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EA charging additional fee for online play


Thelogan

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Full article here.

 

Starting with the release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the publisher will introduce a new Online Pass, a one-time registration code included with each brand new copy of the game. The code allows players to access "online services, features and bonus content."

At least it gives me more pack-in codes to barter with... :wink:

Those who purchase the game used can buy an Online Pass for $10 or sign up for a free 7-day trial. The pass will be implemented for NCAA Football 11, NHL 11, Madden NFL 11, NBA 11, FIFA 11, and EA Sports MMA as well. The pass offers different features for each title, however, players will not have access to basic multiplayer features if purchased used.

"You will be unable to play multiplayer online game modes or use your downloaded content in online game modes," EA says. Online leagues, dynasty and franchise modes are also only available with the Online Pass. The break down for each title can be seen on the publisher's official website.

My reaction: Horseshit.

 

So far it's only sports games they're talkin' about, but it's only a matter of time. I'm curious to see Microsoft and Sony's reaction to this, doesn't seem like something that jives with the Terms of Service.

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I don't play madden (bro) but from what I hear from people that do most people would rather buy Madden once every few years when the engines been improved greatly and in the downtime pay a smaller fee for updated rosters etc.

 

The madden you see on my account was simply achievement farming...for the record.

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The madden you see on my account was simply achievement farming...for the record.

 

I have resisted the temptation of Madden games, but I do have the dark smear of College Hoops 2K6 (one game, AI sliders all the way down. Score: 237-0. 1000 gs :wink: )

 

Yeah, so far this doesn't effect me. The precedent it sets is what I find irritating.

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Company's just trying to ensure it doesn't get fucked out of the used game profit cycle. It's a one time fee if you didn't buy it new. If you think a company trying to make profit from its games is horseshit, then so be it, but Gamestop's whole business model is supported with used sales, and the devs see none of it.

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Yeah, poor li'l EA. They keep getting screwed out of their hard earned money. It's the publisher that's gonna be reaping the rewards here, not so much the devs. There's a big difference.

I prefer the strategy of rewarding those that purchase new, not punishing those that purchase used or rent.

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I had no idea you bought all of those games on your PSN card brand new. That's awesome.

As consumers, we are rapidly losing our ability to decide how and where we purchase our games. With EA's new initiative, your essentially getting half a game unless you buy it new. When this inevitably catches on, the used market is dead. Which not only means you can't buy used games, you can't sell used games, as they'll be essentially useless to the buyer unless you sell at a very low price. As in ridiculously low, more so than it already is.

 

If you're cool with them crippling your game unless you buy it new, right on. All I'm saying is that this is only the beginning and I don't like it.

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I have resisted the temptation of Madden games, but I do have the dark smear of College Hoops 2K6 (one game, AI sliders all the way down. Score: 237-0. 1000 gs :wink: )

 

*cough* you are not the only one who bears this sin *cough* :eh:

 

eh, you & mal both have points. devs say they cant charge less than $60 with rising production costs, and they cant do much beyond pack-in DLC codes to keep people paying them and not the swap shops (which im a fan of, as i tend to buy mostly used). EA's likely the first to make this dickish move that many've talked about & considered. i do think its a shame, as their new IPs this gen made me like them again, but chances are, people are gonna see the $10 hit and just take it.

 

im with logans on dwindling market choices, but then again, from past conversations, so is mal - buyer's remorse is gonna be a bitch if and when we see an online-only future of episodic content and cheap games on subscription models. i tend to think the Madden franchise & previously mentioned roster updates would be the first to try this model as well, could be wrong.

 

just grateful right now that i dont play many online games, at least.

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In a country where games are $110+ new and preowned usually up to 6 months after are still more than say, $80, I'll be interested to see how this affects EB's preowned sales. Mal, I get that you're the great champion of developers the world over and scourge of the 2nd hand market, but compare this to this. & see why we're talking about 2 completely different systems here.

 

Regarding this online content biz, I have no problem with EA and/or developers getting a cut of any resale, but an arbitrary value like $10 is ludicrous is it's a $5 bargain bin game(which is where you find most EA sports titles a year or two after release).

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It's true that I'm thinking more in terms of America than elsewhere, JZA, and I can see where you'd hate having to pay as much as you do. I wonder at what point, though, ebay or straight up importing stops being an option. EB and Gamestop are not the only games in town, and preorder bonuses are typically bullshit anyway. Oh yay, an outfit and some wallpaper. And if we're ignoring day one new, importing through play-asia new appears to still be cheaper than EB used for Australia.

 

I'm a little surprised at the number of people who appear to be buying everything used, as well as the percentage of those used titles that turn out to be multiplayer titles. This year alone, my purchases have been three solo games and one (soon two) multiplayer games. You seem fearful of the slippery slope, where eventually there's some sort of console DRM that makes a game disk only useful once, but that isn't what's being discussed here. You don't have to constantly pay subscription to have access - and that's something I wouldn't enjoy the thought of. But this?

 

Do all of you really buy all your multiplayer titles used three months after the fact? The way you're all talking up Red Dead Redemption, I get the impression that isn't the case.

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Do all of you really buy all your multiplayer titles used three months after the fact? The way you're all talking up Red Dead Redemption, I get the impression that isn't the case.

