Sony Bringing PSN Pass To All First-Party Games

Go away customers! by Eightbitgnosis · 2011-10-04 19:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

Whats with you buying or product? Stop doing that!

Re:Go away customers! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:17 · Score: 0

How is someone who buys a game used a customer of Sony?
Re:Go away customers! by skapaft · 2011-10-04 20:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

The guy who buys the used game might not be a direct customer, but the original customer who bought it new might be interested in whether there is a good second hand market to sell it on to once he's done with it, and how much money he can get back by doing so.
Re:Go away customers! by Eightbitgnosis · 2011-10-04 20:31 · Score: 2

I was thinking more in the sense that this would further alienate their customer base as a whole
Re:Go away customers! by Darinbob · 2011-10-04 20:32 · Score: 1

How is someone buying a used auto a customer of Ford?
If auto dealers did something like this they'd lose customers since people would lose resale value and lose confidence in the maker. Buying a used game from Sony does not mean you will never have interesting in buying a new game from them or that you won't tell other friends about a game that you like.
Re:Go away customers! by ciderbrew · 2011-10-04 20:48 · Score: 1

People will keep on buying and accept that's the way it is. I want to change your +1 Insightful to +1 very sad.
Re:Go away customers! by Dr_Barnowl · 2011-10-04 21:08 · Score: 2

If auto dealers did something like this they'd lose customers since people would lose resale value and lose confidence in the maker.
It's like saying that when you buy a used Ford, you don't get the manufacturers 3 year / 30,000 mile warranty.
At the moment, game servers are an open-ended cost - you have no idea how long your game is going to be popular for. Some (pay once) PC games continue for years past their initial release, and the publisher has to balance a potential loss of goodwill with the costs of running servers.
It doesn't seem unreasonable ; but really, I'd prefer it if the base game cost $10 less and *everyone* had to shell out the same to play the online game. But that isn't going to happen, because then you'd have the usual "hey, my game doesn't work" complaints.
Re:Go away customers! by Captain+Hook · 2011-10-04 22:02 · Score: 2

There was a time when all of those multiplayer games were hosted by the gamers themselves, in some form or other.

The only reason games companies even have the costs associated with running online servers for years after the game was sold is because they decided they wanted a slice of the dedicated server market and so took away the ability of players to host their own games.

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These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Re:Go away customers! by Ihmhi · 2011-10-04 22:46 · Score: 1

And clearly, it's working. There absolutely aren't any utilities to facilitate LAN play with Starcraft 2. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have any dedicated servers. Starsiege TRIBES multiplayer was gone forever once the master servers went down.

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:Go away customers! by LocalH · 2011-10-04 22:55 · Score: 1

Because they presumably own the hardware to play the game on, and they presumably may buy certain games brand new. Why does Sony hate freedom?

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FC Closer
Re:Go away customers! by Gideon+Wells · 2011-10-04 23:04 · Score: 1

You know, you are right. Every time I just about break down and buy a PS3 Sony goes and does something like this.
Drake's Fortune is still in line of pricing for other PS3 new releases so it isn't like they are making the game cheaper for those not using multi-player. Being first party they could just raise the price if they wanted more money. Basically this comes down to one of two things:
* Just as part of scheme to make money off of each resale. Again a war on used games.
* Sony wants to bring Airline style pricing to the video game market. Sure, the ticket is one cost, but don't forget to count all the fees, extras, etc.?

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by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
Re:Go away customers! by mcgrew · 2011-10-04 23:18 · Score: 1

I came to this thread to moderate, but screw it.
If they weren't alienated by all of Sony's shenanigans by now they never will be. Some people will put up with anything. Me, I stopped buying Sony way back when they rooted my PC with XCP.

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Free Martian Whores!
Re:Go away customers! by Xaoswolf · 2011-10-04 23:26 · Score: 1

When you buy used, you are buying Game Stop's product, not Sony's. Sony needs money to run PSN, which they don't get unless you are the first party. The real complaint should be based on the price and quality of games that make it to retail.

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Xaotik Designs
Re:Go away customers! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 23:57 · Score: 0

Sony's Business Model:
Make it obvious that the only reason we have introduced a new format is to make people buy new overpriced hardware, then overpriced media and then limit their ability to use said format. Oh those issue you are having wait here is a new format that will "fix" that.
Proudly have not purchase a Sony product for over a decade. I even try to minimize goods that use their hardware at all. Sometimes can be hard to do.
Re:Go away customers! by Kelbear · 2011-10-05 00:33 · Score: 2

I'm ok with it.
If I bought a game for $60 and expect to sell it to someone for $30, I anticipate a net cost of $30 over the life of my ownership.
If I bought a game for $60 and expect to sell it to someone for $20(because their willingness to pay was $30, but since $10 has to go to Sony, the remaining amount is $20), I expect a net cost of $40 over the life of my ownership.
So the game price increased from $30 to $40. I can weigh whether or not the game itself is worth $40 and decide whether or not I think it's worth it. If I don't want to pay $40 I can still wait longer until the net cost drops to $30 anyway. I know about the PSN pass, so I just tack it into the overall evaluation of the purchase.
At least this way at least a little of the used game sales flows back to the developer for each new player.
Re:Go away customers! by JoeMerchant · 2011-10-05 00:34 · Score: 1

I have, thank you. The PSN won't take my CC anymore and I'm in no mood to make another call to customer support to get it unlocked for the privilege of continued abuse.
Re:Go away customers! by dyingtolive · 2011-10-05 00:44 · Score: 1

Actually, there are replacement master servers for TRIBES that are living still. And unlike modern games, TRIBES actually had an option for changing the master server hostname in the configuration. There's even some hack someone pieced together to get it to run on Vista/Win7. You should check it out.

--
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Re:Go away customers! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 01:05 · Score: 0

Starsiege TRIBES multiplayer isn't gone. It has never required a master server or any access to the Internet at all.
Re:Go away customers! by muffen · 2011-10-05 01:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

I guess they figured that their standing with their customer-base is so low it simply cannot get any worse, might as well make some more money off the id... sorry, consumers, who are still using sony products.

Second hand games may not bring any income to Sony but the person selling the game then using the money to buy a new game does bring in new money to the company, so I really cannot follow their thinking here.
... but then again, I would never have closed down Lik-Sang, installed rootkits on CDs, ignored all security best-practices in everything I did and then proceeded by crapping all over the people who still payed for my products, I guess me and sony have different ways of looking at things.

I hate sony, there are other companies I dislike and would be reluctant to buy products from, but I hate sony. I do not buy anything that has the sony name on it, and this includes sonyericsson phones. I realize companies are in the business of making money, but most have realized that crapping on customers isn't the best way.

... and, if any of you think Sony is better at running a business then I am, you should consider the fact that I have made 4.7billion USD more then Sony PS Division between 2007 - 2010. http://www.vg247.com/2009/10/30/sony-ps-division-has-lost-4-7-billion-since-launching-ps3/
Re:Go away customers! by Barefoot+Monkey · 2011-10-05 01:07 · Score: 1

Just so you know: I do agree with your argument, Ihmhi; I just don't get the example that you used.
Re:Go away customers! by VGPowerlord · 2011-10-05 01:13 · Score: 1

When you buy used, you are buying Game Stop's product, not Sony's. Sony needs money to run PSN, which they don't get unless you are the first party. The real complaint should be based on the price and quality of games that make it to retail.
That's a false premise, as the original owner is no longer using the part of PSN that applies to the game they sold.
Unless they're pirates and made a copy of the game first, that is.

--
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Re:Go away customers! by Mattcelt · 2011-10-05 01:50 · Score: 1

I can't speak for anyone else, but I bought a PS3 (and PS2 and Playstation) specifically to play a couple of select games. Since I've already made the investment, I'll probably continue to buy those games in new installments when they're released. However, I will make damn sure that I test each game before I buy it, so I don't make any more mistaken purchases (Black Ops, anyone?). This policy will also prevent me from purchasing any games on impulse, which I've done often in the past. (I bought Stuntman: Ignition on a whim, and it's one of the most fun games I've played on the PS3.)
So Instead of being the center of my video gaming universe, my PS3 is now relegated to being a niche piece of hardware for playing a couple of games. Kind of sad, really.
Re:Go away customers! by Xaoswolf · 2011-10-05 01:50 · Score: 1

The first person still has their account with the developer, who has to store all their settings, acheivements, scores, and what ever else the first person has saved.
If that game is resold five times, they are now storing five peoples info, indefinitely, with the revenue of one.
My point still stands.

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Xaotik Designs
Re:Go away customers! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 01:56 · Score: 0

what the fuck are you talking about? http://www.amazon.com/Uncharted-Drakes-Fortune-Playstation-3/dp/B000UW21A0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317822945&sr=8-1
they're not retroactively adding the online pass, and drake's fortune doesn't have multiplayer anyway.
Re:Go away customers! by AngryDeuce · 2011-10-05 02:07 · Score: 1

So Instead of being the center of my video gaming universe, my PS3 is now relegated to being a niche piece of hardware for playing a couple of games. Kind of sad, really.
That's been my PS3 since day one. I bought it primarily for the Blu-Ray player and ability to play media files via the network, which at the time was pretty reasonable given the cost of the average BD player at the time.
Once my PS3 kicks the bucket, I'll just build a proper HTPC and be done with it.
Re:Go away customers! by AngryDeuce · 2011-10-05 02:09 · Score: 1

...Another reason to switch to PC gaming
The smart people never left in the first place.
Re:Go away customers! by chuckinator · 2011-10-05 02:16 · Score: 1

The first person still has their account with the developer, who has to store all their settings, acheivements, scores, and what ever else the first person has saved.
If that game is resold five times, they are now storing five peoples info, indefinitely, with the revenue of one.
My point still stands.
If you really believe that the few kilobytes necessary to store that is costing them $10 per capita, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Re:Go away customers! by AdamJS · 2011-10-05 02:28 · Score: 1

The cost of storing that information is minimal. The real cost is in the game servers themselves and bandwidth, both of which have a net zero change when a game changes hands. This is nothing more than a cash grab at used sales, and it will be succeeded by tying more singleplayer features to online functionality.
Re:Go away customers! by JMJimmy · 2011-10-05 03:07 · Score: 1

And if you buy a game and want to lend it to a friend or family member? They're to pay $10 to play it?
You create a second account for some reason and want to play your games on it? You're to pay $10 on top of the $60 you already paid?
You feel $60 is too much to pay and are willing to wait for the price to drop from the company, however, by the time they do the servers are scheduled to be shutdown so your only option is the used market to pay the price you're willing to. But then $10 to play online makes it almost as expensive as the new ones or more expensive. EB/Gamestop as an example $5 off new = used in many cases... so you're paying $5 more buying used?
Heck if I had to pay $10 for each and every game I bought used I'd be paying $1500 to play online long enough to realize that no one plays the games anymore (with the exception of maybe a half dozen of them). But of course I can't can't know that until I've paid the $10.
And what about that pass - I paid $10 for it for lifetime use, why can't I transfer that to someone else?
It's a cash grab plain and simple. The effects are clear and calculated. Limit the used and rental markets so more people buy new or pay their tax. Assuming this succeeds everyone is going to emulate it (as they've already begun to do). Customers will come to expect it, even if it doesn't happen absolutely everywhere. So if you're standing in a game store are you going to give that smaller title a chance or figure no one will be online so you'll buy the big title. Meaning more profit for big corporations, fewer titles, and that gives them even more control to do whatever the hell they want.
The worst part for me is that the way I enjoy gaming the most is via Co-op. CoD/GoW/etc are all the same... run, kill/get killed/do some objective you've done over and over, repeat. Co-op on the other hand you get to have fun going through a story with a friend. Maybe you'll do it a second time if you enjoy the game but usually it's moving on to the next title. $10 for that + the cost of the game to play through co-op once or twice? No thanks.
I bought one used title with an online pass by accident, I didn't pay the $10 and I've not purchased any game with an online pass and that will remain the case until it's removed or the game itself becomes free and you only pay to play online.
Re:Go away customers! by SimonTheSoundMan · 2011-10-05 03:13 · Score: 1

It's not just the used game buyer that is being screwed.
I have two PS3's, and multiple people use them with different PSN accounts. I bought F1 2011, it comes with this pass. To redeem the pass you have to use your PSN account and go in to the store, find the pass and enter the code. It's ok if you have one PS3 and one PSN account, but if someone else wants to play online, they have to buy a pass. The purchase only seems to work on the PS3 I redeemed to code on as well (must be tied to serial number or something), so you buy a new PS3, you have to fork out $10 for each game.
5 people use the one PS3, that's $40. PS3 fails, going to have to purchase the passes again that's $50. This is only for one game.
Re:Go away customers! by JMJimmy · 2011-10-05 03:18 · Score: 1

Ours we bought for God of War and Final Fantasy XIII. FFXIII turned out to be garbage, God of War was so short I completed it 3 times in the first two days. The system hasn't been played in months. Wii even longer since it's been played. The multiple 360s get played daily and used as media centres. Wasn't planning on using it as a media centre but it worked out of the box with our laptops and streams beautifully. Only drawback is you have to be connected online to watch anything with anything but the most common codecs.
Re:Go away customers! by JMJimmy · 2011-10-05 03:26 · Score: 1

Retail cost of a 2tb drive: $80. Number of profiles you could store on it (on the extremely generous side... 10mb/profile/game): 200,000+. $2 million dollars to operate a single computer for 200,000 people - I want some of what you're smoking.
Re:Go away customers! by Joce640k · 2011-10-05 03:41 · Score: 1

It's pretty clear that SONY's done the math and decided they don't want "thinkers" in their customer base...

