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Used Game To Survive? EA Plans To Drop Online Pass
Krazy Kanuck writes "Introduced in 2010, Online Pass was marketed as a way to 'preserve' online content or DLC as titles were sold in the used game market. Many saw this as a way to cut out the second hand game market. EA has now decided to end this program 'partly because the players didn't like it.' Unfortunately this appears to only be for future released games, those previously released will still be subject to this feature. Activision and Ubisoft still use this form of content control, it will be interesting to see if they follow suit."
What good's an online pass when they shut down the game's master server after a year?
it also did not work company's like game stop would get you new keys for used games. in other words it did nothing to stop used sales.
But EA doesn't encompass the entirety of the gaming industry. And while yes, many larger software and hardware companies are following suit with the hostility to consumers, this creates an amazing environment for indie game development companies to flourish.
Which, frankly, is exciting. I'm tired of the same ol' crap from companies too scared to take risks.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
" Unfortunately this appears to only be for future released games, those previously released will still be subject to this feature"
Will they or will free codes be made available? There seems to be no concrete information on this anywhere.
I can't imagine that EA have suddenly grown a sense of basic ethics. I'll be waiting for whatever worse system they've though up to be announced.
I must've spent £50-80 on Mass Effect 2 and 3 story modules and I didn't build up a simmering hatred of EA in the process. I dare say that DLC makes enough money that online passes aren't worth it.
Come to think of it, can you even buy the story DLC without an Online Pass? It'd be a spectacular bit of foot-shooting if they put in a £15 barrier to the player spending money on things they might actually want.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
They will go even further and get rid of their Origin requirement to play games. I refuse to install that crap as it collects WAY more data then I want anyone to have. Steam doesn't collect nearly the amount of data on my computer that Origin does, plus Steam lets you OPT out of it.
This has prevented me from buying any EA games for several years now. Which is a real shame as I love the Battlefield series and have not been able to play version 3 or 4 when it comes out, due to the Origin crap. It is just lost money for them.
Personally I don't play online, so I was happy to pick up games for a deeper discount when I bought them used. Since they didn't include online anymore, used stores had to price them lower, so that was great.
More often though, I buy my games new, so I wish EA had actually taken this even further. They could have just priced the games at $50 and asked for an extra $10 if you wanted the online, instead of charging $60 for everything bundled together. That way I wouldn't have to foot the bill for the development of something I didn't want anyway. I think gamers would have been overall happier, and EA could have still charged for the online component separately like they wanted to.
Twinstiq, game news
Really? You weren't among the pissed off masses that hated the fact that key plot points and story beats in Mass Effect 3 that explained everything were behind paywalls?
Personally I hate that shit! Alternate costumes in fighting games used to be incentives to play, now they're $3.99 per character. The Konami code used to give me weapons and extra lives. Now I have to pay to get such an advantage in a game. What if I just want to see what the game has to offer without any extraneous effort? I can't play the game the way I want without having to shell out more $$$ even after I paid full price? Fuck this shit.
The reason the online pass existed was to get $10 out of people that would buy games used. If they can't buy used games anymore, what's the point of the online pass? So yeah, they'll drop it, AND you won't be able to buy games used. The headline is stupid.
Twinstiq, game news
Either
1: It's no longer necessary because the next gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft will have some sort of way of limiting used game sales
And/Or
2: EA is missing out on a lot of revenue by taking its ball and going home.
I've never bought an online pass and never will. I won't even tough BioShock Infinite because of the Season Pass on the shelves at GameStop. I'll wait until the games drops in price and all relevant dlc comes bundled. I will not by and Online Pass, Season Pass, or any other such money grab nonsense. They can take their project 10 dolla, and eat it. However, I suspect this is just getting rid of one demon and replacing it with another.
Unfortunately this appears to only be for future released games, those previously released will still be subject to this feature.
How can that be called a feature?
Buying by Steam is still only buying you conditional access to the game, not the game, not even a license to play the game (if not a Valve title).
So "Steam is better than Origin" is like being shot in the chest and killed that way is better than being eaten alive by rats. Big Whoop.