 

That's a pretty good point. I think I mentioned elsewhere that if you don't get in on the multiplayer on most games early (i.e. Not Call of Duty, Halo), you pretty much miss out.

 

The following hypothetical scenario would be impossible to enforce and I recognize that, but isn't this kind of like tearing pages out of a used book? I mean, the writer doesn't get any of the profits from used book sales. Following this business model they should be able to charge a nominal fee for the missing pages.

In a country where games are $110+ new and preowned usually up to 6 months after are still more than say, $80...

 

HOLYSHIT! If I pay $110 for a game it better have a batarang, some night vision goggles or a drum set with it. You need to get the fuck out of that backwards ass shithole.

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There's only a couple people that have piped up on advocacy of multiplayer, and infact a lot of us all but burned the principle in effigy in another thread, so theoretically this won't affect too many of us yet. Until I remembered that I likes to play my Battlefield online, and being a game that I purchased new & ltd it came with added content that is only now being made available to anyone else for an additional fee, but I don't believe it to be game-breaking.

 

Then there's Mass Effect 2. How many of you bought it new and/or CE with the Cerberus Network add-in? Having not paid that much attention to the game I'm not sure what it does but I see all over XBL they're dangling this shit over gamers like they can't play the game without it.

 

In direct response to your last question though Mal- If I intend to play a game Multi then yeah, it's generally bought day one.

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This is why I want to be a PC gamer.

Aus Steam has games pretty cheap you save $20 to $30 on Steam. The only problem is that I like my hard copies of games with disks and manuals and boxes. DAMN YOU CARTRIDGE BASED GAMES YOU DID THIS TO ME DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

 

BioShock 2 was only $70 on steam when it came out

compaired to the $110 at EB Games.

 

So I guess we are paying $30 for pretty photos on boxes and paper.

 

God it sucks being an OZ gamer.....

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This is why I want to be a PC gamer.

Aus Steam has games pretty cheap you save $20 to $30 on Steam. The only problem is that I like my hard copies of games with disks and manuals and boxes. DAMN YOU CARTRIDGE BASED GAMES YOU DID THIS TO ME DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

 

BioShock 2 was only $70 on steam when it came out

compaired to the $110 at EB Games.

 

So I guess we are paying $30 for pretty photos on boxes and paper.

 

God it sucks being an OZ gamer.....

 

Well in fairness you paid $100 for an LP, an artbook & soundtrack. :sad:

 

I'm the sucker that paid $150

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Then there's Mass Effect 2. How many of you bought it new and/or CE with the Cerberus Network add-in? Having not paid that much attention to the game I'm not sure what it does but I see all over XBL they're dangling this shit over gamers like they can't play the game without it.

 

aw, really? was looking forward to borrowing that one offa bish...cant image the armor mattering that much, though.

 

This is why I want to be a PC gamer.

Aus Steam has games pretty cheap you save $20 to $30 on Steam. The only problem is that I like my hard copies of games with disks and manuals and boxes. DAMN YOU CARTRIDGE BASED GAMES YOU DID THIS TO ME DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

 

 

^^im with this guy. id love to be a PC gamer and not pay for DLC, be able to run games at 60 FPS/1080p etc, i just have this sick attachment to console gaming & boxes. i need to shake it and move on before this gets worse.

 

ps BWAHAHA.

 

340x_uu4ke.jpg

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To be fair companies have been fighting the new vs used thing for ages(and you can't blame a company for wanting you to buy new, they don't get shit out of used products most of the time.) and to be fair as I understand it(please correct me if I'm wrong here) if you buy a product used and use the servers you are basicly getting that for free(though you could agrue it was paid for with the new purchase but that can go a bunch of ways)

 

As a consumer I think it sucks, alot, but I know that used game sales arn't well loved by publishers and developers as they see none of that money and it's very very big money. Does anyone know if steam as any kind of return policy at all? I figure it's got have come up a few times or is it that no one tries? (just checked, the answer is no, though there are reasons for that) if you want to return online stuff like that it'll proabbly mean more drm(in order to make sure it's not on your machine if you return it) which no one wants.

 

When will this 'money grubing'(lol) stop? frankly it'll stop when it gets to much and people don't pay for it, tbh this used game online fee will hurt game stop much more then EA. I also think some of them are getting scared, they think it's a big problem with just gamestop but now Bestbuy, walmart and even amazon are getting in on it and they feel they need to do something to get into that slice of the pie. I wonder, could maybe one of those companies cut a deal with EA? like you get 5% of the used sale but all our customers dont' have to pay for any dlc or online fee... something like that might work.

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This is something I meant to raise earlier too- I get NZA buys on Ebay & trades games for sexual favours on Craigslist, but anyone else buying recent titles preowned, it's a pretty ridiculous distinction. Looking at titles on Gamestop.com like Bioshock 2, FFXIII & such, the difference is generally a matter of less than $10. I get that you guys have a different economy where $10 can buy a lot whereas here we'd be lucky to get soup, but is this a great distinction for you guys as consumers?

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My beef with buying off the internets is waiting for it to arrive though.

 

Amazon usually gets free shipping to me within the week of a game's release. They even have an option for release-date delivery that's around six bucks, so i can still save four from brick and mortar. Also, Release Date Delivery is free with their prime subscription service, but that's eighty dollars a year... but i'm on a free month trial for it right now.

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