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

[Hilarion]

Here they are AGAIN, violating copyright law by trying to take away "Right of first sale" which is part of copyright law.

 

[Guest]

I'm surprised at the number of people that haven't realized this has been happening for over a year now, and not just with EA. Gears of War 2 did it with the Flashback Map Pack, Rock Band with the extra songs, Guitar Hero 4 with the Van Halen song pack, Sabateur with the extra boobs DLC, etc.

 

[wild9]

[citation][nom]kyzar[/nom][citation][nom]bad_code[/nom] Big business already controls our government. Just wait until the next election when companies throw millions to get people elected.[/citation]

I think they already did that, kyzar, judging by the amount of money they spent on putting a halo above their puppet's head..

 

[Guest]

don't they already do this with their sports games? make you pay twice for the same product?

 

[jeverson]

The whole point of the used game market is for people that either can't afford them at release prices or aren't willing to pay launch price for a game that gets bad reviews. Of course there are those that buy it second hand just on principle. There will be no point to buying a game for $10 when you have to pay another $10 just to play it. Since this is a free market I could see them asking a fee for a new activation key, but no more than a few bucks say $1-$3. EA really needs to quit being so damn greedy. Sheesh... I guess they haven't noticed that the global economy kinda sucks right now.

 

[Dandalf]

can someone explain how this is going to work?

 

[Ryric]

The comment regarding price changes on digital delivery is spot on. STEAM and D2D do this very successfully. Typically its about 2-3mnths at the earliest after release, but for most people who don't buy on launch day and have RL schedules that is fine. Same goes for Used console games (can't really buy used PC games..)

 

[JD13]

They rip you off when you buy it them new, then try to screw you over a second time for used games. They give you less than half price for a game that came out yesterday then turn around & charge you $5.00 less than new price & they make more on the used games then the new ones.
None for me thank you!

 

[inglburt]

[citation][nom]flyinfinni[/nom]seems like this would increase piracy to me- people don't want to pay for a new game, so they get used. Now, they're gonna have to pay more for used games, so they'll just go download it instead.[/citation]

I agree. I think that PC gamers are some of the most pissey and picky gamers on the planet ( no, I don't play consoles ) and I can't believe game companies always seem to want to get into a pissing match. How can they not see that this is just the excuse many people need to continue or start pirating games. How stubborn and/or stupid are the execs at these companies?

I'm starting to believe that some of these companies are doing stuff to instigate piracy so they can justify halting PC game production all together by blaming it on piracy.

 

[inglburt]

I guess maybe I'm misunderstanding it anyhow, cause I don't even know where to buy used PC games anymore, except a couple online sites.

 

[Guest]

They should instead offer existing gamers incentives to sell back their games to EA, then they can mitigate the number of games that get resold to other gamers. Call them EA exchange points and they can buy you anything from exclusive extra game content to preorders on games, where you get a game earlier than the retailers.

Just a thought.

 

[chechak]

Errr....ummmmmm 10$
Project Ten Dollar ......come on !!!

 

[Guest]

Is't Valve (Steam) doing the same thing now?. I could be wrong, but I believe on the new games using Steam, if you sell it the buyer has to pay an fee (10.00) to activate it on Steam in order to use it. I found this out when I stupidly forgot my Steam accout pass word. Skittles

 

[Guest]

You people are retarded... This means that the DLCs won't be transfered. You'll get the full game but will have to pay to get the DLC the original owner had. This is nothing new, everyone does it. If you don't like it, develop your own games.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]fracture[/nom]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.[/citation]
Well, knowing what DLC was used was easy; since each CD has a unique serial number/CD key, and EA keeps digital tabs on their customers anyway, they'd just simply look up that CD key in their database. With the way DLC works, basically a game is AUTOMATICALLY registered if you get DLC for it; after all, that's how (even with EA!) you can re-download the DLC should it get corrupted or such.

As far as marketing, of course EA would make more money per transaction if people paid full-price for all the DLC, rather than a $10US bargain price. However, the number of sales will be fewer.

I can actually understand, and perhaps agree with, EA's logic here: people who buy games used rather than new don't like to spend as much money on games. Hence, if they shelled out, say, only $20US to get a used copy of Dragon Age, they likely won't be too keen to cough up $30-50US to download a fresh copy of the Awakening expansion pack to go with it. However, EA seems to figure that if they were to offer it at a discount price of $10US, enough more people would bite to more than make up the difference.

Aside from the potential downside of confusion caused by people not knowing what DLC they might be able to get when they buy the used disc, I could see this possibly SLIGHTLY denting new game sales, while improving used game sales. However, since it'll cost EA virtually nothing to sell DLC, it could work out for them in the end.

 

[pochacco007]

why are game companies worried about used game sales?

used games are already bought and are resold from that person. the person already paid for the product and are basically obtaining back partial value of the game by selling it to a used game dealer, like gamestop or to someone else like someone from craigslist.

why are game companies worried about used games?

we don't here car companies worried about cars dealers who sell used cars. as a matter of fact, we don't here car companies trying to stop used car sales. what about furniture makers? we don't here panasonic going nuts over companies buying used tv and reselling them to other consumers. but video game companies, we see something different. it means these comapanies are trying to steal your right to ownership and dignity as a consumer.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]pochacco007[/nom]why are game companies worried about used game sales?[/citation]
I don't think they're quite "worried," as so much as looking for opportunity. After all, EA hasn't exactly been raking in big profits for the past couple of years; in fact, they've been losing money for a while now. They're not trying to stamp out used-game sales, but rather, find a way to turn it into another market for them.

In most regards, it'd be safe to say that the "used gamer market" doesn't spend much on DLC, at least nowhere near what gamers who buy new games on release do. So this COULD be the right ticket to manage to get used game buyers to open up their wallets and buy DLC they normally wouldn't. It's like a sale, but it's 'targeted;' some people get a better price than others, because they're the ones that would be harder to reach.

Of course, this could result in the new-game buyers feeling somewhat cheated...

 

[dwizar]

What planet are they having their boardroom meetings on?

Now, how about if EA bought the games back and resold them itself? I guess that's too reasonable to be considered. It'd also force them to re-buy the crap software they make as well as the good stuff.

 

[Guest]

nonstoprobot - I don't know what EA plans to do in the future, but I bought Dragon Age for the PC and I can tell you what this $10 is about:

The extra $10 buys you the right to download and activate one extra small side quest that accounts for, I'd estimate, 4% of the game content (and if it wasn't available at all, I wouldn't have missed it). When you buy the game new, you get a free voucher for the content. So, if the person who bought it new uses the voucher to download & activate the new content, then the next buyer would have to pay the $10 if they wanted this extra content. If I bought the game used, I would just not pay the $10, just the same way I choose not to pay the extra $10 for yet another minor pack of "premium content" they offer for download in addition to this free (to me) set of extra content.

It's true that this may snowball and become more of an issue later, but if it stays within the realm of what they did with Dragon Age, this is really not much more than another minor aggravation. It wouldn't deter me from buying the game used at reasonable used game prices. You can just ignore the fact that the extra content exists and be cool about it. The game is great with or without it.

 

[guruofchem]

Seems like a way to incent/force buyers into getting the game early - before it has been been widely played and reviewed. Games are probably more dependent on sales during the first few weeks of release in order to achieve profitability than any other form of entertainment, and by essentially penalizing folks who come to the party late, EA encourages people to make hasty, uninformed, PR-driven decisions. It's a really sneaky way to try to make a quick buck selling games before the reviews come out and crap on them - Project $10 amounts to a shovelware penalty...ouch.