Sony pains pre-owned game punters with PSN Pass Sony has officially announced the PSN Pass, a network tollbooth for "premium" online services. The belt will tighten in September with the launch of exclusive PS3 title Resistance 3. The game will come with a code that will allow the purchaser to play online through PSN. Anyone purchasing secondhand copies of the game from …
It's not about enhancing the online experience but in squelching the second hand market. I expect Sony, EA et al are extremely annoyed when they see their sales suppressed because people buy them second hand and all the profit ends up in GAME or Gamestop's pockets.
Personally I think it could be achieved more elegantly by including a code for a map pack with the game so that second hand players could still be able to play online but with a limited number of maps.
I also wonder what this means for rentals.
How will this work when others in the same family/home use the game online. Will they have to each own a code. At least with the 360 online gameplay you pay 1 fee per person (or get a family account) for as many games that the family use online. I can have fun with my friends who are forever telling me how good the FREE Sony online game play is compared to the costly 360 option
Now I actually own a modern console (Xbox 360), I can actually buy modern games. £40 for a game? I can't justify in this tight times. £10-20 - much easier to justify.
Traded in some 360 games for the first time recently, was going to get another pre-owned as a result. If you look in HMV, the pre-owned section is bigger than the new game section. And I actually had the sales assistant tell me that if Game offered me more money for my game, they would try to match it. WTF?!
I'm getting better service than if I was buying the game new!
You can apply a blunt market vegetable to me in strange places if I'm wrong, but I'm betting those special games that require a pass will happen to be the really popular can't live without games, e.g. CoD, etc.
Looks like Sony's going for a popularity award at the moment. Or they employed any Apple marketting peeps recently?
"This is an important initiative as it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhancing premium online services across our first party game portfolio."
should read
"This is an important initiative as it allows us to accelerate our commitment to taking as much money as possible from people."
Fixed for you.
had, have no interest in whats so ever, I might pick up Duke Once it hits the Bargain Bin, but as far as FPS Shovelware goes I'M SICK OF IT!
And as if I were ever inclined to actually find myself wanting this lame Game, I would suddenly find myself not wanting it any longer. Is S0NY want to charge me for access to their PSN Network, then they should just do that. But, WHO WOULD BE STUPID ENOUGH TO GIVE THOSE FECKERS THEIR CREDIT CARD #s again after the recent events? I don't think I would that's for sure.
In closing every Game that will require some "Code" to "unlock" features that were granted to me the moment I took delivery of the Box. Will equate 1 lost Sale to whomever thinks this is a naff idea.
Fail well...
...but I've always been a proponent of the concept that those people should buy their games new.
The developers and producers make these games, and once a company like Game steps in, buys your old game off you for a few quid and then sells it for 10, the developers and producers make nothing for their hard work and Game effectively pirates it.
There's a wave of belief amongst alot of (mostly younger) people who think that just because a game exists they're entitled to it or MUST play it, one way or another. If you can't afford a game, then you don't buy it. Once enough people can't buy the game and sales fall off then the prices have to come down, and arsehole companies like EA make less billions and start treating their paying customers better - like perhaps stopping putting bullshit DRM into their products.
"The developers and producers make these games, and once a company like Game steps in, buys your old game off you for a few quid and then sells it for 10, the developers and producers make nothing for their hard work and Game effectively pirates it."
That's nonsense. The devs got rewarded through the original sale, and then the good (a DVD with the game on it) belongs to me, period. And I can do with my property whatever I want.
But I guess if you sell your car then you give a share of the money you got to the car manufacturer, right? And if you sell your house, I guess you give a part of the money to the builder who built the house at some point in the past, or to his descendants. No? Why not? Following your crude logic, if you don't give them a share, you're effectively stealing from them.
Of course game publishers want to drain some of the money that goes in 2nd hand games. However, they are only able to get through with it if their customers actually are that stupid to believe they are stealing from the devs when selling or buying used games.
"Once enough people can't buy the game and sales fall off then the prices have to come down, and arsehole companies like EA make less billions and start treating their paying customers better - like perhaps stopping putting bullshit DRM into their products."
Yeah, in your dreams maybe. Here on Planet Earth they more likely will claim the low sales on piracy and then come up with even stronger measures, as they did in the past.
