EA Sports ONLINE PASS

The only ones making moneys off of the pre-owned market are shitty companies such as Gamestop which constantly scam people out of their used games (were you aware of the fact that 75% of their revenues comes from this rather than from the sales of new titles? No wonder since they get stuff from you at 5 Euro and sell it back for 35...).

In fact the publishers are being harmed by this sort of crap since they aren't getting a penny from the 2nd hand games sales (and aren't selling more copies to potential buyers either), which ultimately means less cash to pour into development and worse (and probably even more expensive, in the long run) games for us.
 
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Searain said:
at those who run their mouths without knowing what they're talking about, I guess.
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In what way, If you are aiming that at me..

We are discussing the issue of charging for online play on new and secondhand games, people can voice there opinions this does not make them right or wrong or as you put it fk'ed in the head.
 
Nick Cave said:
In what way, If you are aiming that at me..

We are discussing the issue of charging for online play on new and secondhand games, people can voice there opinions this does not make them right or wrong or as you put it fk'ed in the head.
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Why do you think it's aimed at you? I can't see the link..

It's Retri's way of discussing things. You know he likes you if he doesn't insult you (directly).
 
romagnoli said:
Why do you think it's aimed at you? I can't see the link..

It's Retri's way of discussing things. You know he likes you if he doesn't insult you (directly).
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Hmm.. maybe because he posted after my post and was vague in his response to a direct question...

I just hate people posting in here belittling other peoples opinion and stating their opinions are somehow indisputable fact...
 
I don't mind EA trying to think of a way of encouraging people into buying games brand new rather than second hand.

I thought the idea of getting £10 worth of dlc for free with the new games only was great. But when you look at how it's been handled on Bad company 2, maps that are already on the disc re released for free as part of this plan and some skins. If they seriously thought that kind of crap was going to make gamers buy brand new rather than 2nd hand from now on... they're idiots!


EA could have looked at this and said 'right guys... we need to offer the customer more quality for their money' Or they could have seen how their 'time saver' packs they sell on the online stores reduce the longevity of their games. Which will result in people growing tired of their games much sooner and trading them soon after buying, as they'll be tempted by a high trade in price or a 'trade in this game that was released 2 weeks ago that you own and get the latest AAA blockbuster game for £10!'.

So they can get the latest game such as red dead redemption for £10 and offload a copy of Skate 3 that they've grown tired of as they've seen everything the game had to unlock and offer now.
Or you buy a game 2nd hand game and pay £10 just to be able to play it online with your friends.

£10 for a AAA blockbuster game (and you lose a game you were fed up of)
£10 for online access on a game that everyone else has had for ages and have unlocked a lot of free dlc extras that you no have to pay again for to be on a level playing field.


It seems that they've just thought that delivering better content for your money and not holding back bits if the game so they can pull a 1984 Big Brother and give them back to us while acting like they're doing us a great favour, is too much trouble.

It's far easier and will make more money to just to ban people from playing a % of the games content.

How about they sell me an offline only copy of a game then for £10 less!

-
Do do all EA games have this then or just select ones that have big online communities? how are they going to implement this into SP games.
 
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This is getting mental now. Can everyone please stop making stuff up? This is the $10 plan EA have for sports games. They aren't adding this on top of $10 of free DLC. It's not a new concept, PC games have been doing much the same thing for years, with new registry keys costing you much the same amount of money.

It's weird how you get much more balanced and rational opinions on what is essentially a corporation trying to recoup more money, from posters on lefty newspaper The Guardian.
 
romagnoli said:
This is getting mental now. Can everyone please stop making stuff up? This is the $10 plan EA have for sports games. They aren't adding this on top of $10 of free DLC. It's not a new concept, PC games have been doing much the same thing for years, with new registry keys costing you much the same amount of money.

It's weird how you get much more balanced and rational opinions on what is essentially a corporation trying to recoup more money, from posters on lefty newspaper The Guardian.
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I don't see why you are getting so upset Rama, it's a forum so it's open to debate and comment...

