News - PSN Pass needed for first-party PS3 games, starting with Resistance 3

Quote:

---

Sony starts a new initiative this September, requiring users to download bonus game features and content from the PSN.

---

Read more.

The appalling contempt publishers show for their customers and their rights these days is sickening. I wont be buying another Sony product again, ever.

Didn't the UFC games start this off?

What about ME2 and BFBC2 on consoles? Didnt they have similar restrictions - i.e. no free DLC without a new game code? Its been like this on the PC for years with steam so no surprised consoles wont catch up.

haha. Consoles suddenly arent looking like such a great platform, keep going sony! I want PC to come back to life!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cheesemp

What about ME2 and BFBC2 on consoles? Didnt they have similar restrictions - i.e. no free DLC without a new game code? Its been like this on the PC for years with steam so no surprised consoles wont catch up.

---

Unless I'm misreading it, it's not quite as restrictive as Steam in that it only applies to "first-party" games (i.e. Sony's own games), and even then, only games with online aspects.

But in principle, I agree, and will not buy games that require this just as I will not buy games that require Steam.

Good old Sony - just when you think they've shot themselves in the foot enough, they go and do something else stupid. It's bad enough that a platform allows third party companies to do it on their system, but to do this on first party games is just giving all developers the go ahead to do this.

whats new here? xbox and vast amounts of games do a "mp access key for 800 points or around £6".

its annoying and i wouldnt personally pay for a access key but its a way to make money much like BO's outrageously priced DLC packs.

A lot of you don't seem to know that this is pretty standard now (and has been for a while) on many console games that have "good" multi-player experience. e.g. Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Mortal Kombat, etc.

I find it ironic that people bad mouthing Sony and saying that they will never buy a Sony product ever again probably haven't bought a console game recently at all, even for XBox, but will buy a 1 time Steam games that doesn't have any re-sell value and think they are awesome Deals.

The only thing Sony have announce is that they are jumping on the bandwagon and standardising it all though their line which no doubt Microsoft will do soon enough even though they charge a subscribe for their online services anyway...

This video sums it all up for me, in particular the fact that developers/publishers see no return from pre-owned games and are losing out big time. What should happen is that once customers/retailers realise that they have to pay extra for a multiplayer online code etc... hopefully this added price to all pre-owned games will put them into the price range of brand new games and people at that stage would rather go brand new. The retailers will lose out with this and then have to start lowering the prices of their pre-owned games by the cost of the codes to accommodate it or lose out on selling their pre-owneds. The profit mark up on pre-owned games is ridiculous as it is, i see no reason why the developers/publishers shouldn't see any of that.

Better explain here in this video with also another view of how the developers could go about the whole code to play deal, while making this look less money grabbing.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...ect-Ten-Dollar

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by subucni

i see no reason why the developers/publishers shouldn't see any of that.

---

You mean aside from the fact that a sold license is no longer their property and they're not entitled to proceeds from the licensee once the game is sold on?

If I sold you a house at full price, and demanded half the money you get from resale, would you consider that reasonable? Hell no.

Just in case anyone missed this old article,

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...than-pc-piracy

tl;dr greedy corporations want more money, for no extra work.

It's not private customer resales they are trying to target with this. It's the fact that they see nothing from the retailers with the huge profit margins they make from pre-owned sales, and because they are so much cheaper, they eat into the sales of that they would have had from brand new games. You are completely right though, it's not fair that people who want to sell on their games privately should have to accept less for them so that people still think it's worth buying after tacking on the code price. However all the games companies are trying to do is get back to that situation they had in the beginning where they got a cut of all games sold before the pre-owned/trade-in business model was introduced, as at present the profit share from the industry is heavily skewed towards the retailers and not the people who make the games, which will only lead to companies going out of business and poorer and poorer quality games as people cut corners to make them cheaper. I'm not saying it's ideal but i can see why they are doing it. The other thing that will happen if they couldn't do this is that with dlc and steam etc... companies will just start leaning more towards digital only copies that can't be resold at all, by-passing the retailers and forcing it so that they have to get a cut on ever sale. Hell, they cold even just start shipping retailers game cases that just contain a voucher code that unlocks the game on steam/psn/xbla etc.. if they still wanted a face to face store presence to sell to customers.

The only other soultion i can think of is that with these other strategies of getting the game to market and cutting out the retailers altogether, all the game companies use this to renegotiate the amount of cut they get from the brand new sales of the games to be much higher on the basis that they understand that the retailers are getting all the trade-in/pre-owned profits and that they wont be able to withold core gameplay things like multiplayer on release with a code etc... Which they wont be able to get away with as customers wouldn't stand for it if they tried to bring out a core gameplay feature a couple of months after release at a additional price. Wouldn't take long for that practice to be rumbled.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by subucni

It's not private customer resales they are trying to target with this.

---

Oh but they are. They might say they're having a hissy fit about game shops reselling, but what they're really doing is attacking the consumer, yet again. If they were serious about improving revenues, they'd be making great games people want to buy brand new and hold onto to play again. The second hand games market is huge because the games being peddled are crap, and not worth holding onto nor buying new.

You don't get big bucks by pushing substandard goods. You're neither entitled to it, nor have earned it.