EA's 'Project $10' to Squeeze Used Game Buyers

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Imagine if they tried this in the 80's, with say, Manic Minerfor the Sinclair ZX Spectrum..football riots would have paled in comparison 😉
 
Greedy bastages, not like they are poor or anything, they are just trying to dip their greedy hands into a pot that they already took from. No more EA games for me at all after reading this, god damn corporate greed makes me sick.


 
MagicPants,

When you buy a used game, you do in fact support the developers. You create a market for used games, and because such a market exists, it gives a bit of peace of mind to gamers that they can sell their old games and buy new ones with some of that money. Now, this of course is not guaranteed, but I think that if someone buys one game and sells it, he is very likely to buy another, since he is, after all, a gamer.
 
as it's been said...this is unacceptable...used game buyers are typically value shoppers and if EA's used games are going to cost $10 more....guess who's games are going to sit on the shelves.
 
Where EA really benefits on this is encouraging pirates to pay a small fee for content, since they won't have the DLC code from the original packaging.
 
[citation][nom]mandoris[/nom]Where EA really benefits on this is encouraging pirates to pay a small fee for content, since they won't have the DLC code from the original packaging.[/citation]

In the case of, say, Mass Effect 2, I'd like to know if you could pirate it, then buy the Cerberus network thing and not have any problems. I preordered it, so I can't check (I did run into the day one "please wait" problem)

I am likely to borrow it for 360 to get that character up to ME3, but am wondering if my same account will be able to be used for that stuff.
 
Second-hand online games keep the community alive..charging a surplus destroys it, carves the market up and also affects second-hand retailers. Games are already expensive when new, and the average consumer is not made of money, so why milk them more? Greed, I think.

Last Christmas I brought my relative the Half-Life 2 Orange Box for the PS3 (second-hand), which he couldn't put down. I've marketed the publisher too, since my relative has stated that he's now gonna save up for the next installment of the series, and get it the moment it comes out. You add a surplus to that second-hand price and you can kiss my money goodbye, as well as my respect.

This is the giving something only to those who are prepared to pay a high price for it, and that's not the kind gaming industry I want to be a part of. It's not even as though these are niche products..anyone from the UK remember the NeO GeO console when it first came out, or the Snes? Folks paid a lot for those, because they were new, because they were imported and because they had truly next-gen graphics. If these guys seriously think folks are gonna pay a surplus for something that's designed to run on older hardware then I'm sorry, but I think they're living on another planet. With high-speed downloads becoming more readily available why aren't they concentrating on that method if they want to cut down on distribution costs and single-user license issues?
 
The legit consumer that BOUGHT the game, and some other guy that wants to get a LEGIT copy, get screwed.

Meanwhile, pirates go their merry way... No Securom, no project 10, no dvd in drive to play, no activation limits... Yay!
 
This article was a bit misleading... People who read the linked BusinessWeek article would've found that EA was *NOT* demanding a cut from every second-hand sale; I think they know well enough that such is a violation of US copyright law. (people have mentioned Vernor v. Autodesk; various other cases have stated the same thing for over 100 years now)

What *IS* going on here is that when you normally buy a used disc, you just get the base game; if there was DLC with it, you don't get it, because it's not physical. EA's trying to offer a "package," where they let you basically buy DLC "used" for $10US. So if the previous owner had, say, purchased The Sims 3 new, and had $100US worth of DLC expansions, EA will allow you to buy that $100US worth they had for $10US.

It's an interesting move, I'll say. Running it won't be that hard; their own online stores track CD keys used with their DLC, so they just check the new owner's CD key to see what DLC was previously used with it. It's also a bit shrewd: they recognize that used-game buyers are likely stingier with their money, so basically offering them a "discount" on DLC could be the right way to boost DLC sales. Of course, there's also some unnecessary complication there, in that someone buying a used game might not know what DLC they'd be able to get for the reduced price, if any. So how well this works out will remain to be seen.
 
If it's for the previous owner's DLC and such, then I still don't get it. For EA to know that the previous owner has a certain game and it's DLC they would have to register the games. What if it was never registered?

And wouldn't it be better if people bought the used game and then when they want the DLC's they'll just go buy it at its full price rather than at 10 bucks for all of the previous owners' dlc.

They're about to go all digital anyways, what do they care? The problem with no good quality games these days is that they're not made by gamers anymore.
 
Men... And they don't even turn red? They might be pretty desperate to do something like this. No need to discuss the ethics of the whole thing - the other messages make pretty clear that there is none - but i still not certain if I should despise them or just pity them. And they had to make a brainstorming session to come with this stupid idea...
I came to read this because I thought the same as Rodney_ws... A drastic price cut some time after the release... I'm shocked. And they think this is a good idea to compensate piracy... lol.
 
Hell no.

I recently gave away ~25 games. Do I really expect them to payt $250 just to use them? No. I gave them away so someone else could have them for free...
 
EA is in financial trouble and are taking losses (google "EA losses"). Several websites dated February 2010 saying basically the same thing. Cost-cutting.

With activities like this, I find myself hoping they disappear.
 
Im confused I bought a copy of Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age on day one. Dragon age on xbox, and pc, and mass effect 2 on xbox.
After seeing this post today i went a picked up two copies used
from gamestop?

Game still have the same features, or they talking about PC?
 
Release catalog games for $10 and THAT would squeeze the used game market, as well as make a little money on old projects.

EA, as usual, has it all backwards.
 
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