As for the PC market I understand your point but it's different to the console market, that seems to be based around the trade in culture, to be honest the first time I took a game back to trade my exact words were "how much"!! and I went home with it.
But it seems to be the norm to play a game to death and trade it inside a month or two and only a few titles, usually the ones that take a good few years to produce go on to be keepers...

I like the way you use recoup instead of make... ;))
 
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Searain said:
You guys are fk'ed in the head (prolly just biased toward EA cause omgzFIFAsuckz), the only ones making moneys off of the pre-owned market are shitty companies such as Gamestop which constantly scam people out of their used games (were you aware of the fact that 75% of their revenues comes from this rather than from the sales of new titles? No wonder since they get stuff from you at 5 Euro and sell it back for 35...).

In fact the publishers are being harmed by this sort of crap since they aren't getting a penny from the 2nd hand games sales (and aren't selling more copies to potential buyers either), which ultimately means less cash to pour into development and worse (and probably even more expensive, in the long run) games for us.

Get a clue before jumping to conclusions, seriously.
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And you seriously think people are going to take your views seriously, when you think people with the opposite views are fk'ed in the head?

People these days...

Anyway back on topic, As Nick has said I don't really have a huge issue with this as long as the price stays reasonable. I'm a big online gamer, and I think the service it provides is fantastic.
 
Nick Cave said:
I don't see why you are getting so upset Rama, it's a forum so it's open to debate and comment...

As for the PC market I understand your point but it's different to the console market, that seems to be based around the trade in culture, to be honest the first time I took a game back to trade my exact words were "how much"!! and I went home with it.
But it seems to be the norm to play a game to death and trade it inside a month or two and only a few titles, usually the ones that take a good few years to produce go on to be keepers...

I like the way you use recoup instead of make... ;))
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??

I'm not upset Nick - I can type on a forum that things are getting ridiculous without being emotionally unstable. You'd have to be pretty soft in the head to be genuinely enraged by something you read on a forum.

It's just very, very weird how much of a knee-jerk reaction this is provoking in people here, compared the rational response on a typically anti-corporate website with its fair share of game playing posters. It's bad enough that the figure quoted here is always £10 instead of $10 (I see it as being £7.99 if offered via the PSN store), but for it to suddenly rise to £20?? Come on. We're getting carried away now.

I agree that for console sharers such as parents or flatmates, the Online Pass system is screwed. I'm not familiar with how the whole thing works on X360 but I doubt having three User Profiles within the game would do the trick as it wouldn't transfer Achievements or Gamer Points. On the plus side it would at least let you have three separate Online Performance records at least, but I don't think that's enough for people anymore.

Yes it is 'recoup' and not 'make' by the way - they made the game and aren't getting any money for the game being sold. One copy, at £40, could be sold to three separate people or so. The retailer will make a shedload out of that one title, constantly farming it for more profit, but the publisher makes nothing after that initial sale.

Look at these figures for profit on the dollar made by Gamestop in 2008.

gross-profit-margin-2008.png

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23396

Why should Gamestop be allowed to profiteer off of someone else's work and cut off the IP originator in the process? It's not even that they're doing anything wrong by turning towards such a money-printing scheme - why would a retailer want to promote sales of the original copy, when they'd be better served selling a 2nd hand version for £5 less? The system itself is fucked.

Here's a question - why can't publishers get some sort of royalty fee for having their product resold at a profit? The most agreeable solution of all would be for a law to be passed for high street retailers to have to catalogue which games they resell and pass a percentage of the profit they make back to the game publishers. I've no idea what the logistics of putting that in place would entail though. I imagine it'd be a nightmare, but surely every game the shops rebuy and resell has a barcode on the back - it can't be that hard.
 
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$10 content usually ends up being £10 content online. Most games on XBL and PSN that are $19.99 will not be sold at the actual exchange rate price. We'll still be charge £19.99 or maybe £17.99.