By now it should be very obvious that the aim of the gaming industry is to get their customers away from the 'pay one play forever' model where games come on physical media to a 'pay-per-use' model where they can charge gamers for the time they are playing. They have made this more than clear on various occasions, and you have to be very thick to miss that. The beginning was made by Valve with STEAM games like HL2 where only a part of the game is on the physical media, and the game is locked to a certain user account.Later supplemented by online activation (with a limited amount of activations of course), digital distribution, DLC (charging for content which should have come with the game), requiring an online connection when playing single player games, and now it's activation codes for multiplayer. Of course all these charged-for options are not transferrable. If you really believe that they will ever go back to DRM-free distribution you're delusional.
Game publishers found that a big part of their customer base is retarded enough to swallow the constant blame on piracy (games are never low because a title is crap, sure) and happily pay for slices of a game which used to come in one piece. Look at when EA introduced their permanent online requirement. Everyone cried but in the end there were enough idiots who actually purchased this crap.
...but I've always been a proponent of the concept that those people should buy their cars new.
The designers and mechanics make these cars, and once a used car company steps in, buys your old car off you for a few quid and then sells it for 10, the designers and mechanics make nothing for their hard work and the garage effectively pirates it.
---
Sorry, but why? I'm a developer and I don't see why after I've sold you a copy it's any of my business what you do with it - even if you do make a few quid back selling it to someone who acts as a broker and also makes a few quid.
Games companies/publishers/platform owners don't make money from second hand sales. Because digital products like games don't really degrade with use, high street stores can buy back second hand games at a low price, resell them marginally cheaper than new and pocket a ridiculous markup without passing any profit on to the people and companies who paid and worked to make the game.
The games companies don't wan't to make their money by selling online passes, they want to make new games more valuable than used copies and online passes are one of the few ways they can do this. They really have been boxed into a corner as they are competing with *their own product*.
The real baddies here are the high street chains who are competing with their suppliers and the members of the gaming public who will buy second hand because it's three quid cheaper.
"Because digital products like games don't really degrade with use..."
While technically true, it is very much *not* true that they hold their value. Otherwise, I have this Megadrive game here, you want it for £40, which is what it cost when it came out? Thought not. You can treat this as equivalent to degrading with use, as it's still depreciation.
Also, Ford competes with two-year old Mondeos when trying to sell new Mondeos, but you don't hear them complaining.
Not sure how you figure that. COD has a matchmaking server, but the actual game you play is hosted by one of the players in the match. AFAIK I paid when I bought the game thanks.
Looks like I'm going to be bent over & violated on this one because I have two PS3's. I can see Sony's viewpoint though - they wouldn't want to encourage people to buy more than one PS3 now would they. Sheesh.
hopefully this will force the game retailers to drop there prices for used games. GAme and game station for far too long have gouging the public for 2nd hand games. Ive felt for some time the prices for used games is far too high and this should make the games worth less.
all for this idea!
Another day, another pathetic El-Reg hate fueled Sony story, with a small footnote, that everyone else in the industry is also doing the exact same thing....
It's the way the industry has to go, too many people waiting a few weeks and picking up heavily discounted titles, that the original developer gets no revenue from.
This is good news, as it means money is actually getting back to the companies that CREATE the games in the first place, rather than staying with the retailers, who already make money on the original sales, and then double-dip.
Without the game studios creating content, there would be no games.
thought that I might agree with Steve/Mark/Carole.
Bar the looney, paranoid,ignorant, puerile fanboism of the first paragraph of course.
The remaining three paras do make a certain sense and every one has a choice about whether or not hey wish to pay to play. The ethics are questionable but the honesty isn't. Sony are clear about what you haveto do access the multiplayer code. You either have to pay retail or pay non-retail, but that's an open , honest up front choice.
I won't pay to play multi-player but because in fish-world that's less important than the multiplayer. Fish jr takes a different view.
It does beg the question wheher it's more patheric to hang around El-Reg in order to boost a large manufacturer of expensive boxes or for EL-Regto report honestly about what Sony or doing.
Personally I'd vote the former.
As long as the money for this is going to the dev studio/publisher (tho I'd rather it be the studio ;) ) behind the game, I have no problem. Sony keeps all the money then it's wrong.