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No sig today...
Re:Go away customers! by spire3661 · 2011-10-05 03:45 · Score: 1

This is it exactly. THe ONLY thing my PS3 does that other devices really dont is Blu-ray, and I own a whole 2 BR discs. When I bought it, i expected it to be the one device to rule them all. Bash Xbox all you want, their platform is a hell of a lot more media saavy then Ps3. MCE alone puts it head and shoulders above PS3.

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Good-bye
Re:Go away customers! by stillnotelf · 2011-10-05 04:16 · Score: 1

Heck if I had to pay $10 for each and every game I bought used I'd be paying $1500 to play online long enough to realize that no one plays the games anymore (with the exception of maybe a half dozen of them). But of course I can't can't know that until I've paid the $10.
One way to gauge this ahead of time is to just check the forums for a big gaming site like GameFAQs - if the board for the game is dead, then the online will be dead. (This is especially true if half the recent topics are requests for partners for boosting achievements). FWIW, I also dislike the online pass phenomenon.
Re:Go away customers! by tomstockmail · 2011-10-05 04:20 · Score: 1

Sony doesn't make money from second hand game sales. This is very bad for GameStop. Why doesn't slashdot make up their mind who they hate more?
Re:Go away customers! by JMJimmy · 2011-10-05 04:37 · Score: 1

Yeah, you can do that but how often do you have access to online resources like GameFAQs/TrueAchievements etc when you're in a used game store? Sure if you have a cell with a data plan but how many people are really going to stand there and research the title in store? Games are like movies and books, people like to browse and grab what looks interesting to them. That's the only thing they should be thinking about when purchasing a game, not "am I going to have to pay extra when I get home to play this?" "are the servers still up and does anyone play?"
Re:Go away customers! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 04:48 · Score: 0

Caveat emptor - buyer beware
That's why I do my research before going to the store
Even in the days before the Internet (and pirating ;p), it might actually mean paying money for a gaming magazine for reviews (which isn't a whole lot better as they could be paid off, the reviewers could be completely inaccurate, etc. but you do what you can)
Back then, the investment in a ~10 bucks magazine is well worth the entertainment (you get to know about games you couldn't possibly all buy), and the savings in avoiding crappy games.
Ok, enough nostalgia. Now get off my lawn! ;p
Re:Go away customers! by stillnotelf · 2011-10-05 04:49 · Score: 1

I'm a lot more mercenary in my habits - I wait for a sale and go in with a list of games I'll take, then see what the store actually has in stock, then get whatever's on both lists. I'd have time to pre-research the issue. You are correct, my idea won't help impulse buyers (like yourself?) at all.
Re:Go away customers! by mrchaotica · 2011-10-05 04:55 · Score: 1

EB/Gamestop as an example $5 off new = used in many cases... so you're paying $5 more buying used?
That's kind of the point: this policy is specifically designed to kill the likes of Gamestop.

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"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Go away customers! by gsslay · 2011-10-05 05:04 · Score: 1

Hands up everyone who chooses what game to buy based on speculation on what the second hand games market may value it, once they've finished. Hands up who has decided to not buy a game because, no matter how great a game it may be, they don't think there's much of a second hand market for it. Hands up everyone who has bought a game they weren't so keen on, but they were sure it would have a good re-sale value.
As I thought; absolutely no-one.
Re:Go away customers! by Rakarra · 2011-10-05 05:33 · Score: 1

Games are like movies and books, people like to browse and grab what looks interesting to them.

I learned my lesson when it came to that in the 80s and early 90s when I played some crappy games because I thought the box looked cool (or in one case "I reaaaaally want to play an RPG but this is the only RPG the store has on hand"). $50 ($60 in that one case) was a lot for a teenager to lay down for a game (interesting how game prices have lagged compared to inflation) and I quickly learned that the opinions of friends and reviews in Nintendo Power of Family Computing were pretty important (I like putting things in parentheses).
Re:Go away customers! by Darinbob · 2011-10-05 05:56 · Score: 1

OK, I'm a bit of an old fart though. To me "multiplayer" games you play with friends, and I always treated that Blizzard network thing as a strange anomaly because players didn't trust each other. But even if more games have centralized mandatory servers I would have thought that this was more of a customer courtesy ("you don't have to hunt to find other players, come use our free servers!"). That is if you buy the game you pay the same price for single player or multiplayer, there is no added network fee for multiplayer. So it confuses the customer who now sees the extra fee but only if it's a transferred game. And Sony only knows it's transferred because of DRM?
It would be more clear that if the network was expensive that the game companies go to a subscription model to use them, like an MMO. Give a discount to single player games, allow transferring the games (maybe even give the game away free if there's a net charge), or allow players to directly connect to friends without a centralized server. Besides just the stupid privacy issues involved remember the single point of failure when Sony network was hacked.
I just never understood the silly PSN network, windows live, xbox live, steam achievement, and other stuff like that. But I guess they've been around long enough that newer players have just rolled over and let game companies have their way.
Re:Go away customers! by JMJimmy · 2011-10-05 06:15 · Score: 1

(I like putting things in parentheses too!) Here games have gone up about $10 since then and they're having to hide the cost of games with DLC or freemium titles like AoE:O and Crimson Alliance. Crimson Alliance is my new favourite. "Free" but you have to pay 200msp for achievements, or 800msp to play a single character, or 1200msp to play the full (very short) game, another 400msp for the DLC. In other words, it's a demo which will cost you more if you buy it in bits and pieces.
Re:Go away customers! by Gyorg_Lavode · 2011-10-05 06:16 · Score: 1

To be honest, Sony's approach has pushed me to buy an xbox 360. Now I tend to prefer xbox games over ps3 ones. It might not cost them all the games I buy, but when there's an option, you can bet it'll be xbox first.

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I do security
Re:Go away customers! by Jibekn · 2011-10-05 07:24 · Score: 1

*raises hand*

I NEVER buy brand new unless i know i can get 60-70% of the cost back in a few weeks.

The last brand new, release day game I bought for a console was Fall Out New Vegas, now theres no way in hell I would have bought it if:

#1. I knew I couldn't get 90% of the value back within 2-3 days via Craigslist if i didn't like it.
#2. I knew I couldn't get 70~% of the value back after a couple weeks once I finished it.

Other games I don't pay more than 20$ for. Ever. Ill mod and download before I pay anymore than that. If the Company's want my money, they can come down to my level, Ill steal from them before I rise to theirs.Sad but true.
Re:Go away customers! by Rakarra · 2011-10-05 07:27 · Score: 1

There was a time when all of those multiplayer games were hosted by the gamers themselves, in some form or other.

And for the most part, that sucked. Poor network syncing mode made a number of games (especially Starcraft) bad to play if one person had a modem while everyone else was on DSL. Router issues, the challenge of firewalls on the router and the computer, network address translation, and so forth made hosting Internet games past the mid-90s a pain in the ass for technically-savvy users, let alone tech neophytes.
Granted, I miss hosting Diablo II on my PC, but overall online gaming is far more reliable now than it was back when everyone hosted games on their computers.
Re:Go away customers! by Rakarra · 2011-10-05 07:28 · Score: 1

Ugh, quoting fail. The same comment, but properly quoted:

There was a time when all of those multiplayer games were hosted by the gamers themselves, in some form or other.
And for the most part, that sucked. Poor network syncing mode made a number of games (especially Starcraft) bad to play if one person had a modem while everyone else was on DSL. Router issues, the challenge of firewalls on the router and the computer, network address translation, and so forth made hosting Internet games past the mid-90s a pain in the ass for technically-savvy users, let alone tech neophytes.
Granted, I miss hosting Diablo II on my PC, but overall online gaming is far more reliable now than it was back when everyone hosted games on their computers.
Re:Go away customers! by Jibekn · 2011-10-05 07:32 · Score: 1

Maybe they shouldn't have locked me into 1st party servers? Let me setup my own and shoulder the costs. PC Gaming thrived under this system for decades. It only costs them money because they want it to, the cost of the online service shouldn't ever enter into the equation.
Re:Go away customers! by Rakarra · 2011-10-05 07:34 · Score: 1

...Another reason to switch to PC gaming
Can you resell the game you bought through... say, Steam?
Re:Go away customers! by Rakarra · 2011-10-05 07:35 · Score: 1

Sony doesn't make money from second hand game sales. This is very bad for GameStop. Why doesn't slashdot make up their mind who they hate more?
There's nothing wrong with hating everyone equally.
Re:Go away customers! by Emetophobe · 2011-10-05 08:10 · Score: 1

What's the difference between me buying a game and playing it online for a year, versus me buying a game and playing it online for 6 months, then selling it and having a second person play it for another 6 months?
They both use the same theoretical amount of bandwidth, and Sony gets the same amount of money in either case aswell. This is just Sony being douchebags and attempting to squeeze extra money out of people.
Re:Go away customers! by h00manist · 2011-10-05 10:51 · Score: 0

Sony doesn't make money from second hand game sales. This is very bad for GameStop. Why doesn't slashdot make up their mind who they hate more?
There's nothing wrong with hating everyone equally.
Yes it is perfectly coherent to equally hate and despise the whole planet and oneself, equal opportunity for all. Murder and suicide, equal hate and fate.

--
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Re:Go away customers! by mattack2 · 2011-10-05 11:38 · Score: 1

Drake's Fortune is still in line of pricing for other PS3 new releases so it isn't like they are making the game cheaper
Huh what?
Currently it's $23.25 at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Uncharted-Drakes-Fortune-Playstation-3/dp/B000UW21A0
It's been under-$20 at Fry's a few times (yes, sales). The uncharted dual pack (uncharted 1 & 2 in one package) is $39.99, making each game under $20.
Re:Go away customers! by IndustrialComplex · 2011-10-05 11:49 · Score: 1

Better than Steam. As much as people love that system, it pisses me the hell off that I can't let my daughter play a game I bought several years ago.

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Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Re:Go away customers! by tomstockmail · 2011-10-05 15:13 · Score: 1

Eye for an Eye!
Re:Go away customers! by h00manist · 2011-10-06 00:02 · Score: 1

Eye for an Eye!
So we find it is entirely within reason and justice for a person to shoot their friends, coworkers, family, and neighbors - as long as they also shoot themselves in the end. Everyone was treated equally.

--
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Re:Go away customers! by Ihmhi · 2011-10-08 05:56 · Score: 1

Yes, I know... there's also programs to run LAN play with Starcraft 2 and Modern Warfare 2 and/or cracked versions of the games that already do this. I guess my sarcasm flew over some people's heads. (I tried to use fairly well-known examples.)

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:Go away customers! by Ihmhi · 2011-10-08 06:00 · Score: 1

The point was that the old model of "players hosting their own servers" will never go away. Even games that were designed to not even have a dedicated server package (going all the way back to stuff like Diablo 1, i.e. BNETD or whatever it was called) had them thanks to packet-sniffing and reverse-engineering. The "official" company stances on TRIBES (no more master server), Starcraft 2 (no LAN play), and MW2 (no dedicated servers) were all broken and handled by the community to be non-issues. Anytime a game has a feature that is less than desirable to the community (often DRM), the technically adept people in said community remedy it rather quickly. Even something like Blu-Ray's DRM scheme (which was backed by millions of dollars in R&D) was broken in, what, a couple of years? And it was broken by a few enthusiasts in a CAVE WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!

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Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:Go away customers! by dyingtolive · 2011-10-09 03:52 · Score: 1

Ah. To be honest, I actually didn't realize there were such things out already for Starcraft 2 or MW2, hence the confusion. :)

--
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...

So now I have to pay $10.. by assemblerex · 2011-10-04 19:22 · Score: 1

.to be called a verbally abused by 13 year olds? Amazing.

Re:So now I have to pay $10.. by Shoe+Puppet · 2011-10-04 22:17 · Score: 1

If you're gaming online and someone claims you're being verbally abused, they're probably right.

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(+1, Disagree)
Re:So now I have to pay $10.. by Joce640k · 2011-10-04 22:23 · Score: 2

Clue: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/online_gaming

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No sig today...

PS users, don't be pissed of by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 19:25 · Score: 0

You bought into a DRM scheme. You were stupid, now you learned the hard way. Consider this a tuition fee and don't be stupid again.

Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 19:48 · Score: 0

You bought into a DRM scheme. You were stupid, now you learned the hard way. Consider this a tuition fee and don't be stupid again.
I don't know about stupid. Many people are ignorant about the issues. Myself, in a moment of weakness, I forgot not to suck satans cock for a while. I wanted to give the significant other something to casually game with that would "just work". Linux and company are not quite up there with regards to things like Final Fantasy, yet.
I don't know if I should have caved for the convenience, though. Every once in a while it turns my stomach a little bit that the machine forces me to upgrade stuff, or that I should pay for themes for it and other ridiculous things they can do because they're non-free. Or shit like this story right here.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by ShakaUVM · 2011-10-04 20:17 · Score: 1

>>You bought into a DRM scheme. You were stupid, now you learned the hard way. Consider this a tuition fee and don't be stupid again.
DRM scheme?
Most people bought the PS3 (or prefer buying PS3 versions of games over Xbox 360) precisely *because* multiplayer is free, and XBL always seemed to be a greedy grasp for money.
With this move (which will just annoy me, as I hate punching in those tediously long codes every time I buy a game now) the PS3 has lost its only competitive advantage over the Xbox.
Alongside the recent TOS change (secretly forcing people to agree that they won't sue or disabling their ability to update and go online), well, Fuck Sony,
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by Hadlock · 2011-10-04 20:38 · Score: 1

The multiplayer is still free.... as long as you buy the game new.
If you buy the game used, you pay a one time "used game tax" of $10 per title. This isn't a reoccurring fee like it is with Xbox Live. That's a dramatic difference.