I believe the £20 remark was to me. I wasn't making stuff up just for the hell of it. Simply I had assumed that this online access was separate to the '$10 dlc plan' they brought in. I hadn't seen where that said this online access was going to be bundled in with the $10 dlc plan - so for our $10 you get the access to this free dlc and access to online.

I'm still waiting for $10 worth of DLC to show up for Bad Company 2. So far they've unlocked 2 maps that were already in the game for other game modes and some cosmetic skins. If they think that's $10 worth then they're crazy.



"Why should Gamestop be allowed to profiteer off of someone else's work and cut off the IP originator in the process?"

Because they're the ones prepared to buy the pre owned games with their own money and then re sell them at a higher cost? If EA wanted to buy my old EA games off me at a decent price and re sell them for a higher price... sure be my guest. But as they can't be arsed I'll go to my local game shop.
 
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As Rad said the fact money is being made from the secondhand market is not the game shops fault, that's the way the market works.

If EA and anyone else for that matter wants to change to charging online for secondhand titles I'm fine with that, they keep on providing a service so should make some more money from the new user.

It's make too not recoup, no games company makes a loss on decent game otherwise they would be no industry and they have to provide the online for the people who bought the game the first time round...

On another note how about games that have no online, should they carry a sell on charge?

But to make out these multi billion pound games companies are being hard done to because of how the secondhand market has always worked is crazy.
 
well, maybe they wouldn´t be harmed by the second hand market if they begin selling sports games that are more than 5 months old for half a price, they would even earn more money than those 10 bucks and people would prefer to pay half a price for a new game than for an used one.

It´s pretty ridiculos when i see the prices right now of NHL 10, for exemple, it´s the same price of the launch day even that it already have 6 months old.
 
Nick Cave said:
As Rad said the fact money is being made from the secondhand market is not the game shops fault, that's the way the market works.

If EA and anyone else for that matter wants to change to charging online for secondhand titles I'm fine with that, they keep on providing a service so should make some more money from the new user.

It's make too not recoup, no games company makes a loss on decent game otherwise they would be no industry and they have to provide the online for the people who bought the game the first time round...

On another note how about games that have no online, should they carry a sell on charge?
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That's why games like Dragon Age offer $10 (I think it's actually $15?) DLC. It's a genuine reason to buy first hand, not second. Even offline titles have aftersales costs y'know. Similarly there was a company - Stardock I think, who made a game called Galactic Civ 2 and the more recent Sins of a Solar Empire - who made their games playable without a registry key. So you could get it off a torrent site and install it unopposed.

However, you couldn't get access to the online game or community modding - a scene that was pretty huge - so you were strongly encouraged to get a legitimate copy in order to get a lot more out of the game. It'd be kind of like a more extreme version of Konami letting you play PES 5 without a key, but you needed a key to play online or to edit kits.


DVDs offer making ofs, commentaries, trailers, artwork etc to make the main product worth buying as opposed to illegally downloading the title, not just as an advantage over watching the film in the cinema (another source of income games can't draw upon; the closest equivalent to the cinema was the coin-op, but that market has mostly collapsed as it cannot offer an experience that cannot be bettered at home). However a film will stay in the market for several years, even decades, and can be re-released at the same price as the original; I think you'd struggle to find someone who'd buy Final Fantasy VII for £40. Even £8, as on PSN, is pretty steep.

But to make out these multi billion pound games companies are being hard done to because of how the secondhand market has always worked is crazy.
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The second hand market for games is based on a time when there weren't running costs after launch. Just because something is longstanding, particularly in such a fast moving industry, doesn't mean to say it is valid or should continue. Not by a long shot Among several other reasons, games cost a lot more to manufacture, on multiple platforms indeed, without necessarily selling more.

