terrible at facing other people in games.
But it makes me wonder... if Sony were to follow in the footsteps with what the other guys did with DRM (Making you pay ~$20-30 for a new code to play online), I wonder if this would drive down the cost of used games? I know for a fact, at least with GameStop, that fairly new games (ei: games that came out within the past 3 months or so), GameStop will buy these games off of you for like $30 store credit (No idea what they give you in cash, but its far less), and they will go and resell the game for about $5-10 off the New sticker price. (It's a pretty good business plan really: They get $60 off you, you finish the game, you sell it back to them at half of what you paid, $30, they make $30 still and they can go and resell it for another $50 or so! note: I'm not taking into consideration tax, or how much they actually buy each individual game for in mass)
I guess what I am hoping here is that games that require a "New Code" to play online will be cheaper in re-retail because no one is going to pay ~$45-55 for a used copy of a game if they can buy that same exact game for $60 and save a few bucks (At least that's how my mind works...).
Perhaps the entire inference sailed past you - that game was sold once, the publisher has their money from the stores. The publishers want a SECOND DIP, and that's bullshit.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.