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moox. for a new generation.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by GNious · 2011-10-04 21:02 · Score: 1

Think that might be backward...
If you SELL the game used, you'll get 10 USD less from the store, who'll have to sell it 10 USD cheaper on to the next person to offset the 10 USD Sony will be demanding.
Admittedly, it may end up that that the store resells the used game at the current rate, but pretty sure they'll use this as an excuse to pay less for the used game.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by DrXym · 2011-10-04 21:29 · Score: 1

With this move (which will just annoy me, as I hate punching in those tediously long codes every time I buy a game now) the PS3 has lost its only competitive advantage over the Xbox.
Well it hasn't really. If you buy brand new games it's no different. It's only second hand sales which are affected.
However I think it is very likely that if second hand games are effectively hobbled that they'll retail for less to compensate for the price of reactivation. So a game which might have retailed for $50 second hand might retail for $40 if it's substantially a multiplayer title. The main losers here will be people selling (not buying) second hand games and the likes of Gamestop for slapping such a high markup on second hand games in the first place.
I'd also not be so sure that Microsoft won't do something similar. At the end of the day it's basically a way to squelch second hand sales and claw back some of the money that otherwise goes into Gamestop's pocket.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by blackicye · 2011-10-04 22:17 · Score: 1

The multiplayer is still free.... as long as you buy the game new.
If you buy the game used, you pay a one time "used game tax" of $10 per title. This isn't a reoccurring fee like it is with Xbox Live. That's a dramatic difference.
I totally agree, what I don't understand is why are people ok with Steam and other PC Games publishers practising this but get their knickers all bunched up when consoles try to follow the same DRM model.
Cheaper second hand games with an optional $10 fee to play them online seems totally reasonable to me, but I tend to keep the games I buy, and buy them brand new.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by AngryDeuce · 2011-10-05 00:10 · Score: 1

I totally agree, what I don't understand is why are people ok with Steam and other PC Games publishers practising this but get their knickers all bunched up when consoles try to follow the same DRM model.
I'm betting a lot of the people that disagree with Sony doing this bullshit also disagree with Steam and other platforms with lock-in like Battle.net.
I propose that there is a third option, which are the people that weigh the pros and cons and decide what is more important to them. Personally, I won't touch a modern Blizzard game due to the Battle.net requirement (not legally, anyway), and the only thing I use Steam for is MMO's and Free to Play games because they've historically been tied to one user anyway, or didn't cost me a dime so I don't care about resale.
This is going to make me less inclined to buy certain PS3 games because the resale isn't there. I'm not gonna punt my PS3 out the window in a rage over it (although the hacking crap made me want to, that's for sure) but at the same time, when the next installment of God of War or whatever other franchise Sony owns comes out (which I can't even think of off the top of my head) I may not be as quick to buy it.
I think this is silly, because if anything Sony should be doing everything they can to drum up more business, and this doesn't seem like it's going to do anything but cost them early software sales.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by petermgreen · 2011-10-05 00:58 · Score: 1

Not everyone will care about the multiplayer and not everyone who was prepared to sell their copy at $x will be prepared to sell it at $(x-10). So ultimately things will probablly settle somewhere between the two extremes, used value of games with this will be reduced but probablly not by as much as $10.

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note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by Jibekn · 2011-10-05 07:38 · Score: 1

I buy more than 5 second hand games to play online in a year.

Subscribing to XBox Gold just got cheaper than PSN.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by Jibekn · 2011-10-05 07:45 · Score: 1

The used PC market are called Pirates, its been this way since before the internet was even around.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by Jibekn · 2011-10-05 07:55 · Score: 1

And lets keep in mind that GameStop is neither ethical as a business, nor do they have ethical employees. Ide wager within a month of this getting rolled out, that GS employees are stealing the scratch codes and selling them for 5$ a pop on E-Bay.

Its not like they don't have an awesome track record of stealing in box extras and selling them online or anything.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by Hadlock · 2011-10-05 08:01 · Score: 1

I don't mean to offend, ant this is completely a value judgement on each person's part, but perhaps this will make you look more carefully at the games you buy, and consequently spend your time on? I play games with the same group of ~150 people that I've played with for about four years now. We're pretty picky about the games we invest in, because we know that if it's a crap game, the player base will evaporate within a month of release (duke nukem, brink, anyone?). There just aren't five multiplayer games a year that come out with a staying power of three months or more. Probably less than three quarters of those titles are actually worth playing for more than 100 hours. I can't see the use in buying 6-20 multiplayer titles, putting the effort of playing the singleplayer portion to learn the game and then play the multiplayer portion for a few hours before you have to go buy another game and start the process all over again. And count on your multiplayer buddies to be in exact synch with you through the whole process.

Alternatively, if you've got the cash for both consoles and are purchasing 6+ used games for your PS3 alone, in addition to owning both consoles, I can't see this being a huge additional annual cost for your hobby. Additionally, as some others mentioned, the market will correct for this and PS3 games will probably end up $3-8 per title cheaper than they are currently. There's a good chance that this will accelerate the price drop of used games for the PS3 (at least for the single player portion).

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moox. for a new generation.
Re:PS users, don't be pissed of by IndustrialComplex · 2011-10-05 12:16 · Score: 1

I hate to break it to you, but there are several games (Mass Effect 2) which tie aspects of the game to one-time use codes.
If you buy the game used, you have to buy the code to use that aspect of the game. It's going to happen on Xbox live. So don't worry, it will suck there too.
(It already sucks there for for things like Netflix. Why the hell am I supposed to pay for the privilege to stream content from a third party, via my network, to hardware that I own?)

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This month's PS fail by theKingofShit · 2011-10-04 19:28 · Score: 0

I've been thinking about which Sony WTF I will state as this year's epic WTF in my top 10. The candidate list is getting a bit too long. Security breach? Month and a half outage in services? Anti-lawsuit EULA? Punishment for consumers who buy used games? SE Xperia x10 mini not getting updates? Instead of listing one of Sony's greatest hit in 2011's WTF-listings, i suggest we should list top ten of Sony Fails fot this year... I just wish there would be gaming console that's manufacturer isn't straight from hell.

Re:This month's PS fail by blackicye · 2011-10-04 22:20 · Score: 1

I've been thinking about which Sony WTF I will state as this year's epic WTF in my top 10. The candidate list is getting a bit too long. Security breach? Month and a half outage in services? Anti-lawsuit EULA? Punishment for consumers who buy used games? SE Xperia x10 mini not getting updates?
Instead of listing one of Sony's greatest hit in 2011's WTF-listings, i suggest we should list top ten of Sony Fails fot this year...
I just wish there would be gaming console that's manufacturer isn't straight from hell.
There just aren't that many manufacturers who are willing to out of pocket subsidize gaming hardware, unfortunately, so I don't see too much competition in the console space in the near future.
Re:This month's PS fail by Joce640k · 2011-10-04 23:03 · Score: 1

...and that's only 2011.
As a company they don't seem to actually want any customers.

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lolwut by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 19:28 · Score: 0

Your pitiful attempt at constructing a sentence seems to suggest you are age 7 or so.

Get back in bed.

Thanks Sony by Vskye · 2011-10-04 19:31 · Score: 2

It's just confirms that I won't be purchasing anything from you, ever. Good job killing your potential customers.

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Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...

Re:Thanks Sony by techsoldaten · 2011-10-04 19:52 · Score: 1

When they took away my Linux on the PS3, I stopped buying games. It's just a very expensive DVD player at this point, and I don't buy too many DVDs.
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 19:57 · Score: 0

Same for me. OTOH, the PSP and PS3 have not had any new interesting games since Killzone, Loco Roco and Little big planet(s). If the sales sucks, perhaps Sony should try to put out better games instead of robbing the few customers still left on the platform.
Re:Thanks Sony by Tukz · 2011-10-04 20:04 · Score: 1

You DO realise that this have been the norm on PC for ages, right?
When you buy second hand PC games, a lot of them doesn't include mulitplayer, because the key is already used in activating an on-line multiplayer account.
Some already charge to give you a new key to create a multiplayer account for your second hand purchased games, it was even on ./ a few times.
The only difference here seems to be that Sony is forcing it on all their games, whereas on PC it's up to the publisher.

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- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:20 · Score: 0

Serves you right for supporting a company like Sony.
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:23 · Score: 0

You DO realise that this have been the norm on PC for ages, right?
I never had trouble buying PC games off of ebay. The serial keys always worked. Then again I made sure to ignore games that are bound to online accounts like Steam (which are more of a recent development anyway).
Re:Thanks Sony by Dr_Barnowl · 2011-10-04 21:19 · Score: 1

It used to be that the key was just to prevent multiple simultaneous users of the same license key, which was eminently reasonable, until someone started using a duplicate of your key, locking you out of game servers...
More recently, the keys are bound to online accounts and are not transferrable.
The recent instances where there is bonus content enclosed with the original game with a 1-time key is actually an improvement on this ; you can still re-sell the game, something you cannot do for games that bind to your Steam account. Although I think we need some kind of escrow system for re-sale because there are still limited uses of those primary game keys. Having gone to the insane limits of DRM, EA are actually backing off somewhat. Perhaps they've even been paying attention to the gaming press. At least they aren't trying out the always-on-net DRM that Ubisoft have made such a bad name for themselves with.

Sony is forcing it on all their games, whereas on PC it's up to the publisher.
AFAIK, "first party" means "games published by Sony". So it's still up to the publisher.
To be honest, I'm happy for them to stick it to the second-hand traders. Games cost more to produce all the time, yet the prices change very little with respect to inflation. Second-hand trade contributes nothing to the funds of developers. While I'm not optimistic that all the gains here will find themselves funding new and exciting game concepts... it can't hurt. Even if it's just a case of "hey, our games bottom line is great, let's throw some R&D money their way".
Re:Thanks Sony by DrXym · 2011-10-04 21:36 · Score: 1

It's just confirms that I won't be purchasing anything from you, ever. Good job killing your potential customers.
Except the issue here is you're not purchasing something from Sony. If you buy a second hand game from Gamestop, Sony (or EA, Microsoft et al) is not seeing a penny of that but they still have to host your ass when you turn up to play the multiplayer.
Now one could argue that the guy who bought the game in the first place paid for your multiplayer spot. The counterargument to Sony (et al) is that if two or more people play on their service in succession that it increases the amount of time that the same number of servers have to be kept running. Running servers costs money and therefore they want to claw some of that back.
Re:Thanks Sony by blackicye · 2011-10-04 22:22 · Score: 1

You DO realise that this have been the norm on PC for ages, right?
When you buy second hand PC games, a lot of them doesn't include mulitplayer, because the key is already used in activating an on-line multiplayer account.
Some already charge to give you a new key to create a multiplayer account for your second hand purchased games, it was even on ./ a few times.
The only difference here seems to be that Sony is forcing it on all their games, whereas on PC it's up to the publisher.
PC games retail at similar price points as console titles, and the hardware isn't subsidized by the manufacturer / publisher. In many cases now, you can't even resell your games when you're done with them, let alone access multiplayer content on second hand games, even if you were willing to pay the publishers to do it.
Re:Thanks Sony by staticneuron · 2011-10-04 22:27 · Score: 1

The only difference? Read again. Sony is putting this on all "FIRST PARTY" games. Which means Sony is the publisher of those games. Doesn't seem any different from PC now does it?
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 22:56 · Score: 0

The only difference here seems to be that Sony is forcing it on all their games, whereas on PC it's up to the publisher.
Correction

all first-party games
In other words, games for which Sony is the publisher.
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 23:26 · Score: 0

I'm really wondering why anyone would use a personal account to "activate" those multiplayer / online / whatever options. Just use a custom gmail (and PSN, assuming it's free...) account for each game and sell it along with the game. Additionally, this gives you some privacy, but takes away your bragging rights to have achieved 5 bazillion gamer points on whateverNet.
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 23:28 · Score: 0

"yet the prices change very little with respect to inflation"
lol. whatever dude... the average game price has doubled in the past 15 years. not to mention a good bit of games are delivered digitally which axes cd/case production costs etc.
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 00:29 · Score: 0

Doesn't cost Sony a dime, you're incorrect.
The key uniquely defines a player - doesn't matter what their name is.
A purchase of a used game only changes the name tied to the original
key, it doesn't (need to) invalidate the key. A key can only have a single
active instance on the server, thus when the original owener exercised
their right-of-first-sale, the sold their ability to continue to use that key.
Sony reads these post, so this is an expected position they would post.
Re:Thanks Sony by stuboogie · 2011-10-05 00:40 · Score: 1

"If you buy a second hand game from Gamestop, Sony (or EA, Microsoft et al) is not seeing a penny of that but they still have to host your ass when you turn up to play the multiplayer."