This idea of multi billion dollar games companies being invincible or an acceptable victim is thousands of miles off the mark too.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/05/11/ea-posts-677-million-loss-in-fy2010-alongside-downed-revenues/

http://kotaku.com/5114113/ea-reducing-work-force-by-1000-closing-9-locations

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171980

http://kotaku.com/5406830/confirmed-ea-closes-pandemic-studios-says-brand-will-live-on

A lot of creative talent out there lose their jobs because their games don't break even. If high profile games like FIFA (which makes up a huge proportion of EA Sports' revenue) can recoup (it is recoup!!) some of the money lost through the public buying second instead of first hand, then it helps create more of a buffer for this creative talent.


I've run out of steam for the moment so I'll stop soon. It is Friday, after all. But Rad, when you say "EA can't be arsed"(!!!) to buy your games back, can you explain exactly how that system would work? Talk it right through, and think of the costs and logistics involved to set something like this up.

If every console was online to register digitally distributed titles to users, then you would be far better equipped to sell your licence back to a publisher (you all have to stop thinking of the publisher as EA - this is a problem that all publishers will have to deal with and will at some point try something). If it was all electronic, about licences rather than discs, then it wouldn't be that bad. You could rent a game direct from a publisher in theory, in the way you can rent videos from Microsoft or Sony.

Saying that the Retailers are putting their own money up to buy games and selling them at higher cost, therefore they should be exempt from criticism, is precious - whose money are publishers putting on the line to make the games?? Whose jobs are on the line if a game doesn't break even??
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romagnoli said:
Yes it is 'recoup' and not 'make' by the way - they made the game and aren't getting any money for the game being sold. One copy, at £40, could be sold to three separate people or so. The retailer will make a shedload out of that one title, constantly farming it for more profit, but the publisher makes nothing after that initial sale.
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But why should games differ from any other consumer goods? For example, a car will have numerous owners in it's lifetime but that doesn't mean the manufacturer should get a cut every time it is sold on. I understand EA have an online service to run, but when EA are shifting 10 million copies of Fifa10 I'm sure there is enough money left in the pot to cover this. In addition, EA surely make a considerable return on modes like Ultimate Team and all the 'boosts' and extras that can be paid for in games like Madden and Tiger Woods.

The online pass is bad news for the consumer, not the retailers, which are the 'problem' here.. That's the bottom line for me.

Only my opinion of course.:))
 
I've run out of steam for the moment so I'll stop soon. It is Friday, after all. But Rad, when you say "EA can't be arsed"(!!!) to buy your games back, can you explain exactly how that system would work? Talk it right through, and think of the costs and logistics involved to set something like this up.
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I have no idea how to set all of that up but off the top of my head which will be about as good as it gets. I'd imagine they'd set up a website and run it through there just like play.com and other game sites have a 'used game section'.

On there they would list all the games they have for sale brand new direct from EA with a little discount (which they can afford as they're not handing a % of the retail price to the stores). All this 'pre order dlc bonus shit that games have with certain shops would stop as EA could keep things like that exclusive to themselves. If you want the collectors edition or pre order bonus you buy direct from EA.shop.com.

I'd assume as EA would be cutting out the shops they could take more % of the games retail price.

Along with that they would list their 2nd hand games for sale - you want it 2nd hand you buy it from EA who get the money.

And finally they list the prices they're offering to buy your used games from you.

Shops manage it no trouble... I can't see why EA and other publishers don't do the same. Hell they could even throw in intensives to sell to the publisher direct like themes and avatar things for your consoles or maybe do it on a points basis so the more you buy and sell direct with the publisher the more points or tokens you gain and you can buy I don't know... T-shirts or key chains or vouchers for money off games.
 
Jamezinho said:
But why should games differ from any other consumer goods? For example, a car will have numerous owners in it's lifetime but that doesn't mean the manufacturer should get a cut every time it is sold on. I understand EA have an online service to run, but when EA are shifting 10 million copies of Fifa10 I'm sure there is enough money left in the pot to cover this. In addition, EA surely make a considerable return on modes like Ultimate Team and all the 'boosts' and extras that can be paid for in games like Madden and Tiger Woods.