Lets face facts. For games to be played online the developer and or publisher have to pay to keep the servers running. It costs them manpower, bandwidth, hardware/resources, maintenance, time, energy, electricity and development costs. So to take advantage of that online gaming the consumer has to pay at least something because to just think a dev/pub should shell out each month for years on end is a bit silly.
Say you buy madden used. EA doesn't see a single penny off that. That person then proceeds to play it online on and off for a year EA loses that little bit of money and over time that hurts them. But if that person pays just 5 dollars for an online pass then it helps offset their costs meaning they can run the server longer for everyone. And 5 dollars for a years worth, or hell even a couple months worth of playing time online is a pittance to pay for so much entertainment. 5 dollars doesn't buy much entertainment anymore.
Everything costs money and nothing is free in the truest sense of word. Especially when it comes to big games from big companies. I see a lot of comments where people say "Oh they make a lot of money off DLC and game sales blah blah" but they had to pay to make all those DLC and games.
The real problem is gamers feel somehow entitled to this or that for free. That they shouldn't have to pay for a product, or only pay for what they feel they should. If you bought games new and the devs and pubs got the money they should then things like this would never crop up. But most gamers don't want to pay full price, they want to buy something used at a big discount and still expect to get the same treatment as if they bought a new product. "EA I bought this game used and you didn't get any money from it but I still expect you should let me play it free online at your expense because I am a customer!" when in reality you aren't EA's customer and they don't owe you a thing. That's as stupid as buying a used refrigerator from some guy on craigslist and expecting the manufacturer to give you the same warranty as buying it new directly from them.
If you don't like EA that's fine (although 90% of that hate is unfounded and expressed simply because its the cool thing to do now) then don't buy their games. But don't buy them used and then expect to be treated as if you actually gave the company itself money by buying it new.
Face it, when you buy a game used it is used. How hard is that to figure out? If you bought it new and still had to buy an online pass to play it online separately then that's one thing, but you didn't, you only had to pay 5 bucks to play online for used games.
Youre all the same people who go to a coffee shop and use their free wifi all the time but never buy a single thing from them and then probably complain when they say buy something or leave as if you think youre entitled to use their internet connection they pay for free without actually giving them anything in return. You forget a business is in business to make money, not give you whatever you want for nothing.
On the surface this may look like EA is giving up it's quest to kill used games. I find that rather unlikely.
What this likely *really* means, is that 'online pass' will soon be redundant. With ps4 and the next xbox soon to be out, this moves all but confirms that there will be something similar at the system level on both consoles, likely with publisher-friendly terms so they can share in on the ransom windfall.
EA is shutting down theirs early to try and save face and let Sony and MS look like the jerks next gen, when in reality, it was probably their idea and lobbying that forced Sony and MS's hands.
So..yippie?
FUNK!
partly??? really? only partly?
now just get rid of the rest of the fucking one-time-use serials, origin, and mandatory online registrations.. across ALL platforms..
and maybe, just maybe you won't lose so many customers.
and oh, yea.. fix the fucking online requirement in simcity. the cat's out of the bag, its NOT required for single player. you really thought that would never get figured out? duuuude. welcome to the age of the internets.
I think the game / console companies are not considering the upside of resellable games. When a kid on a budget decides to splurge $60 for a game, they do so knowing that they have the option to recover a portion of that money later on. If they love the game they keep it longer if not they dump it. The bottom line is that knowing you can get some of your money back makes it easier to take the risk of buying that pricey item. Imagine buying a new car with a new resell license. The value of the car would be diminished and the confidence to purchase would be lower. Sure Toyota won't make any money if I resell that Camry, but they got more money at sale time because as a buyer I see value in the ability to resell.
The PC market has largely gone to digital downloads in which most services do not allow transfer of that game to another party. I believe this generation of console games will strengthen the move in that direction, and the following generation of consoles will become digital download only.
The used games market will dry up.
took 'em by more surprise. Even if their support sucks it's still there and it still costs money. It's a simple equation: we made X more sales to pirates and it cost Y in support and server maintenance. Which is bigger?
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The "Online Pass" for Saints Row: The Third effectively prevents people without internet from playing offline multiplayer with a LAN, as it's impossible to access the LAN multiplayer without going online to redeem/buy the Online Pass.