Microsoft does see money in the form of XBOX Live subscriptions. That's why I don't mind paying my $4/month to use their service. I don't have to worry whether I can play my game, no matter if it is new or used. (At least until the game is considered EOL and server support is removed. Not sure if any games published for the 360 have had their multiplayer shutdown or not, but original XBOX games have.)

Sony used their FREE online as a selling point over Microsoft. It's not as free anymore and I believe this is just the beginning. It won't be long before they will go to a fully paid system. Microsoft understood the need to charge for the online service as there is considerable cost over time. They charge a reasonable fee and provide a quality service for that fee. Everyone buying an XBOX 360 knew this up front and were able to make an informed purchase. Sony will ultimately give in to that sucking sound from their infrastructure cost and make a change.
Re:Thanks Sony by DrXym · 2011-10-05 01:02 · Score: 1

No, it's still free. Buy a retail copy of a game and the online comes with it. I expect even for 2nd hand sales the effect of a PSN pass will cause most games with heavy multiplayer content to be substantially discounted to the point of negating the cost of PSN Pass.
And if you think Sony are alone in trying to combat used game sales then you're living in cloud cuckoo land. This is like DLC all over again. EA started this ball rolling with "project ten dollar" and others are paying heed. Sony is doing here. ID is doing it with Rage. I bet there are lots of things like this in the pipeline and I would be deeply surprised if Microsoft didn't have a scheme of their own in the works.
Re:Thanks Sony by CronoCloud · 2011-10-05 01:13 · Score: 1

They didn't take it away, you had a choice. Keep Linux and forgo PSN and any future required updates, or update the PS3 and lose Linux. Nothing stopping you from buying another PS3 just for games.
You didn't hear PS2 LInux kit owners whining so much on Slashdot because a PS2 HDD with a LInux install couldn't be used with the games that supported the HDD.
Re:Thanks Sony by DrXym · 2011-10-05 01:16 · Score: 1

Of course it costs Sony money. A simple analogy.
A merry go round sells tickets for $5 and lets people ride as long as they like. The operator knows most people get fed up after an average of 10 spins so their prices are set accordingly to cover costs and maximize profits. But then some people start selling their tickets to other people (some of whom were waiting in the queue to buy their own ticket) for $3.
So the operator loses twice, first losing a $5 sale prospect and secondly because the average spins per person goes up. Now perhaps the fact that the ride tickets could be resold was an incentive to some people to buy a ticket in the first place, recouping some of their outlay. But if the costs of supporting the freeloaders is greater than the profits from subsequently resold tickets then the operator is still losing money.
So what could the operater do? They could charge $6 for tickets to compensate for their losses but that's punishing people who bought a ticket and weren't freeloading. Or they could limit the number of spins but that would also punish legit ticket holders who wanted more spins. Or they could take the ticket at the gate so they couldn't sold later.
The third option is effectively what Sony and others are doing here. You redeem your code and it can't be used by someone else. Disagree with it all you like but it sure as hell costs a company money to run servers for people who never gave them a penny in the first place.
Re:Thanks Sony by CronoCloud · 2011-10-05 01:16 · Score: 1

the average game price has doubled in the past 15 years
15 years ago was 1996. The average game price in 1996 for a new PSone game was $49.99. The average game price for a new PS3 game in 2011 is $59.99
That's not double.
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 01:35 · Score: 0

Which is why I have a Steam account approaching 150 games, and maybe 10 I paid over $30 for. The publishers are shooting themselves in the foot with this one-time code and non-transferable purchase garbage. There are plenty of games to keep me occupied until you're game drops in price. Hell, Dead Space 2 is a great example. Wanted to play it so bad when it came out, just got it a little while ago on Steam for $20. I will say however that I will be avoiding EA games a bit more in the future however. No reason to have me register my game with their servers for my Steam game. Hell, never even played Dragon Age over the cockup at launch with their project $10 garbage (last game I paid full price for).
Re:Thanks Sony by jank1887 · 2011-10-05 01:44 · Score: 1

"Second-hand trade contributes nothing to the funds of developers." nor should they. Used car sales don't support the auto-makers. (apart from replacement parts, which is a separate market). Used book sales don't support the writers or publishers. Used appliance sales don't support the manufacturers. Used home sales don't support the home builders. Nor should they. Used product markets represent the fact that there is still value in used goods, and that value can be monetized until the value has diminished to nothing. Artificially boosting demand for new goods by eliminating used markets removes a significant amount of value from the new item. If they're going to do this, they had better lower prices to reflect this diminished value. If we pretend that piracy issues don't exist, then the used market leaves the same number of goods out there as were transferred via first sale. The same number of people would be using online multiplayer as they initially got money from to support multiplayer. Now, did they price multiplayer with the idea that people would get bored, stop using it after a year, and the secondary market keeps usage higher than expected long after a year? well, then they priced multiplayer badly. Nothing wrong with them deciding that they need to charge periodically to support online services. But they should price the initial software to reflect any aspect of reduced or transferred value that they're artificially imposing.
Re:Thanks Sony by mehrotra.akash · 2011-10-05 01:53 · Score: 1

Dont forget PC games cost 20-30% of Console games
Re:Thanks Sony by mehrotra.akash · 2011-10-05 01:56 · Score: 1

PC games retail at similar price points as console titles
No they dont http://www.flipkart.com/search-games?query=need+for+speed+the+run&vertical=Games&dd=0&autosuggest%5Bas%5D=on&autosuggest%5Bas-submittype%5D=entered&autosuggest%5Bas-grouprank%5D=0&autosuggest%5Bas-overallrank%5D=1&_r=drPAH3HwuVmKzPUEpehnZw--&_l=UozZhYToiXmHwFhrNUuDEg--&ref=c9073aee-dd42-4ef4-8397-352e7d1709fb&selmitem= PS3 version costs double of PC Xbox version is slightly cheaper
Re:Thanks Sony by Duradin · 2011-10-05 02:05 · Score: 1

But but that's a choice with consequences! It's not a choice if there are consequences! If there are consequences you're not free man!
I don't get it either. If someone actually used (and not just whined about) Other OS *and* it was important to them, why did they update?
Re:Thanks Sony by halfEvilTech · 2011-10-05 02:18 · Score: 1

And if you consider inflation that $49.99 15 years ago is more that the cost of the $59.99 games today.
What cost $49.99 in 1996 would cost $68.75 in 2010.
source - http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
so actually games have been getting cheaper as they have not been adjusting for inflation.
Re:Thanks Sony by AngryDeuce · 2011-10-05 02:30 · Score: 1

According to the inflation calculator $49.99 in 1996 is equivalent to $68.75 as of 2010, so not only is it not double, it's actually less than it should be (if that was the only consideration, which I know it is not).
Shit, I remember buying NES games for $49.99 back in like 1987. According to the same site, that's the equivalent of $94.66 in today's dollars, and I remember my father paying at least $200 for a Colecovision console back in 1982, the equivalent of $445.79 today.
The moral of the story is, we've always paid out the ass for video games...a lot of us just don't realize it because we weren't necessarily the ones actually paying out the ass.
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 02:32 · Score: 0

They purchased a gaming machine that ran Linux.
At a later point in time, their product was forcefully degraded and they were forced to make it either a Linux machine, or a gaming machine. Their gaming machine that ran Linux was no longer functional.
Re:Thanks Sony by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 02:38 · Score: 0

Hosting a second hand game on multiplayer is no different that hosting the first sale game if the original purchaser had liked it enough to keep playing.
There are a lot of people who are willing to buy games at $60 because they can recoup some of that cost when they are done. There are a lot of people who will not buy games at $60 under any circumstances. The second hand market expands the market for $60 games by opening it up to those two groups of people. If they really wanted MY money directly, they would sell games at $10 to $30 more quickly. Right now they have to settle for getting my money by proxy through people who resell their games.
Re:Thanks Sony by AdamJS · 2011-10-05 03:03 · Score: 1

Sony forced you to involuntarily lose a feature or features with the update, whether you installed it or not. Either you were stripped of the ability to play new PS3 games or you lost advertised functionality. Imagine if we applied this argument a couple of years ago; Nothing is stopping you from buying a new Xbox 360 just for games if an update gives it the RROD!
Re:Thanks Sony by spire3661 · 2011-10-05 03:50 · Score: 1

Here is a gun and some cyanide, you must administer one to yourself before leaving this room. We gave you a choice right?

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Good-bye
Re:Thanks Sony by spire3661 · 2011-10-05 03:55 · Score: 1

THe hosting fee was paid at the time of original purchase. If only one person can connect per copy, then Sony has lost nothing. Every copy of the game purchased should include costs for running a server for that COPY OF THE GAME. It should not matter if another human is using it. That is the the only logical path here and lays bare the true intention of this move: To continually print money from nothing by establishing taxes on games.

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Good-bye
Re:Thanks Sony by Bucky24 · 2011-10-05 04:59 · Score: 1

Didn't the update get automatically installed?

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All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
Re:Thanks Sony by CronoCloud · 2011-10-05 05:15 · Score: 1

No, at that time updates were NEVER automatically installed. and for that update 3.21, it warned you that you would lose OtherOS and required you to confirm the update twice, not just once.
Nowadays you CAN have it automatically update, if you're a PSN plus user, but you have to be a PSN+ user and actively enable the feature.
Re:Thanks Sony by CronoCloud · 2011-10-05 05:25 · Score: 1

I wouldn't exactly call OtherOS "advertised". Yes, Slashdot readers knew about it, and maybe a few other geeks, but the masses didn't know and wouldn't care.
Even amongst the people complaining about the removal...I doubt very few of them actually ran OtherOS or we'd have seen a LOT more people on the Yellow Dog Linux boards. And besides the available partitioning schemes suck. you either have 10GB for OtherOS and the rest for GameOS, which is a serious limit for Linux....or you have 10GB for GameOS and the rest for Linux, which seriously cripples GameOS. I did the latter at first, when I got my PS3, because I didn't know how big those game caches were. I eventually repartitioned it the other way.
Did I like having my PS3 running Linux, yes I did, Do I miss OtherOS, yes. But I understand why Sony did what they did, even though I wish they could have found a way for us to keep OtherOS AND gaming (and add a proper split the drive in half partitioning scheme)
Re:Thanks Sony by CronoCloud · 2011-10-05 05:33 · Score: 1

Well that's true...and I did install Linux on my PS3 the day I got it. And I do miss YDL.
But...it' wasn't exactly the shiznit either. I mean sure, it basically added another computer to the household. You had a real web browser, e-mail clients, OO, GIMP, the usual Linux stuff...Nethack.... but....No Flash and no hardware acceleration for X (even Linux on the PS2 had "some" hardware acceleration for 2D. It wasn't totally awesome.
Re:Thanks Sony by DrXym · 2011-10-05 06:31 · Score: 1

Of course it is more expensive. More players = more sustained demand on the server for longer. The second hand market could string out server costs quite considerably. In addition the publisher loses out because many of those 2nd hand purchases could have been 1st hand purchases.
And yeah maybe some people do buy because they can recoup costs by selling the title. It doesn't mean that they compensate for lost sales and increased server costs.
Re:Thanks Sony by DrXym · 2011-10-05 06:39 · Score: 1

And of course Disney Land loses nothing if they allow people to sell their tickets after they leave the park? Except of course Disney loses a great deal because many people who might have bought a ticket are hanging around looking for a second hand sale instead. And in addition these freeloaders who paid Disney nothing get to enjoy the same experience as actual customers and compete with them for positions in queues and so on.
Multiplayer is absolutely no different. At the end of the day publishers bear the cost of hosting servers for people who didn't pay them a penny. While I completely understand why it might be annoying for people who buy lots of secondhand games (though personally I rarely do), I also completely understand why companies do it. Deterring second hand sales will increase 1st hand sales and disabling multiplayer is an effective way they could do that. Sony won't be the only company to do this - I expect most of them will in time. For example ID are locking out entire chunks of Rage to second hand owners and I expect they'll flog them the unlock code at some point for $10 or whatever.
Re:Thanks Sony by Rakarra · 2011-10-05 08:36 · Score: 1

What about key hacking though? This has been a big problem for game manufacturers for as long as games have had product keys. User downloads a game, downloads a pirate key to play it on. What if that pirate uses a key that is already in active use? The key would either be transferred to the pirate, making it impossible for the real user to play, or else you'd get the situation where someone could sell the game but not release the key, making that sale useless.
Instead, if a key is non-transferable, then key is activated on first use and can't ever be used by anyone else.
Re:Thanks Sony by IndustrialComplex · 2011-10-05 12:50 · Score: 1

I wouldn't exactly call OtherOS "advertised". Yes, Slashdot readers knew about it, and maybe a few other geeks, but the masses didn't know and wouldn't care.
Except that it was advertised, and just because you don't find it useful, or didn't use it, doesn't mean they didn't take it away from a lot of people who did.
I used it, a lot. I loved tinkering around with it because it had everything I wanted packaged together on a front end system.
What Sony did, was act like an asshole company that decided it was cheaper to deal with the lawsuits and bad publicity of fucking over a minority of its customers than to actually deal with the problem.
So, I don't buy Sony, and actively recommend people purchase products of their competitors (except any product by a similarly sleazy company).

