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Sony Introduces 'PSN Pass' To Fight Used Game Sales
Gamasutra reports that Sony has introduced "PSN Pass" — one-time codes that will unlock complete online access for certain games. "The company didn't offer details on how used and rental players would access online features in these titles, but did clarify that first-party use of the passes will be decided on a game-by-game basis." The initiative is similar to the "Online Pass" that EA rolled out last year, and to Sony's own experiment with SOCOM 4. Sony's explanation for the Pass will probably leave you wishing Google Translate supported marketing-speak: "This is an important initiative as it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhancing premium online services across our first party game portfolio."
Maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture here, but what difference does it make, from the perspective of the game publisher, whether I play the game for 2 years, using the services provided, or I play the game for 1 year and someone else plays the game for another extra year? The game has been payed for, and that includes the 'right' to the services for however long I wish (and whichever corporeal body I reside in).
It's also an incredibly blinkered approach that could well backfire. A lot of people only buy new games because they know they can resell them. A lot of people only buy used because they can't afford new. This scheme might have the desire effect of giving them a slice of all used games, but it might just as likely kill the used game market (because people who can't afford the new game definitely aren't going to want to pay the same price for a used game plus access) and eat into their new game sales (as people become more picky about what they buy in the knowledge there's no resale value since the used market just got gutted). It's a very risky strategy playing with a complex ecology like that, especially when it's one that generally works and this whole thing is just about greed and wanting to sell the same content more than once.
Yet another stab at consumer rights.
Up until about 2010 games were considered sold since they weren't expected to be returned, and as such were subject to the first-sale doctrine. Of course then the US courts go and decide that it's all fine and dandy for EULAs to remove this right. *grumble grumble* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine]
In my day you had a disc, and that was your game. You could play it, lend it to a friend, sell it, turn it into a shuriken (though that was mostly done with AOL cds). I miss that.
Does this apply to books, too?
And selling your car used is like stealing cookies from the store. It hurts the guy on the line building a car. you should destroy your car when you are done with it.
Selling your home after living in it hurts carpenters, you really should burn your house down when you move.
Let me guess, inviting friends over to watch a DVD I bought is theft in your eyes. What if I play that movie again? is that also stealing?
I only buy used games and I resell my used games to others because new games are incredibly overpriced. If I am hurting you personally by doing that, than that makes me very very happy. And I will continue to ONLY buy used games from now on. If it makes your industry crumble and puts people like you, that have a horribly distorted sense of reality out of work, then that makes me feel like a hero.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So true. I remember when I was young and authors used to write books. Then the used book stores came along and now there are no more books. Will they never learn?
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible -W.B.
Want to kill used market? Stop selling your stuff as if customers were made of gold, and stop with the "Keep that up, and soon nobody will create anything anymore" fear-mongering crap: the entertainment industry has been using this line with "piracy" for decades and nobody gives a fuck. My 2 cents.
If the disk is mine, I can resell it as I want. It's like a book, and don't tell me that reselling books is bad. Once I sell the book, movie or game, I can't see/play it again. So, what's the problem?
And game creators do win with second hand sales. Because many people won't buy so many games if they couldn't resell them later and recover part of their money.
The media companies have been waging war against the consumer for over a century.
- "Copy Protection" - so that consumers can't even safeguard their own purchase. If I want to make a separate copy of a purchased video/game and keep the original in a safe place (someplace where, say, inquisitive dogs and 3-year-olds can't get to it), that should be my right.
- Shrink-wrap licenses. Remember when Adobe tried to sue a company that resold its products, claiming the terms of the (unopened) shrinkwrap license included an agreement not to resell?
And if you want to go WAY back: remember, the book publishers tried to stop the creation of the US's public lending library system. Now, with the terms on eBooks, they're trying to pull the same crap and make it impossible for libraries to still serve their customers.
I don't think so. They still are supporting one copy of the game. One game, one potential person utilizing online services. That doesn't change when the game is resold; it's just a different person going online.
They hope that nobody will be using the online services of the game a year after the initial purchase, but that's not something they're necessarily entitled to enforce.