EA imposes used games tax
Gamesmanship
Well this is nice: a "reward" for owners of EA Sports games in the form of "online services, features and bonus content".
To access this you need a registration code that comes with each unit sold new at retail. Secondhand buyers get a seven-day trial and then must pay $10 to get their own Online Pass. That's for Americans. The rest of the world will probably pay more.
So, EA is trying to get a $10 clip on used-software sales, by crippling the games experience for secondhand buyers. Sneaky.
The Online Pass launches with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 - presumably that's how you access the orgy level, an undocumented "feature" - and it will apply to Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.
“This is an important inflection point in our business because it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhance premium online services to the entire robust EA Sports online community,” said Peter Moore, President of EA Sports.
Gamestop, the big US retailer of used games, is supporting the move, which just goes to show that it cares more about its suppliers than its customers.
No doubt the rest of EA will follow suit, if the Sports franchise Online Pass rakes in the dough. ®
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COMMENTS
What part of "Sale of Goods" can these heifers not understand?
Once I've paid for the goods, they're mine to do with as I like, including reselling to someone else.
With Sony willing to remove features from their consoles after purchase and EA trying to cripple or double dip on the pre-owned market, I'm going to stop playing console games before long.
A treat for players of "buzzword bingo"
“This is an important inflection point in our business because it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhance premium online services to the entire robust EA Sports online community"
Was this a public statement, or the output of a Web 2.0 catchphrase generator? Could he not just say "It's good for us, because we can sell stuff to a captive audience"?
Time for the obligatory car analogy
"The sense of entitlement in this article is just stupid. The DVD or Blu-Ray *disk* is what the original buyer purchased, along with any other tangible assets."
When I buy a game or any other product, damn right I have a sense of entitlement!
How would you feel if you bought a brand new car that used fingerprint scanning to control entry and starting. A pretty useful security feature. But 3 years later you try trading it in for a new model and no one will touch it because the original manufacturer wants $$$ to reset the fingerprint locks. I suppose you could always sell your finger...
"Access to online services and other ancillary benefits is entirely at the discretion of EA (or any other publisher). These services are provided as a bonus to the original purchaser of the game, but why the hell are they expected to provide used games customers—from whom they see not one penny—with said services for free?"
Wrong, these services are provided to the owner of the game and are part and parcel of what was sold. As has been pointed out by another poster, the original owner can no longer access these services when they sell the game on so EA are not losing money. This is just another example of a greedy media industry trying to kill the second-hand market because they equate a second-hand sale as a "lost" direct sale. But if you're unwilling to pay for the brand-new game in the first place, not being able to buy it second hand just means you do without.
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