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Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj

Just lost a customer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 19:31 · Score: 0

Sony just lost a customer, I will not buy any game console or game that has anything to do with them. They really do seem to be trying to go for worst evil company in the world. Be good if some big countries banned any games that don't allow legal resale without paying more. Guess I'll keep to PC gaming from now on.

Re:Just lost a customer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 21:27 · Score: 0

Don't let the PSN Pass bite you on the ass on the way out.

Welcome to PC gaming, console users. by zcomuto · 2011-10-04 19:35 · Score: 1

PC gamers were introduced to serial codes yonks ago, and compared to modern DRM I'd be happy with what the PS3 is about to get. I can only fear for what security measures future consoles have, and I can see it only being a matter of time before there's a console that requires an active internet connection before it will even turn on.

Still, I'm a PC gamer and someone who prefers to buy games, first hand, than pirate or buy pre-owned. If I enjoy a game, the developer deserves my money. However, if a developer does not let me play a game, why should I give them anything?

In regards to the whole jumping on the $10 preowned thingy bandwagon, I wonder how much of it is just money-grabbing seeing as its a virtually cost-free way to make a little extra, rather than Sony genuinely fearing their business will end up collapsing due to some second hand sales.

Re:Welcome to PC gaming, console users. by Darinbob · 2011-10-04 20:38 · Score: 1

I haven't seen serial codes on PC games, though I see a lot of DRM. I avoid DRM if I can. I don't do multiplayer competitive games so maybe this goofiness is more common there.
Re:Welcome to PC gaming, console users. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:54 · Score: 0

Every multiplayer game on PC has serial codes.
Re:Welcome to PC gaming, console users. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 22:47 · Score: 0

I haven't seen serial codes on PC games, though I see a lot of DRM. I avoid DRM if I can. I don't do multiplayer competitive games so maybe this goofiness is more common there.
You probably haven't bought a PC game in over 10 years then.
Re:Welcome to PC gaming, console users. by firex726 · 2011-10-05 01:17 · Score: 1

Personally I would buy preowend PC games if I could, but it seems so many now and days are being linked to some form of account with the developer when bought new, thus if you try to resell it, the key wont work since it'll still be linked to my account.

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by Jiro · 2011-10-04 19:36 · Score: 2

Sony doesn't consider a buyer of used games to be a legitimate customer, since a used game gives Sony no income. Piracy has nothing to do with this, except that it's something else which also gives Sony no income but which sounds better to complain about in press releases.

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by theKingofShit · 2011-10-04 19:37 · Score: 1

Hmmmm... So you are suggesting that this is all because handful of individuals who are rotten? And it has nothing to do with good old corporate greed?

This is really about revenue generation by ernest.cunningham · 2011-10-04 19:44 · Score: 1

I honestly believe when you buy software (or licenses to use software as you do when you buy a game etc) you should be given the same rights as the original owner. If they cared more about allowing only one person at a time to use the software, then they should make it so that once a new user enters the original code, the previous user loses rights to MP. That would surely cut out piracy fears as only one code would be generated for the original purchaser who bought the game. They have control of the network, so they would be able to control the single use of the serial (or pass code or whatever they want to call it). That would kick piracy in the bum as well as control swapping of games.

Re:This is really about revenue generation by DarwinSurvivor · 2011-10-04 20:24 · Score: 1

I regularly do LAN parties where 1 person will bring a PS3 and 3 or 4 will bring games. This will require that everyone that has a game at home will need to bring their own PS3 with them as well. This fucks up a lot more than re-selling of games.
Re:This is really about revenue generation by ernest.cunningham · 2011-10-04 20:46 · Score: 1

They could bring their profiles? or sign in with their profile for the multiplayer part? Under their current method you would have to pay $10 for each of the games your friends bring around to play if they are different to those that you the host play. If they are the same then my suggestion also works in that you would have already had a code to play with your game. So no difference. Personally I think they should just lump it and not charge at all, but they are.
Re:This is really about revenue generation by blackicye · 2011-10-04 22:34 · Score: 1

I regularly do LAN parties where 1 person will bring a PS3 and 3 or 4 will bring games. This will require that everyone that has a game at home will need to bring their own PS3 with them as well. This fucks up a lot more than re-selling of games.
It's more likely to be tied to their PSN ID than the actual console itself. I don't think you can connect to the PSN with the same account multiple times, but I might be wrong.
Re:This is really about revenue generation by Agret · 2011-10-05 00:40 · Score: 1

Suppose if it's a LAN party you already need 2 copies of the game though for the game to work over system link,

To play LAN over PS3 you still need the physical disc in the machine to play so it's not like you can just quickly burn off a copy of one of the games your friend brings and play it LAN.

I understand they want to go after the used games market but they have no way of differentiating same household or friends having LANs with their PS3s so I don't really support it, although if they could apply it purely to the used games stores somehow then i'd be all for it as they hurt the industry a lot.

--
Have you metaroderated recently?
Re:This is really about revenue generation by executioner · 2011-10-05 02:17 · Score: 1

How is it that used game sales hurt the industry? The used game industry helps the industry keep interest in the titles as well as helping people who can't afford to buy 60 dollar games all the time to get them at a more reasonable price. the developer has been paid for the game in the first sale. Game Stop is nothing more then a pawn shop for used games. They pay better then the pawn shops do and sell higher but your buying used. I was thinking about buying the PS3 this year but I think i'm going to pass after this. I do buy more used then new games because of price point so I don't think i should be penalized for it. Sony has had a lot of missteps this year where customers are concerned

--
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Re:This is really about revenue generation by DarwinSurvivor · 2011-10-05 08:21 · Score: 1

If that's the case, everyone should just create new PSN account for every game they buy. Then when you sell the game, include the username/password of the account. Maybe Sony will smarten up when their servers suddenly have 10X the PSN accounts but no extra sales/consoles to account for it.

PSN costs Sony money... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 19:46 · Score: 0

As much as I laugh at Sony, remember that hosting PSN and the like costs Sony (or any similar company/service) a lot of money. Those costs are factored in to the price of the games with an estimate of how long the average user is expected to use PSN services (i.e. how much will it cost Sony). When somebody buys a secondhand game, chances are they will be a "new player" to the game, thus will be using PSN very regularly. So you now have 2 customers using the resources budgeted (financially) for one. Gets even worse as more and more pre-owned games are sold.

On the otherhand, I very much doubt it costs Sony $10 per customer.

Re:PSN costs Sony money... by TFAFalcon · 2011-10-04 21:53 · Score: 1

Then why not make the original game 10$ cheaper, but disable the MP until the player pays an extra fee?
Re:PSN costs Sony money... by blackicye · 2011-10-04 22:48 · Score: 1

Then why not make the original game 10$ cheaper, but disable the MP until the player pays an extra fee?
Isn't this the Microsoft model essentially? except for the part where the original game isn't $10 cheaper..
Re:PSN costs Sony money... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 01:23 · Score: 0

Cry me a fucking river.
Re:PSN costs Sony money... by Rakarra · 2011-10-05 09:18 · Score: 1

Then why not make the original game 10$ cheaper, but disable the MP until the player pays an extra fee?
Isn't this the Microsoft model essentially? except for the part where the original game isn't $10 cheaper..
It's the printer manufacturer model. Make printers stupidly cheap so you can hit people with fees later on.

Sony: I dare you to hack us again. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 19:50 · Score: 0

I shall taunt you a second time you legion of users who now have nothing better to do than to find ways to bring our company to the ground.
I have a ps3 and it just gathers dust now.

Got it. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 19:57 · Score: 0

Lesson learned: Don't buy sony consoles or games.

Thank you for saving me money sony.

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by Sarusa · 2011-10-04 20:01 · Score: 1

Fffft, this has nothing to do with piracy, which is miniscule because most people are too lazy, and everything to do with used game sales.

The cheek of it! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:06 · Score: 0

Hmmm I wonder exactly how much of this $10 will actually go to the developers!!!

After listening to many rants regarding this at 2010's Develop and evolve conferance I do understand the problem and agree that the developers should get a return when a second hand game is sold, this is an investment in the continued improvement of the games development industry, but most of the selling of second hand games is done by large scale companies such as game, blockbuster, game station, play-trade, game spot...etc etc.

Why don't they make the second hand retailers give the developers 10% of the revenue made from the selling of these second-hand titles??!! It’s unfair that the consumer is the one that always suffers!

Re:The cheek of it! by 91degrees · 2011-10-04 20:21 · Score: 1

I do understand the problem and agree that the developers should get a return when a second hand game is sold,

Why?

The problem is self-limiting. The number of used games available at any given time will be lower than the total number of new games sold, and few copies are resold several times. The publishers could deal with it themselves by gradually reducing the price over time.

Book, DVD, record and toy manufacturers don't expect a cut of second hand sales. Why are video games so different?

And of course, this does indirectly benefit the developers. What do you think kids do with the money they get from selling games?
Re:The cheek of it! by mehrotra.akash · 2011-10-04 22:15 · Score: 1

Unlike toys,etc the games dont degrade, get broken,etc..
Re:The cheek of it! by 91degrees · 2011-10-04 22:51 · Score: 1

They do become obsolete though. Retrogaming is a niche hobby. A lot more people will have played Portal 2 this year than Final Fantasy XII, and that's only 5 years old.

And what about books and DVDs. And power tools for that matter?
Re:The cheek of it! by mehrotra.akash · 2011-10-04 23:12 · Score: 1

But a lot of people still play NFS 2, NFS MW,CS1.6,Mario (the 8 bit version),Dave,etc..
books wear out after being read 2-3 times
DVD's cost almost the same (sometimes even more) as games, but give you much less than a game, so the additional profits are already built into the price.
Re:The cheek of it! by stuboogie · 2011-10-05 00:59 · Score: 1

"books wear out after being read 2-3 times"

If your books wear out after 2-3 readings, then you do not take very good care of your property. There are books that have been around for decades at the library and are still in good condition.

"DVD's cost almost the same (sometimes even more) as games"

Seriously???? When was the last time you saw a DVD cost $60 or more??
Answer: NEVER!!!! ( I am excluding imports and DVD collections like TV series, because you are getting much more content than a typical DVD movie.)
Re:The cheek of it! by mehrotra.akash · 2011-10-05 01:23 · Score: 1

Books: I'm talking about the lower cost paperback editions sold in India. Cost about 1/3rd of the US copies, but have lower paper and binding quality

DVD's: well, DVD's cost the equivalent of $15-20 for English movies
Games start at the equivalent of $8-10 (The GTA series is the cheapest) for PC

Maybe the Indian market pricing is a bit out of sync...

Glad I skipped this generation of consoles by GoodNewsJimDotCom · 2011-10-04 20:06 · Score: 1

Between Xbox live online forcing you to pay yearly, and now PS3 wanting you to pay extra for used games, there simply is not a free online solution like you get with PC. So as much as my friends want me to play online with them. I'll just tell them no, and wait for the next generation of consoles.

--
God spoke to me

Re:Glad I skipped this generation of consoles by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:28 · Score: 0

You think the next generation of consoles will be any different?
Re:Glad I skipped this generation of consoles by dltaylor · 2011-10-04 21:19 · Score: 1

Just more complete.
You will be required to present fully nude images of yourself and everyone else in a ten-block vicinity before the console will progress beyond the EULA screen, and grant a perpetual, re-assignable copyright to the console maker for the images, so they can make a few more bucks on the side
Login validation will require that all players present the same image.
Re:Glad I skipped this generation of consoles by blackicye · 2011-10-04 22:41 · Score: 1

Between Xbox live online forcing you to pay yearly, and now PS3 wanting you to pay extra for used games, there simply is not a free online solution like you get with PC. So as much as my friends want me to play online with them. I'll just tell them no, and wait for the next generation of consoles.
Your tradeoff is, now almost all the PC games you play free online have no resale value whatsoever..I don't see how that isn't worse than having to pay $10 to get online multiplayer features in a game you bought second hand, and can resell afterwards.
Re:Glad I skipped this generation of consoles by spire3661 · 2011-10-05 04:04 · Score: 1

COD Elite says hi

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Good-bye

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:08 · Score: 0

I know! Your comment is a very long and subtle soviet-russia joke, right?

For example, about MS... Hello! Xbox multiplayer always required subscription, asshole.

And about blaming the hackers and whatnot: Fuck you! Even if the hackers are bad, that's like blaming snow for people freezing to death when you don't let them have houses or something. No, fuck Sony for what Sony does! I hope your not as stupid a human as your comment indicates and that you're just pretending to say stupid shit for trolling.

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by Kryptonian+Jor-El · 2011-10-04 20:09 · Score: 2

I hate this misconception. As much money as Sony makes, you'd hope they'd be paying for intelligent board members. Sure, 2nd and 3rd sales provide no direct income for Sony, but the ability to resell the games gives them higher value, allowing sony to charge $60 a pop. This is removing value from the product, and the price should drop accordingly...but it won't. Imagine is you couldn't resell your car, without the new buyer having to pay the 'Ford' fee. Normally your $20,000 car sells for $10,000 after a few years, but Ford requires $5,000 to make new keys. Well now you can only feasibly sell your car for $5,000, but Ford still sells them new for $20,000

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All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us

To be honest, I'm not against this. by flimflammer · 2011-10-04 20:12 · Score: 2

I don't have any modern consoles (got out of it this generation), but I don't see this as an earth shattering moment. This is good for developers who have to continuously pay to keep these online services running. Whether they intended to keep them running till a certain date or not, selling a used game to someone else gives another person access to the online services without giving the developers anything in return, which costs the developer extra money (no matter how little or much it may be). I think when you have an online component like this, the developer aught to get something in return for the use of their services considering you wouldn't have paid them a dime otherwise. I'm not sure I think it should be $10 (I would see something more in the line of $5 but whatever)

It just makes sense from their point of view and also to some others out there who are looking at it objectively.

