Slashdot Mirror
Used Game Penalty Escalates With SOCOM 4
Technologizer reports on this unwelcome development for used game buyers:
"SOCOM 4: US Navy Seals charts a new course in punishing used game buyers, and it’s at once better and worse than the status quo of $10 online passes. As described on the official Playstation Blog, SOCOM 4 will let all players access the game’s multiplayer portion — as it should, because online play has always been SOCOM’s main attraction — but used game buyers will miss out on special guns, game types, and other perks to be added later. To get these features with a used copy of the game, you’ll have to buy a $15 activation code. Sony’s spinning this bundle of features, dubbed 'SOCOM Pro,' as an enhancement for new game buyers, rather than a drawback for used copies. It’s semantics, sure, but it’s also the direction in which these used game restrictions should be going."
It's really a fitting analogy, but if only the big game companies (Sony/Microsoft included) weren't so damn pissy about used games in general, this wouldn't be a bother. I cannot stand their tantrums about used sales "killing the industry". As if used car sales kill the automotive industry... or used books/CDs kill their respective markets. It just doesn't happen that way, and their "service without the service" mentality is what is going to cause them to nickel and dime the player until he or she simply tosses the console in the closet and goes back to minesweeper. :)
The First Sale Doctrine really chaps their asses. This is their way of "play ball with me and I promise I won't shove the bat up your ass."
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
One player is giving another player his copy of the game. For each copy of the game sold, they can and should expect that there will be that number of clients online. While the client may have changed, the number of clients will not have. Thus, there are no extra costs for server maintenance/load.
How is this any different than PC games that have CD keys that you need to install, and that you key in when you register them?
When it was just that, it wasn't a problem. Most of my old games would happily install on your machine if I sold you the disc and you typed in the key. The keys were stickers on the jewel cases, and there was none of this draconian "You can only install this game 5 times, and only on Tuesdays"
How is this any different than me selling my MMO CDs to a friend and then laughing when he can not get online?
Because it's not a subscription service that you could download the client for free anyway unless someone scammed you as in your example? You're comparing apples and steaks here.
The game basically is giving you access to an online profile, that when you sell off the disk, if you want your own new online profile, you have to pay $15 for.
How do I access that profile once I sell the game? I bought it, right?
How is this any different than just about every other game with online components?
It's not *now*. And therein lies the problem. It's an end run around the first sale doctrine by basically saying, "We didn't sell you that, we "licensed" it to you". Imagine if you couldn't buy a used car without paying Ford a "transfer fee" for the keys.
Personally ... I've never sold a game in my life, or bought one used for that matter ... the few bucks just isn't worth the hassle. But many, many people do - because they can't afford to buy everything they want new. There is a fairly huge secondary market with console games, and the game companies want to eliminate it because they somehow think people will magically have more money to spend.
The real problem with the used games market is that it's worse than piracy.
Horsecrap! Lets take a much more complicated scenario, but to simplify it, we'll ignore the details that don't matter.
A. New game is purchased for $X. Game developers get their cut, $C.
B. Game changes hands some unknown number of times, possibly with intermediaries involved, possibly not.
C. Final result, one and only one person owns that one copy of the game which was fully paid for.
All the other details (how much some hypothetical intermediaries might have made and so on) are completely irrelevant. One copy was sold to one owner, and one owner now owns one copy. That's all the developers can and should care about. The fact that they may be jealous of Gamestop's insane profits doesn't mean they deserve one nickel more money or that Gamestop is doing anything wrong. (Actually, they are doing something wrong, but selling used games is not it.)
Gamestore through reselling probably made far more in profit from selling used than new copies.
Gamestop has a near monopoly, and they're abusing it badly. Now, that's still not a problem for the developers (no matter how jealous they might feel about the situation), but it's a problem for us. Unfortunately, the only way to deal with a monopoly is to create competition (or regulate it, and I sincerely hope we don't come to that pass). So the game devs are jealous of all the perfectly legal abusive profits that Gamestop is making? Answer is obvious: open their own stores, and compete on used game prices. If there were competition in the used games market, Gamestop wouldn't be able to charge their insane markups (and they are insane).
Note that it doesn't have to be the developers competing directly with Gamestop--I only suggest them because they're the ones that whine about Gamestop's monopolistic profit margins. It could as easily be Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Radio Shack. The point is, Gamestop's insane profits don't come because there's something wrong with selling used games; they come because there's no competition, so they don't have to compete on price. Period.