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Sony Bringing PSN Pass To All First-Party Games
New submitter zeroshade writes "Sony has confirmed that going forward, all first-party games will use the PSN Pass to force used game buyers to pay an extra $10 just for the right to play the multiplayer component of used games they buy for the PS3."
Whats with you buying or product? Stop doing that!
.to be called a verbally abused by 13 year olds? Amazing.
It's just confirms that I won't be purchasing anything from you, ever. Good job killing your potential customers.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
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.
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.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
>>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,
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?
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.
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.
moox. for a new generation.
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.
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.
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).
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 $40 if it's substantially a multiplayer title. The main losers here will be people selling (not buying) second hand games and the likes of Gamestop for slapping such a high markup on second hand games in the first place.
I'd also not be so sure that Microsoft won't do something similar. At the end of the day it's basically a way to squelch second hand sales and claw back some of the money that otherwise goes into Gamestop's pocket.
Then why not make the original game 10$ cheaper, but disable the MP until the player pays an extra fee?
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.
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
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.
Unlike toys,etc the games dont degrade, get broken,etc..
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.
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.
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 $10 each time their content ID is banned or blacklisted from online play.
The laws and restrictions on the resale market of games and movies are way more relaxed in the USA than the rest of the world, for some reason the consumer rights are far better than anywhere else in the world when it comes to the resale of games and movies.
We used to call someone who profits from someone else's intellectual property (without giving the creator a single cent) a pirate. Today, people who do that are known as Gamestop. As much as I hate Sony, at least they're in the business of creating games. Gamestop is in the business of being in business.
Then why not make the original game 10$ 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..
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?
...and that's only 2011.
As a company they don't seem to actually want any customers.
No sig today...
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.
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.
that I have little intent of playing console games online anytime soon.
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
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.
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.
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.
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/
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/
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.
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.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
"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.)
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.
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...
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.
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.
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 $50 per month for 100 cable channels I never watch. Oh yeah, the consumer gets screwed again. We have to pay for stuff we don't use, and then the compaines get to charge for whatever they want. Does anybody see any fairness in this? -------------------- Like when ISPs chagre you for going over a limit, but nobody ever refunds you when you use 7mb of your 5gig plan. But OH NO, ISPs can't have tiered service, but they can charge you more for 5 or 10 or 20gig more. It's freaking ridiculous. --------- Rule of thumb should be rule of law - if a company can charge you more for getting more, then they should charge you less for getting less. Cable tv, broadband, videogames - I shouldn't have to pay for what I don't use if you are charging people more for what is normal usage.
Here's the scenario I imagine a few months down the road:
*dials phone*
"Hello, Game Stop!"
"Hi, do you have any copies of {first party Sony title}."
"I'm sorry, we don't carry that title in either New or Used."
"Why?"
"Sony won't let us." (ed: and you know that's how it will be phrased, too)
*dials phone again*
"Hello, Best Buy"
"Hi, do you have any copies of {first party Sony title}."
"No, sorry."
"Man, does no one carry {first party Sony title}"
*dials phone once more*
"Hello, Wal-Mart"
"Hi, do you have any copies of {first party Sony title}."
"Nope."
"Fine, I'll just order it from Amazon."
*boots computer*
*click* *click* *click*
"WTF? I can't find this game on Amazon either?"
What do these retailers have in common? They all sell used games.
Oh, and they make up something like 90% of the game retailers in the US.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Want to compare that to say Activision Blizzard? When game binds to battle.net account and you can't get away with paying 10$ and you can resell the game only with your battle.net account? So who's greedier?
Sony 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.
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.
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.
Bite my shiny metal ass!
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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...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.
Bethesda has never been 'nice'. Do i need to drag out the "Horse Armor?"
Good-bye
And this is why I no longer own a Playstation 3.
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.
Since I never play online?
Didn't think so...
Well, I guess I could sell just the PSN Pass code to someone...
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.
Twinstiq, game news
I buy more than 5 second hand games to play online in a year.
Subscribing to XBox Gold just got cheaper than PSN.
The used PC market are called Pirates, its been this way since before the internet was even around.
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.
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 $3-8 per title cheaper than they are currently. There's a good chance that this will accelerate the price drop of used games for the PS3 (at least for the single player portion).
moox. for a new generation.
Then why not make the original game 10$ 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.
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?)
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
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?
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.
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?