I do expect to be modded down for this (I don't blame you, since this is such a controversial thing these days) but it's just how I feel about it.

Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:37 · Score: 0

If they planned on running the online server for only a few years than shutting them down because noone would play on it then they had wrong assumptions to begin with. There is a great number of people playing old games. If they can't afford public servers, just enable directip.
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by funkatron · 2011-10-04 20:57 · Score: 1

It just makes sense from their point of view and also to some others out there who are looking at it objectively.
Guess who's point of view I have!
Seriously; the moaning about (and now charging for) the second hand games market like it's some sort of non-legit activity is a pretty big anti-consumer move on Sony's (and other publisher's) part.

--
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:57 · Score: 0

Oh yeah, you are totally right of course!
Let's shatter the used cat market, because car manufacturers don't get their toll when used cars are sold to totally strange people... not to forget that manufacturers have no control over this sale and of course need it to make further money.
Marketing has worked great on your brain, you are a drone that is happy to loose its basic rights so it can be remotely controlled....
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 21:12 · Score: 0

Your analogy is missing the part where a used car sale increases the upkeep cost for the car manufacturer.
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by gmhowell · 2011-10-04 21:23 · Score: 0

Let's shatter the used cat market,
Why would there be ANY used cat market? How are they useful after you scrape them out of your boots' treads?

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by ConaxConax · 2011-10-04 22:35 · Score: 1

Games companies chose to do and have steadily eroded the ability to have a player run dedicated server. They opted to pay these costs, no-one made them do it.
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by JoeMerchant · 2011-10-05 00:39 · Score: 1

Well, I suppose when I forked out ~$50 for something titled "Prologue" I should have expected support to be cut after a couple of years, but since my console YLOD'ed I let it rest for a year before buying a $250 replacement (that, itself, had a Blu-Ray drive failure after one month) So, returning to play the game after a year off, I find that "online play will be discontinued in 3 weeks, please consider purchasing our new full version of the game" - oh, what's that, the full version requires a functioning BD? F you very much mister software developer, there are more enjoyable things to do with $300 than buy a game that, itself, wants you to buy a $600 control set if you want to be "truly competitive."
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by Agret · 2011-10-05 00:41 · Score: 1

Suppose they could just charge a monthly access fee like Microsoft does for Live on the PS4 and they won't have to do this anymore.

--
Have you metaroderated recently?
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by JimWise · 2011-10-05 01:42 · Score: 1

Transferring ownership of the account should have no impact on the developer/host/game company. I agree that players should not expect a server to continue hosting games years after they have stopped selling them without receiving compensation, but this should be done through a yearly access fee or something similar. If a game passes hands ten times in a year, while another copy is held by the same owner for ten years, why should the hosting company require $100 for a single year of use from the first copy, while being perfectly happy with receiving $10 for ten years of use for the second copy?
Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-07 08:00 · Score: 0

You wouldn't buy a used candy bar!

Does this mean I can get single player cheaper? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:15 · Score: 0

Then if I'm not going to play the multiplayer part of the game, will you give me a $10 discount? No?

Re:Does this mean I can get single player cheaper? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:24 · Score: 0

The silver lining to this money grab is that it should depress the value of used games for people who don't want multiplayer. If this is your thing, you've just gotten even more incentive to wait for games to hit the used bin before buying.
Re:Does this mean I can get single player cheaper? by xero314 · 2011-10-04 23:54 · Score: 1

It should increase the resale value of any games you buy if you do not use multiplayer, as your resold game should still contain the one free multiplayer account. It should also reduce the price of second hand games if you only intend on using the game for single player. If you don't buy or sell used games then it's no different than what there is today.
Re:Does this mean I can get single player cheaper? by nedlohs · 2011-10-05 00:37 · Score: 1

Of course not, you can of course sell the access code (since you haven't used) with your used game or to someone who bought a used game elsewhere. Though it's a hard transaction to make since you can't test the code works without using up that once only use.

Carification by cyclomedia · 2011-10-04 20:16 · Score: 2

Selling a used game to someone else does NOT give another person access. It TRANSFERS access from one person to another. The total number of players has not gone up.

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If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.

Re:Carification by flimflammer · 2011-10-04 20:21 · Score: 1

I realize this, however in the original case the user would have stopped playing and server load would have gone down. In the case of a second hand sale, the company has to support the new users play habits while receiving nothing extra in return. I do understand your point of view, however, that the company should assume one sale means that game can/will be used until the servers go down, but that rarely ever happens.
Re:Carification by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:39 · Score: 0

Game developers estimate how long each individual player will play the game online before moving on to something else. For example id Software might estimate that the average Rage player will play for 10 hours a week, tailing off to zero over six months. This combined with the sales curve (should) give you an estimate of how many servers you will need and for how long.
Used game sales screw this up because a copy game which would have been used for X hours is now being used for X * number_of_times_game_is_resold hours.
Re:Carification by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:58 · Score: 1

As I understand it, most console games don't use dedicated servers. All of the "server load" is provided by the player's own consoles and internet connections. All the developer/Sony has to do is provide a matchmaking service so players can see each other. I doubt very seriously that it costs substantial additional money to match up some extra players who were late to the party than to run an empty room. I would guess that if does cost them additional money, it would be extremely inconsequential. Certainly not along the lines of $10/person.
What used games DO is attract a larger player base, keeping the multiplayer healthy for longer and allowing them to continue to sell additional copies of the game.
Re:Carification by staticneuron · 2011-10-04 22:26 · Score: 1

Attrition. It is expected that at some point in time interest wanes and the game players move on to different things. It is extremely easy to see accounts that are added and used alot after the time the estimate for decline.Normally the publishers handle the costs and they constantly crank out products that may need attention as well. It becomes a numbers game.
Re:Carification by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 23:50 · Score: 0

So, basically, you're saying if you *do* play until the servers go down, you're pretty much stealing from them then, huh?
Re:Carification by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 07:36 · Score: 0

If they sold a copy of the game, they should expect a player to play it. Why does it matter who that player is? This is an obvious cash grab at the expense of customers, nothing more.
Re:Carification by flimflammer · 2011-10-05 09:11 · Score: 1

I've not even remotely suggested this.
Re:Carification by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 10:41 · Score: 0

Lets put it this way.
When a game is sold, that license for the game has access to the online servers. PERIOD. Sony estimates how many copies they sold and allows each copy of the game sold access to the online servers. Selling or giving the game to someone else does not increase that load.
What you're trying to say is that if someone gets bored of the game they bought, the person they sell it to should have to pay AGAIN to access the online servers? Absolutely not. This is a money grab by greed, plain and simple. And trying to prevent someone from selling the game is not cool.
Re:Carification by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-06 21:21 · Score: 0

Indeed
however like the gym industry.
Money is made by selling a product to people who do not use it.
So it is just as if 20 people decide to pool one gym subscription...

People are not thinking of.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:27 · Score: 0

This will kill things like Gamefly, or other game rentals.

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by greg1104 · 2011-10-04 20:27 · Score: 1

PSN was never secure. It just wasn't obvious yet where the insecure pieces were at earlier. Have you considered that the idiot executives who said the platform was safe at any level were the real problem here? They should have been all kinds of nervous about the sheer number of ways their data was insufficiently secure. Instead they were arrogant and decided to challenge people with real hacking stills to come rumble with them. There was no question who is going to get the beatdown when it's pirates vs. corporate types. It's not even fair.

Re:Sony will stop hitting you soon. No really. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 20:37 · Score: 0

Ah, the hallowed Valve. Always-online, account-locked, resource-wasting, bug-ridden, spying DRM is totally fine as long as it's Steam. It's not evil if Valve does it! Totally different!!1

Once you look beyond the few major publishers, things actually get quite pleasant. Compared to pretty much all smaller ones (and I don't mean just obscure Indies), Valve/Steam still is a restrictive, locked-down abomination.

Re:Sony will stop hitting you soon. No really. by Sarusa · 2011-10-04 20:42 · Score: 1

Yeah, well, small fry like Good Old Games or Indie Pack are even nicer. That's why I specified LARGE.

But at the large company level Valve is a great compared to someone like Activision-Blizzard, MS, or Sony. They let me do things with my games (like mod them) that nobody else is willing to do, or sell them so cheaply it doesn't matter, or constantly update stuff that I bought years ago for free. It's all sadly relative.

Re:Sony will stop hitting you soon. No really. by Sarusa · 2011-10-04 20:50 · Score: 0

Man, fuck you nimrods with moderation points - there needs to be a meta-moderation death penalty for stupid use of the Troll moderation category.

I can be abrasive as all fucking hell, and I may be completely wrong in what I'm saying, but if I were merely trolling you I wouldn't need to be nearly so self-indulgently verbose, and I am 100% serious in what I'm saying. Even when I'm saying it in a way guaranteed to grate on you when you're the category of willful victim I'm targeting, it's sincere.

Saying something you desperately don't want to hear is not the same as trolling you. Learn the difference, if you can with your fingers jammed so far into your ears they're raping your cortex.

when some stupid guy gives a fart... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 21:16 · Score: 0

Looks like sony has got some stupid guy who made some stupid decisions, who will be kicked out of his chair, when sony cries about lack of cash. I hope, sony dies and comes alive opensource. This is the only way to survive stupid marketing decisions.

Antisocial gaming for the win! by MacTO · 2011-10-04 21:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

I don't blame them for doing this, since they are businesses and businesses are out to make a profit. I don't even blame the greed because they are providing a service and they calculate their revenues based upon a single purchaser (and not subsequent purchases of the title second hand).

On the other hand, when it comes to gaming, I'm definitely a consumer. As a consumer, I don't want to spend more than I have to and that includes paying for access to servers for multiplayer games. So don't expect me to buy in to this scheme.

Hell, don't expect me to pay into this scheme even if I had money to burn since I prefer single player games to social gaming and I prefer to social gaming to multiplayer games. Which basically means that I'll take a PS3 when I want to have some fun, a Nintendo when I want to enjoy a game with friend, and basically don't care about this scheme because I don't give a damn about playing 'alone' against human opponents who I will never meet.

Of course, your opinion may differ. But I don't care. When I game it's about me (and maybe my real life friends).

Re:Antisocial gaming for the win! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 22:34 · Score: 0

Oh, you think that you are going to be able to play single player games without a PSN pass?
How else are they going to prevent piracy if poeple are allowed to play without being connected?!
Re:Antisocial gaming for the win! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 02:51 · Score: 0

I don't even blame the greed because they are providing a service and they calculate their revenues based upon a single purchaser
So you're saing that software publishers are all run by complete and utter morons? Somehow every single other industry seems to be able to deal with used/2nd hand sales.
For some reason, consumers who are directly getting hurt by these artificial restrictions of their rights, start to cheer publisher for implementing them. Oh well, that just reinforces my opinion that people are easily-influenced cattle who'd praise their butcher for his efficient slaughtering.
Re:Antisocial gaming for the win! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 03:03 · Score: 0

I have 2 ps3's and 3 xbox 360's and buy on average 2 used games a month. To date I've done most of myonline gaming on ps3 since it was free, looks like microsoft has suddenly become the cheaper option for me. And just before a bunch of cross platform games I want are to be released. Guess who's getting my money this time. Smooth move sony.
Re:Antisocial gaming for the win! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 04:32 · Score: 0

I also dislike multiplayer with strangers. Something about dudes exploiting every trick/imbalance in the game engine really breaks the 4th wall. Not to mention the name-calling and ridiculous aliases. For me, games are about immersion and escaping reality, and multiplayer gaming is anything but (a fantastic exception is Demon/Dark Souls which works in some minor multiplayer components into the compaign). But split-screen gaming with drunk buddies sure is a blast :)
And to all the whiners: bandwidth and servers don't pay for themselves. Count yourselves lucky that Sony offered free access until now.
Re:Antisocial gaming for the win! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 05:36 · Score: 0

And to all the whiners: bandwidth and servers don't pay for themselves. Count yourselves lucky that Sony offered free access until now.
1. "Whiners" does not mean "people who have an opinion I disagree with". And yes, that IS what you meant.
2. Nobody suggested that bandwidth and servers "pay for themselves". But the cost of those things was already covered by the initial sales of the game. A customer who buys a game used is not incurring any new bandwidth or server costs that would not have otherwise been incurred had the previous owner continued to play the game.
3. At no point has Sony ever offered "free" access. It has always been paid for by the customers. Those same customers are now being told they must pay for it again. It is not unreasonable to object to this.
Re:Antisocial gaming for the win! by neminem · 2011-10-06 03:49 · Score: 1

It incurs new bandwidth cost compared to the previous owner stuffing a game in their closet cause they got bored of playing it and can't sell it, though. ;)

After all, that would be the biggest win for Sony, right? If everyone bought their games and then never even opened the box.

meh! by Going_Digital · 2011-10-04 21:58 · Score: 1

meh, who cares sony is irrelevant thee days to me anyway. I stopped buying games when they pulled the Linux support and now the PS3 is nothing more than a blu-ray player. Sony have already done plenty enough to turn me away so like many I imagine I simply won't be buying in to any future Sony systems.