As it stands, high street games stores are making a killing out of second hand titles by buying them in cheap and selling them at near new prices, denying revenue to the creators of the game.
I don't mind there being a second hand market, especially for older platforms. I just don't like the high street stores scalping both the customer *and* the game makers in one fell swoop.
The PSN free ride was bound to end some day. PSN Plus was the start, this is the next step and then we'll probably see a two-tier PSN, aka Xbox Live Silver and Gold.
P.S. Don't you just love impartial reporting: "Whatever the price, the PSN Pass is essentially a tax on folk who buy pre-owned games.".
"P.S. Don't you just love impartial reporting: "Whatever the price, the PSN Pass is essentially a tax on folk who buy pre-owned games.". "
This website lies in the complement of the BBC, hence doesn't have to be impartial. One benefit of this is that they can say things that are obviously true, but might offend certain people, or rather multinational corporations.
I thought one of the reasons that pre-owned games kept a good price, was the fact that the game is the 'key' to playing it on-line. It's not as if Sony/Microsoft has a BIG problem with pirates (like the PC platform). Microsoft charge an annual fee for Live Gold (allowing you to play ALL games on-line vs others). Pricing this to individual games is not a good move IMO, especially as Sony fans have said on-line gaming is 'free' compared to the Xbox offering which makes it a better offering.
What what I've seen and heard of the on-line experiences of both the 360 and PS3, the 360 wins for gaming hands down, maybe Microsoft got it right with their annual fee for access to all of it....
Will be interested to see what people make of this move...
while i dont like being ripped off this isnt as black and white as people seem to think.
games with this on should retail 2nd hand for: (the same price as before) - (how much it costs to buy pass)
i wonder how does this affect the resale value of 2nd hand games? it also seems to screw people who lend games to people (i lend them out to mates who dont earn as much as me) - will they be able to play?
for me this is still dodgy practice. i dont recall people like Ford wanting to charge you to drive 2nd hand cars.
plus, its not like sony has thousands of dedicated servers to play on. its all p2p on most games, all they do is hook you up to a p2p game that the users are paying to host anyway
"games with this on should retail 2nd hand for: (the same price as before) - (how much it costs to buy pass)"
But then I've seen Game/Gamestation selling pre-owned games for more than a new copy before!
I've always tended to buy my games new, as ive had a few pre-owned things in the past that had damaged disks etc, i see a couple of quid extra for a sealed new game as worth it, saving a potential trip back to replace it. Now i only tend to go for pre-owned if it's considerably cheaper, or not available anymore new*
*this sort of thing needs special mention, if the producers want to complain about, and lash out against, the second hand markets, they'd better make damn sure i can always get things new.
Not interested in requiring a pass to get into an online game, whether I'm a first-order customer (just bought the game new), or a second-order customer (just bought a used game).
I know a lot of people who will simply NOT BUY THE F*CKING GAMES that require passes, because they can't afford to buy new games, they have no choice but to settle for used games.
Sony - it only does FAIL! (and fail, and fail, and more fail, and fail again, until it finds new ways to fail, then it will fail some more).
"This is good news, as it means money is actually getting back to the companies that CREATE the games in the first place, rather than staying with the retailers, who already make money on the original sales, and then double-dip."
Wrong. What it means is that you will get even less for your pre-owned games when you sell them back, and the companies who trade them on will likely still make the same profit. Essentially they will hurt themselves as quite people buy games with the express intent of playing them, then selling them on while they still hold some value (to trade in against another new game). As the trade-in value for even a week old game will now be lower, people will simply have to be more picky about which games they buy.
You can tell this to be the case by the number of almost new games that are available "pre-owned" within the various game retailers. So if people are forced to either spend more or buy less, my guess is that the overall spend will not change too much.
I dare say the big chains that sell pre-owned games will be fine - they'll do some deal with Sony so they can bundle a new access code. Big Retailers will protect their margins by offering lower trade-in prices, Sony get a slice of the 2nd hand market. Consumers, small retailers and charity* shops will lose out.
What actually constitutes "owning" a game? If you sell/give away the original disk, can you keep a copy to enable you to use the access code you paid for and cannot transfer?
*Won't someone think of the children/animals/disabled/whatever?!!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