The online pass is bad news for the consumer, not the retailers, which are the 'problem' here.. That's the bottom line for me.

Only my opinion of course.:))
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Ok, let's treat games like cars then (interesting since much of the car industry has been fucked for years). You buy a game, it has a license number that is registered in your name, and if anyone else is caught playing it then they are breaking the law unless they are insured to do so. Any problems you have with the game will cost you money, not the publisher, and it may take a week or so to get a coder in to fix a crabwalking animation so you'll have to leave the disc at the nearest game repair shop until Tuesday. Meanwhile of course the publisher is laughing because they have a potential market of well over a billion potential games buyers as opposed to 50 million - and they are able to sell games at way, way over the current £40 cap that all but MW2 have been adhering to.

I'm being facetious because I'm a bit drunk, but also because comparing two completely different concepts - intellectual versus physical property - is utter madness. You can't just pick and choose which aspects should be identical, because they are completely isolated from each other in practically every single way. You may as well be comparing buying games to buying fish.


If you're intent on seeing this as solely an EA thing, rather than a protogenic example of what the whole industry will be moving towards, then that's up to you, but you're missing the bigger picture.

I'm a consumer, and the pass/$10 plan is good news for me. It won't cost me a penny more because I almost never buy second hand games, but the company that makes the game(s) I want to play will earn more money to put back into it while the retailers I almost never use nowadays anyway will take a hit. Hopefully this idea, or rather ones that are a lot more refined and don't hit console sharers, will take hold, so that more money is available to the creative talents who go and make games. I'm tired of good development studios being canned because they aren't making money.

It's also a damn sight better than the DRM currently being used by eejits like Ubisoft, where, if your internet is down and you can't connect to their servers, you can't play an offline-only game.



Rad - my counterpoint was going to be that EA aren't a shop, but a quick check online shows that they do indeed have a store (which I'm sure I knew anyway, but there you go). I'd guess then that the main reason is because they feel there's too much competition in this department and they don't think they could get a look in (which wouldn't be an unreasonable point). I'd wager their online store is probably turning over a pretty meagre sum compared to a dedicated online store who can offer you several different games as well.

If you want to sell games second hand then you'll want to sell the games of any publishers second hand. You'll typically want to go to one online (or offline) store to do all your trading to keep things as simple as possible. Therefore having an account with each publisher to send them their own games would go against this concept. It'd make far more business, as well as common, sense for the publisher to let retail companies continue to have a collective stranglehold on the market and do something all-encompassing like this.

Just a thought. Again, I can see publishers being well up for getting their sleeves rolled up for second hand once games are downloaded more than sold as physical units, but I think their publisher-exclusivity would definitely serve against them here, keyrings/shirts or no.
 
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I'll forgive the facetiousness and condescending tone.:))

Ok, so perhaps EA should reduce the price of every new game by $10 and then make the online pass applicable to all gamers that buy the game, brand new as well as second hand? If EA - and eventually the wider games industry - are intent on this concept then perhaps that's the fairest way to do it. It will also provide more value for money for the predominantly offline gamers that find the single player aspect of games is getting increasingly smaller. Fair's fair.

My worries are that the Online Pass in it's proposed form will punish those that can't afford new games all the time. And I think there will be a backlash, particularly from 360 users, that already pay for an online service (XBL) on top of their broadband costs.
 
I think alot of people are starting to get abit wound up by this now. Like some others, I do tend to buy my games new, but I take along time before looking for the best price. With FIFA this year, you know there will be a big price war again, I learnt last year and will not be pre-ordering. FIFA on release was a low as 25 quid in alot of places, the same with MW2, it was 30 quid on Amazon even though Activision had upped the RRP to £55.