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by Kjella · 2011-10-04 22:03 · Score: 1

Long story short, people are worse at recognizing value reductions than cost increases. That's why in stores food comes in smaller and smaller packages until a new "economy size" package is introduced. That is why politicians create tons of product and service taxes rather than increase the income tax. They'd rather take resale value out of the game than increase prices and people will protest less.

--
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings

Sony just go away already by kbg · 2011-10-04 22:14 · Score: 1

Why are people still buying Sony products? I stopped after the rootkit fiasco and haven't bought a Sony product since 2005, and I always recommend not buying Sony products to all my friends and families. It must be so obvious now to anyone that the company is just greedy bastards who make mediocre products and just wants to fuck up it's customers for profit.

Re:Sony just go away already by medv4380 · 2011-10-05 03:05 · Score: 1

Because Nintendo has always had lousy 3rd party games and MS abandoned Japan after they realized they were never going to court enough Japanese 3rd party developers to make it worth it. That leaves me with still wanting NIS games and they only come out on Sony's equipment. If MS gets NIS games or Nintendo gets more then just ports of old NIS games then maybe I'll consider a bon fire for my PS3and2... Maybe

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by blackicye · 2011-10-04 22:29 · Score: 1

Sony doesn't consider a buyer of used games to be a legitimate customer, since a used game gives Sony no income. Piracy has nothing to do with this, except that it's something else which also gives Sony no income but which sounds better to complain about in press releases.

There is actually an upside to this practice, anti-social (cheating, verbally abusive players etc) will have to pony up an additional $10 each time their content ID is banned or blacklisted from online play.

The laws and restrictions on the resale market of games and movies are way more relaxed in the USA than the rest of the world, for some reason the consumer rights are far better than anywhere else in the world when it comes to the resale of games and movies.

I'm on the fence here... by mykos · 2011-10-04 22:40 · Score: 1

We used to call someone who profits from someone else's intellectual property (without giving the creator a single cent) a pirate. Today, people who do that are known as Gamestop. As much as I hate Sony, at least they're in the business of creating games. Gamestop is in the business of being in business.

Re:I'm on the fence here... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 23:55 · Score: 0

Are you being obtuse deliverately? People have been selling items they've purchased for ever. There have always been retail outlets that will buy them and sell them on again. You name it, people buy it then sell on, either direct or through a middle man. If the pre-owned price is too high, there's little market.
All this games fuss is recently manufactured developer greed. Not all games should be $60, most are junk shelf fillers. But will they adjust the prices? Of course not.
If they want to maximize their games being sold, and reduce the pre-owned market, they merely have to off a direct trade option themselves. They won't do that though, they want X units sold, even if that's financed by people selling older titles.
Gamestop is successful, because a large number of people want their service, regardless of what you or I think about them. If everyone hated them, they'd go out of business very soon.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-04 23:58 · Score: 1

Creating a second hand market increases the value of the original market. Video games are worth more since people know they can sell them later. If you destroy that second hand market, you will harm the first and the value of those games will go down. Gamestop (and others like them, including eBay and craigslist) increase the value of the games. So to say they profit without benefiting the creator is ridiculous. It's simple and basic economics.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by JoeMerchant · 2011-10-05 00:44 · Score: 1

Is GameStop any worse than used book stores? How about used clothing stores? If developers want to make their software licenses one user non-transferable, they need to get very up-front about it, quiet, subtle after the sale policy changes that have that effect are a good way to enrage your potential future customers.
I, and my children, can put our PS3 away and forget about it, we did it for a year just recently, and if it gets too annoying, we'll do it again.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by silas_moeckel · 2011-10-05 00:47 · Score: 2

Because they are entitled to get paid? This is basic first sale doctrine they are entitled to get paid when they sell the copy. By your logic when I sell my car the new owner should have to pay GM for the privilege of using the vehicle they made?

--
No sir I dont like it.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 01:05 · Score: 1

As much as I don't shop at Gamestop anymore... and as much as I "Pirate" stuff... to equate the two is a bit disingenuous.
When I shop at Gamestop, I'm buying a game that has most definitely been purchased before. Like buying a book from a used book store. At some point, the "Creator" got paid. Maybe the "Creator" wants to get paid AGAIN, but at some point he's already gotten money.
When I "shop" on TPB, odds are the "Creator" got paid once... for the thousands of copies now floating around. There is a chance that he didn't get paid at all for that original copy as well.
I'm sure any Industry out there wants to get paid for every hand that touches the product the produce... I'm all for a company making money for good products... but to equate Gamestop with Pirates is... Stupid. Second hand sales is most definitely not piracy.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by Lucky_Norseman · 2011-10-05 02:02 · Score: 1

Don't worry. Before long GM will catch on and all who buy a used car will have to pay 10% of the new value of a car to GM before they are allowed to start the engine.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 02:21 · Score: 0

I can't speak for the PS3 gamers, but as a PC gamer, I go out of my way to deprive game developers of revenue. I've honestly paid more for a used copy than a new one would cost just to deprive the developers/publisher. Why?
A. Most PC game developers sell me a malware-laiden product that requires me to put a disk in the drive in spite of me having 1 TB hard drives. This becomes a problem when I want to, say, play my legit game on my netbook.
B. The developers and publishers don't remove the above mentioned malware when the game is several years old and no longer selling, leaving the hardcore fans like myself with a defective product.
C. I've got lots of favorite games that require strange workarounds to run on a modern system, like limiting the program to one CPU core and using specific drivers. The developers of the games could release the source code so their fan base could fix these issues, but again, they only care about taking our money and running.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 02:51 · Score: 0

ever buy a used piece of furniture? Did a cent of that go to the company that created the furniture? If i buy a game and then resell it does that some how increase the number of users playing? I mean no longer have access and the new owner does.
If the company was to charge 10$ every 6months to a year for the multiplayer ability then it would seem legitimate. How it stands now they are taking my money for the product. I am transferring it to another individual as the law allows and they are disabling the product i used to own just because they didn't benefit from the exchange. Maybe car companies should cash in on this method.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 03:21 · Score: 0

But Gamestop doesn't profit from someone else's intellectual property, or at least they only do so incidentally. Gamestop makes a profit by providing a service, namely they facilitate the resale of a used product. They pay to maintain storefronts, purchase used games, track their value, index and store them, and then eventually find a buyer for them. There are music stores that have been doing this for a long time, and book stores that have been doing it longer, yet none of them are compared to piracy.
Honestly, the industry spiel that "Reselling your own property is a horrible thing and you are a bad person for doing it!" is getting kind of old, and creates some thoughts that are really dangerous to what consumer rights we have left at this point.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 04:06 · Score: 0

Is GameStop any worse than used book stores? How about used clothing stores? If developers want to make their software licenses one user non-transferable, they need to get very up-front about it, quiet, subtle after the sale policy changes that have that effect are a good way to enrage your potential future customers.
I, and my children, can put our PS3 away and forget about it, we did it for a year just recently, and if it gets too annoying, we'll do it again.
With the slight difference being that most of your used clothing and books have remained largely unchanged for the last 50 years. T-Shirts really don't need much R&D and the developmental costs associated with their production and your demands for their innovation are quite different.
Re:I'm on the fence here... by spire3661 · 2011-10-05 04:09 · Score: 1

A game disc is not Intellectual Property in this sense. It is actual real property that also acts as proof of license. While i dont love Gamestop, no one FORCES people to sell their stuff to them. There are plenty of other places that buy used games.

--
Good-bye
Re:I'm on the fence here... by Dusty101 · 2011-10-05 06:09 · Score: 1

Mod parent up.
I've never really understood why some people hate the idea of Gamestop (as opposed to individual gripes about the specific implementation, which may or may not be justified). As I've pointed out on Slashdot before, second-hand re-sales are simply another term in the cost/benefit equation of whether or not a software house should green-light the development of a given project in the first place. It's just something else that's to be factored into profit projections, like the production and distribution costs. As others have pointed out, it's really no different from the situation for book publishers.

Re:Thank you, hacker retards. by Servaas · 2011-10-04 23:12 · Score: 1

That's why I always go with the "If they wanna complain GIVE them something to complain about." It's this nickle and dimming that's causing me to not pay for any games, oh and thanks for your hardware you sold me at a loss.

It's a good thing.. by n30na · 2011-10-04 23:15 · Score: 1

that I have little intent of playing console games online anytime soon.

Will it impact used prices? by Five+Bucks! · 2011-10-04 23:24 · Score: 1

This is one of those costs that probably won't be fully passed on to customers - where I live anyways...

New Game: $60
Used Game: $50 + $10 PSN Pass.

Why would you ever buy the used game? Gamestop has to decrease the amount they charge for the new game or they swallow the cost of the PSN Pass themselves to make it worth a customer buys the Used Game. Otherwise they lose an entire console's worth of used games.

--
52 52'23" W 47 32'07" N

Re:Will it impact used prices? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 01:39 · Score: 0

No, they won't eat the cost because they will simply pay $10 less for the used games they back from customers.
Re:Will it impact used prices? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 01:45 · Score: 0

Which means they pay less for the used game, which means the seller has less money to spend on new games.
Re:Will it impact used prices? by mehrotra.akash · 2011-10-05 01:57 · Score: 1

This is one of those costs that probably won't be fully passed on to customers - where I live anyways...
New Game: $60 Used Game: $50 + $10 PSN Pass.
Why would you ever buy the used game? Gamestop has to decrease the amount they charge for the new game or they swallow the cost of the PSN Pass themselves to make it worth a customer buys the Used Game. Otherwise they lose an entire console's worth of used games.
If I'm interested in only the single player component, then why not?
Re:Will it impact used prices? by Five+Bucks! · 2011-10-05 06:37 · Score: 1

How much are you getting for a newish game at Gamestop?

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52 52'23" W 47 32'07" N

Good for buyers, bad for sellers and stores by Tobias+Lobster · 2011-10-04 23:31 · Score: 2

Looks like the people who lose out here will be either the stores (used games no longer sell for as much) or the people who sell their used games back to the stores. And seeing as the prices paid by stores for used games are already shockingly low, I doubt they could take another $10 off the offer price.

As a buyer, I should get the advantage of an extra $10 discount on the used game if I don't want multiplayer. And my choice is nice and easy - if the used game isn't at least $10 cheaper, I'm not buying it. Right now in the UK it's quite common for the used game to only be $3-$5 cheaper than new.

Re:Good for buyers, bad for sellers and stores by DinDaddy · 2011-10-05 02:25 · Score: 1

Looks like the people who lose out here will be either the stores (used games no longer sell for as much) or the people who sell their used games back to the stores.
Or?
It will be both.

Pay what you want - to open source programmers. by h00manist · 2011-10-05 00:32 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Humble Bundle is going again. http://www.humblebundle.com/. In fact, I'm going to do some more looking into open source gaming.

--
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/

Re:Pay what you want - to open source programmers. by simcop2387 · 2011-10-05 02:04 · Score: 1

While I'm no good at the main game featured this time, Frozen Synapse, which ironically is why I was interested in the first part, it is very reminiscent of the old game Syndicate. I'd definitely recommend paying more than the average to get a hold of at least Trine. It's an absolutely great platformer with a good story and wonderful balance. I haven't had a chance to check out the others yet still.
Re:Pay what you want - to open source programmers. by tomstockmail · 2011-10-05 04:26 · Score: 1

Those games aren't open source. I have no idea where you got that from.
Re:Pay what you want - to open source programmers. by kcitren · 2011-10-05 06:19 · Score: 1

The paying more than average trick is neat. Keeps driving up the average so that people late to the game have to pa more. I like it.
Re:Pay what you want - to open source programmers. by h00manist · 2011-10-05 10:42 · Score: 1

Confused indeed. Some were release as open source. And they run on Linux, and are DRM free. That's where I got the confusion from. Was reading about Kickstarter/Diaspora and Humble Bundle at the same time, researching some ways open source projects could be funded.

--
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Re:Pay what you want - to open source programmers. by h00manist · 2011-10-05 10:45 · Score: 1

Yeah, very well thought out. Open source needs similar financial engineering. Would be cool to get some open source projects, design a Kickstarter around them for an upgrade and new releases.

--
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/

Why doesn't open souce gaming go forward? by h00manist · 2011-10-05 00:36 · Score: 1

I came to this thread to moderate, but screw it.

If they weren't alienated by all of Sony's shenanigans by now they never will be. Some people will put up with anything. Me, I stopped buying Sony way back when they rooted my PC with XCP.

I can't quite understand why open source gaming doesn't advance.

--
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/

Re:Why doesn't open souce gaming go forward? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 00:53 · Score: 1

Because it's mostly garbage? Because most people aren't interested in playing clones of 20 year old games?
Re:Why doesn't open souce gaming go forward? by Agent0013 · 2011-10-05 02:56 · Score: 1

Because it's mostly garbage? Because most people aren't interested in playing clones of 20 year old games?
Right! Because playing clones of 2 year old games is sooo much better!!!

