Ubisoft Hops On the Online Pass Bandwagon

Joining the likes of THQ, Electonic Arts, and Sony, Ubisoft has now announced plans to launch the "Uplay Passport," a $10 fee charged to buyers of used games if they want to play them online. They say the program "will begin in the coming months and will be included in many of Ubisoft's popular core games. In each new copy of a Uplay Passport-enhanced game will be a one-time use registration code that, when redeemed, provides access to Uplay Passport content and features. The code can be found on the insert card inside the game box. Gamers can identify Uplay Passport-enhanced games by looking for the logo on the back of the box."

Comments

Great

[click2005]

Another games publisher to avoid.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

I have boycotted Ubisoft since they started with the always on internet connection DRM.

Re:Great

[Penguinisto]

That decay has been going on for well over a decade now.

It may be just grumpy-old-guy syndrome, but in spite of the cmoparatively crap graphics, the old 1990's era games were a lot more fun to play (yes, bugs and all). The reason why have to do with elements that have little to do with the technical:

* Most of the old games (Quake/II/III, Unreal/UT, Half-Life, etc) were devilishly customizable, and the software companies actually encouraged modifications
* With only a few games of a given genre, you had a *lot* more players
* dial-up may have sucked, but it did equalize the field by quite a bit (everyone had lag to some extent) - OTOH, this is obviously more of a bandwidth thing and not a game design thing.
* the good games back then were more concerned about flow and content, and less concerned about "balance" or graphics
* most of the games were hosted and played freely online, not kept behind a pay-gate
* Some folks complain about bots and griefers back in the old days, but hell, they're just as common now as they were back then, if not moreso... just that the cheats are more subtle now, and the greifers less so.
* nobody gave a crap if you 'pirated' or copied the game, because odds were very good that you'd buy the next iteration when it came out (see also id Software)

Only opinion, but I'm blaming around 2000-2001 as the time when gaming began declining. CD Keys were only the barest hint of the DRM to come. More and more games got shoved into pay-for-play mode. The flood of games meant a growing fragmentation (even among folks playing the same title... You had Unreal Tournament, UT 2003, UT 2004, etc... all running w/ players at the same time). LAN parties became less and less common, and the ones still going only meant that there were UT players, Quake players, BF 1942 players, CS players, etc... and each new game or iteration meant less folks in a given LAN that could play a given game (or that wanted to, instead preferring their own game/version).

Sure, the consoles kept things going for awhile, but IMHO (and nothing more), it only pushed game publishers down paths that meant more DRM, higher prices, and pay-to-play online experiences. Not even going to touch on the remakes/reboots/re-whatevers that means the majority of games coming out are some re-iteration of something you've already played before.

Certainly, there are bright spots in this dark prose... games that stood out and demanded attention, and/or broke new ground (games like GTA). That said, most of the big ones just became more fodder for sequels, each not quite as good as the last.

Ah well... enough rambling. :)

Re:Another attempt to kill the secondary market

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Another attempt to kill the secondary market.

I'd say I'd stop buying Ubisoft games, but I have mostly stopped buying games except thru Steam anyway.

Isn't steam the wet dream of those trying to kill the secondary market?

Re:Another attempt to kill the secondary market

[vux984]

I'd say I'd stop buying Ubisoft games, but I have mostly stopped buying games except thru Steam anyway.

Wait you'd stop buying ubisoft because they are trying to kill the 2ndary market, because you buy on steam where they already did?

Hell.. on steam... you can't even lend or give a game away, never mind resell it.

Re:Another attempt to kill the secondary market

[Intropy]

Steam doesn't allow a secondary market; that is true. But they make up for it by selling games much, much, cheaper than other retailers (I don't have figures, but I assume that their deeply discounted games greatly outsell the others). The ability to resell a game has a value to me. If you discount the new game by an amount greater than the amount of the resale value, I will happily prefer buying your cheaper, but non-resealable version. Go low enough and nobody cares about buying used either since nobody buys a used game because they prefer used to new; they buy used because it's cheaper. The losers are the stores that specialize in reselling used games since they can no longer profit off of arbitrage.

Enhanced

[Legion303]

This word works great in other contexts as well:

Hurricane Katrina flooding = enhanced swimming.
9/11 = enhanced travel services.
rape = enhanced snuggling.
concentration camps = enhanced lodging.

Now of course I'm not comparing Ubisoft to the holocaust. That would be absurd. Ubisoft is worse than the holocaust.

Re:Another attempt to kill the secondary market

[vux984]

I lend quite often. It's called I switch my password to something temporary to let a buddy play...

This is in blatent violation of the Terms of Service you agreed to.

And while your buddy is playing an online game, you can't login. Even if you own 20 other multiplayer games and wish to play something that is not in use....

or just signin once to their machine, download the game, and put the hack on to put Steam into permanent offline mode on their machine.

Effectively cracking the system to let your friend play it. Why not just have your friend torrent a cracked copy? How is what you've done any better?

Plus this method ensures you can't lend someone an online game, and/or that the lendee can't do any multi-player.