Most games, even if they are not discounted at launch; drop within 4-6 weeks after launch, some even sooner. There are plenty of bargains to be had out there, it just depends how long you prepared to wait, and if it's a new game, whatever DLC or access code in the box is there will still be in it. Now, I aint read all the licence agreement with EA, and I'm sure when MS heard about this they spat their tea out all over the place seeing as Live is already a pay to play service. EA like Activision etc are PLC's, they have to show they are doing what is best for the company to the Shareholders, and I'm afraid that leaves us; Joe Public to their mercy at alot of things.

If you held shares in EA, you'd be happy to see this idea coming through, hoping that your new game sales is increased. Where I have a very big problem is if your sharing a game with your brother or flat mate etc and the code is only licenced to their account, it should be licenced to your account BUT also your console. That goes the same with DLC.
 
Jamezinho said:
Ok, so perhaps EA should reduce the price of every new game by $10 and then make the online pass applicable to all gamers that buy the game, brand new as well as second hand?
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I think that's a great point. Those who have no intention of using that service shouldn't have to pay for it if this really is just to cover the costs of having the online network up.

I'm hoping that this actually drives the cost of used games down because they'll have to be sold with a disclaimer saying you have to buy the online code etc.

2 used EA games for the price of 1 EA game is fine with me.
 
Radiation said:
I think that's a great point. Those who have no intention of using that service shouldn't have to pay for it if this really is just to cover the costs of having the online network up.

I'm hoping that this actually drives the cost of used games down because they'll have to be sold with a disclaimer saying you have to buy the online code etc.

2 used EA games for the price of 1 EA game is fine with me.
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It would work out well for me as I only play a couple of games online. I don't see why I should subsidise the server costs when I never use them. It works both ways.

To be honest I buy nearly all my games new, so this whole issue doesn't affect me that much, however I do trade the odd game and they will now become worthless if the likes of GAME & Gamestation have to factor in the cost of an online pass. Games will have literally no resale value.
 
It raises the question of whether games that are as online intensive as FIFA or PES will inevitably become should move to subscription fees and more regular increments of gameplay tweaks than once a year. I can't see people charging separately for online and reducing the price of the offline. Logistically to us it'd make sense as a retort to the Online Pass idea, but it's where inevitably publishers (who are in the business of making money, after all) will backtrack and say "yeah but that's different.."
 
The comments on that page are generally quite insightful.

It all seems a bit, well awful.

Let's put it this way, if Shops don't put actually put their prices down for second hand games then surely such a tactic shouldn't be allowed to be legalised because it's just deliberately creating hidden charges. Wouldn't the games company get in trouble for basically creating new charges that people have to pay?

Who has the control here? It seems like a bit of a debacle.

On top of all of this i fail to believe that Games companies aren't earn enough money from their products in order to pull a ploy like this that will inevitably end up only being a detriment to the Average Joe. Especially a company like EA Sports (the first article on this page) who throw endless money around on sponsorship and over-marketing and then appear to have the audacity to be annoyed that they aren't earning enough money as they would like to.

I understand that, as Romagnoli puts it, companies have the right to protect themselves but if they're already earning profit or they're basically overspending in the first place and then doing something like this then it's reprehensible.
 
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I'm still of the view that this move is pure greed and opportunism from EA. I know EA have been in a bit of financial trouble for a few years but I think they need to look at themselves as to why that is, not pick on the second-hand market. With a line-up of annually tweaked and huge selling sports titles like Madden, Tiger and Fifa they should be performing much better, as Northzzz said above.

Yes, the online part of a game costs money to maintain, but that cost is covered by the person that buys the game new. When that person trades the game he no longer requires that online service and it is passed on to someone else. It's still only one person using the service, not two. I know there is stat-tracking in all games now and this data has to be stored somewhere for each user, but come on, the cost of this must be minuscule. The $10 figure seems to have been plucked out of the air.

Also remember that EA Sports have been known to turn off the servers for their games after only 18 months (Madden09, NCCA 09). I'm not sure I'd be happy buying Madden 10 six months after release, paying $10, and then EA turning off the server a few months after Madden11, pretty much forcing me to upgrade.
 
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