--

-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Re:Why doesn't open souce gaming go forward? by damnbunni · 2011-10-05 03:01 · Score: 1

Because there aren't all that many open source games, the ones there are don't look very good compared to commercial ones, they often have weird play mechanics, and the documentation is often poor.
Re:Why doesn't open souce gaming go forward? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 07:46 · Score: 0

Yes, we know that. Why?

So? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 01:12 · Score: 0

It's only first party though... and I can't think of a game I'd care to play multiplayer from them. And if I did, I'd just buy it new...

It makes sense to me anyways. It's otherwise FREE to play online with the PS3. I don't see how this is much different from Xbox live at this point. And it's still cheaper than that too...

This would be fine .. BUT by Hohlraum · 2011-10-05 01:17 · Score: 1

The servers are also run by Sony and the publishers so they decide when they want to take down the multi-player. Honestly though I never really do online multi-player for console games anyway so I don't care.

So what? by Mordermi · 2011-10-05 01:25 · Score: 1

Microsoft doesn't let you use product codes more than once because they'd lose money if you re-use their product. It's a similar concept, Sony loses money whenever their game is resold. It is a business after all. If you made a product but only a handful of people purchased it and then resold it to others so that they could use it and the chain went on then you would go out of business. Sure, Sony isn't at risk of going out of business any time soon but if they allow themselves to constantly take losses then they will.

Used games aren't much cheaper than new games anyway, so why not just buy the new? I always buy new anyway, because I like to know that it is well taken care of. If they (Gamestop) drop the sale price of used games to be $20 or more lower than new games, then even with paying $10 extra to play online you're still at where used games are now price wise.

I just don't understand all the fuss.

Re:So what? by Creepy+Crawler · 2011-10-05 02:19 · Score: 1

"Microsoft doesn't let you use product codes more than once because they'd lose money if you re-use their product."
That's why many of my cheaper clients use Linux for basic computing needs. And it is also the reason I am fluent in dealing with small end business needs in regards to Windows and Linux.
--
- Mod parent up! by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thurs, Nov 31, @13:37

Offline multiplayer by tepples · 2011-10-05 01:26 · Score: 1

You DO realise that this have been the norm on PC for ages, right?
When you buy second hand PC games, a lot of them doesn't include mulitplayer, because the key is already used in activating an on-line multiplayer account.

At least console games are more likely to support plugging in multiple gamepads. PC games, on the other hand, are more like handheld games: each player is expected to bring his own PC, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and copy of the game.

Re:Offline multiplayer by AngryDeuce · 2011-10-05 02:36 · Score: 1

Yeah, because if there's one thing that's going strong on consoles, it's single-console multiplayer...there's a ton of games out there that support that, amirite?
Oh, wait...they've been phasing that out for years now, too. The only games you can play co-op on a single console anymore are cheap-o arcade games and party games like the average Wii crap. Almost everything requires each player to have a console, TV, controller, and a copy of the game (and if on the 360, Xbox Live as well).
Re:Offline multiplayer by tepples · 2011-10-05 03:00 · Score: 1

The only games you can play co-op on a single console anymore are cheap-o arcade games
I don't know about PlayStation 3 because nobody in my family has one, but Call of Duty series for Xbox 360 still supports two-player split screen.

party games like the average Wii crap
Since when are Wii games, or party games in general, crap? Please allow me to rephrase: "At least consoles are more likely to have party games."

Great news for me by rjejr · 2011-10-05 01:37 · Score: 1

Great news for me as I never play online so Sony will be charging me $10 less for every game I buy. Wait, what do you mean I still have to pay full price even if I don't game online, that would be like paying $50 per month for 100 cable channels I never watch. Oh yeah, the consumer gets screwed again. We have to pay for stuff we don't use, and then the compaines get to charge for whatever they want. Does anybody see any fairness in this? -------------------- Like when ISPs chagre you for going over a limit, but nobody ever refunds you when you use 7mb of your 5gig plan. But OH NO, ISPs can't have tiered service, but they can charge you more for 5 or 10 or 20gig more. It's freaking ridiculous. --------- Rule of thumb should be rule of law - if a company can charge you more for getting more, then they should charge you less for getting less. Cable tv, broadband, videogames - I shouldn't have to pay for what I don't use if you are charging people more for what is normal usage.

What ever will Game Stop do? by VGPowerlord · 2011-10-05 01:41 · Score: 1

Here's the scenario I imagine a few months down the road:

*dials phone*
"Hello, Game Stop!"
"Hi, do you have any copies of {first party Sony title}."
"I'm sorry, we don't carry that title in either New or Used."
"Why?"
"Sony won't let us." (ed: and you know that's how it will be phrased, too)

*dials phone again*
"Hello, Best Buy"
"Hi, do you have any copies of {first party Sony title}."
"No, sorry."
"Man, does no one carry {first party Sony title}"

*dials phone once more*
"Hello, Wal-Mart"
"Hi, do you have any copies of {first party Sony title}."
"Nope."
"Fine, I'll just order it from Amazon."

*boots computer*
*click* *click* *click*
"WTF? I can't find this game on Amazon either?"

What do these retailers have in common? They all sell used games.

Oh, and they make up something like 90% of the game retailers in the US.

--
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011

Want to compare that to say Activision Blizzard? by Kartu · 2011-10-05 01:53 · Score: 1

Want to compare that to say Activision Blizzard? When game binds to battle.net account and you can't get away with paying 10$ and you can resell the game only with your battle.net account? So who's greedier?

Sony loves freedom by Fujisawa+Sensei · 2011-10-05 02:05 · Score: 1

Sony hates freedom? Sony loves freedom. Because freedom and capitalism are one and the same; or so I've been told.

--
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.

Not surprising by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2011-10-05 02:12 · Score: 1

Game publishers have want dot limit the used market as much as possible - since they view, rightly or wrongly, that every used game sale is potentially a lost new game sale and money they don't get a cut of even if it's not.

This is a way to depress used game value and get money in their pockets - a win - win for them. While gamers may get games for less now, used prices will drop as well so there is less incentive to sell; limiting the used game market and making it less attractive; form both a revenue aspect for sellers and from an availability aspect for buyers.

What is overlooked is the possibility that the big used game sellers - such as Gamestop - can cut a deal with Sony. They can buy PSN passes at a discount, pay less of for used games and then sell them at a higher price because the multi-play is included. There would be no "single player" discount. Sony is happy because they get a revenue stream, retailers are happy because prices and margins are protected (and may even go up); gamers get a "full game" - but get less when they go to sell one. Don't think publishers and retailers of used games are enemies- they just need to find a way to extract more cash from each sale by working together.

--
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.

Re:Not surprising by DinDaddy · 2011-10-05 02:29 · Score: 1

Interesting point. But they would be helping Gamestop continue to sell their games used without giving them a cut of that, so I would expect that factor to enter the equation as well. Preventing that was the entire point of this move, so I don't think they will then turn around and reverse it or diminish it quite so easily. It will be a little more difficult of a negotiation than your scenario posits.
Re:Not surprising by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2011-10-05 03:25 · Score: 1

Interesting point. But they would be helping Gamestop continue to sell their games used without giving them a cut of that, so I would expect that factor to enter the equation as well. Preventing that was the entire point of this move, so I don't think they will then turn around and reverse it or diminish it quite so easily. It will be a little more difficult of a negotiation than your scenario posits.
I agree, and I don't think it will be a quick and easy scenario. It does, however, give them a way to benefit from used game sales as well as simplify getting the product (PSN Keys) into the hands of consumers without making it look like an added "fee" since it will simply be part of the purchase price.
Since they can't kill used game sales I think its in their best interests to cut a deal with the major vendors of used games.

--
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.

The Markets will decide by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 02:19 · Score: 0

As knowledge of this becomes well known, the value of used games will go down. Weather that will lead to people holding onto them (I wont get anything for it, so why bother selling) or liquidate (I must sell this relatively new game before its worth nothing) is yet to be known.

I am hoping for the latter, because I do not game much (and online barely at all) and prefer single player 1st/3rd person games, or party games.

Doesn't matter much to me... by Captain+Centropyge · 2011-10-05 02:44 · Score: 1

Considering I don't really care too much about multiplayer games, this won't affect me much. I'm way more interested in games with excellent storylines, like Uncharted, MGS4, etc. I don't have a lot of friends that game, and ones that do game tend to like different games than I do. So I focus on the campaign modes, rather than multiplayer. Therefore, I can buy all the used PS3 games I want, not give Sony a cent of my money, and still enjoy the PS3 that I purchased.

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Bite my shiny metal ass!

Servers Aren't Free by derrickh · 2011-10-05 03:06 · Score: 1

Unlike PC games where you can create your own dedicated server, most Console multiplayer games have to go through a server run by the company. This costs money. Game companies don't make any money from used sales and so the cost doesnt filter down. So either- 1) The '1st sale' price needs to be raised to cover the cost of used copies using the server or - 2) have the buyer of the used game pay for the cost of playing online (if they want to, since it's optional)

D

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Re:Servers Aren't Free by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 03:22 · Score: 0

The first person who bought the game already paid for the cost of the servers! There are the same number of users on the server when the game is re-sold.

Meh, add it to the pile... by DarthVain · 2011-10-05 04:02 · Score: 1

...of reasons I would never buy a Sony product ever...

I mean at this point it is a tottering tower of terrible technology...

Between all the stuff they have pulled in the last 3 years, how can anyone actually justify buying anything from them anymore. I mean they are a company that is actively anti-consumer. It boggles the mind.

Re:Sony will stop hitting you soon. No really. by spire3661 · 2011-10-05 04:02 · Score: 1

Bethesda has never been 'nice'. Do i need to drag out the "Horse Armor?"

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Good-bye

And this... by ActionDesignStudios · 2011-10-05 04:18 · Score: 1

And this is why I no longer own a Playstation 3.

Online Pass is the biggest scam of current gen by gblues · 2011-10-05 04:52 · Score: 1

Online Pass/Sony Pass is nothing more than a money grab.

EA and Sony want you to believe that a used copy of the game incurs them additional costs in addition to whatever costs were generated by the first buyer. Is this true?

Suppose N is the set of copies of any given game that have been sold to customers. When a copy is traded in to GameStop, the cardinality of N drops by 1 by definition. When that used copy is sold again, the cardinality of N increases by 1, again by definition. A game cannot be classified as "used" if it has not previously been in N. Therefore, a used sale does not change the cardinality of N, and so the costs incurred by EA or Sony do not change. It costs them the same to support |N| copies of the game, regardless of who owns those copies.

Supporting Online Pass or Sony Pass is supporting nothing more than corporate greed.

Can I have $10 off on a new game then, Sony? by toriver · 2011-10-05 05:11 · Score: 1

Since I never play online?

Didn't think so...

Well, I guess I could sell just the PSN Pass code to someone...

second-hand market props up price and demand by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 05:12 · Score: 0

Second-hand trade contributes nothing to the funds of developers.

You need to read up your econ 101. A healthy second-hand market allows prices (or demand, if prices are fixed as with games) to be higher, as consumers are willing to pay more knowing they can "get back" a portion of it later by selling the product.

Kill the second hand market, and either prices or demand will fall.

Same here by HalAtWork · 2011-10-05 05:43 · Score: 1

I was about to post the same, I don't play online, so why should I have to pay for the online component? Used game prices will eventually reflect the missing multiplayer aspect, and that's good for me. They're essentially driving people like me to used games.

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Twinstiq, game news

Quit buying or quit crying by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 07:10 · Score: 0

Stopped, using / buying Sony equipment over 10 years ago, because they already had business practices that I did not like.

For all of you that keep buying and using Sony products and then crying about the business practices.

Quit crying or quit buying, easy enough.

For those supplying information on Sony's continous bad business practices, keep up the good work, and maybe others will stop buying and using Sony products, and Sony will then either get the picture or disappear.

they don't deserve squat by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-05 11:04 · Score: 0

all well and good but neither sony, microsoft, or ninetendo or any developer use their own servers for us to play. I have no sadness for developers of multiplayer games. they sold their game..end of story. if they want to use THEIR bandwith, then id pay.

yes, i realize they do some minor updates to their games, but thats stuff they should have caught anyways and why should we pay for their mistakes?

screw sony, and screw microsoft for charging anything for their xbox live. and screw diablo 3 (although they do use their servers which is good) and screw mw3

Question? by EETech1 · 2011-10-05 17:36 · Score: 1

Would this mean that if I traded games with a friend for a few months or weeks or whatever, we both would have to also pay the fee to (fully) play each others games?

Make all Multiplayer cost 10 USD by ax_42 · 2011-10-05 20:50 · Score: 1

Do this honestly / properly then -- make all multiplayer cost 10USD per game. If it was "factored in" to the original price, then drop the retail price by 10USD (or more, as the 10USD will be inflated several times by margins through the retail chain). Discriminating against 2nd-hand buyers is silly.

LMAO by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-06 11:24 · Score: 0

I know a bunch of people who bought a PS3 because they thought it would have all the features Sony has removed since then. None of them is planning on buying another Sony console and most of them don't spend much money on games. They definitely don't have a paid PSN account and this move will eliminate *any* game purchases in the future from these customers.

International restrictions? by jmuzz · 2011-10-09 11:36 · Score: 1

What effect will this have on international games trade?
Currently here in Australia they still try to charge $110 for games which can be bought online from the US or UK for $40 delivered.

Will these codes give them a new way to region lock games?

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Sony Bringing PSN Pass To All First-Party Games

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