As a number of other people have already pointed out, my main problem with this will be if it's clear that whatever the DLC is was already on the disc and all you're really downloading is the ability to unlock it...which I really can't help but think that's what all day 1 DLC really is. And what about people who actually buy a new copy of the game a week after it's already been out? Do they have to pay just because they weren't there on day 1? How is it fair to them?
In the end, I fully endorse the idea that if you make a product you have all the right to get money for said product. But comparing used games to pirated games is just plain wrong. Pirating implies some variation of theft. Someone broke into the 38 Studio's warehouse and stole a bunch of boxes filled with games. Or someone hacked the gibson and directly stole all the programing and is now pumping out games from his super computer. That is pirating.
This is the same as Wal-Mart launching a campaign to crack-down on garage sales. Someone originally bought your game for which you got paid. That's the end of the transaction on that disc. You shouldn't be expecting to get money every time that disc changes hands. Do pawn shops have to pay the original jeweler every time they buy/sell a ring?
I understand it's a down economy and we all need whatever we can get, but I'm getting rather sick and tired of this war on used games. If you don't want people buying your games used then you might as well go full-nazi on us and resurrect the good ol' fashioned cd-keys and stop pussy-footing around with this "Ohhhh we're going to give the full real version of the game to those who buy it on day 1, everyone else only gets 90% of the game." I mean seriously, if your game does so poorly that used game sales actually cut into your profits, the game was a crap game to begin with. Launch day is when you make all your money. If you have a good product that was well marketed then you're still going to sell x million copies and make all your money right there...going after the used sale dollars just seems petty to me.
I'm not trying to justify actual piracy with this example, but from a monetary standpoint it makes the same point. It's like Lars from Metallica bitching about people downloading Metallica songs for free and eating into his profits as he turns around and snorts another rail of coke off a stripper's ass as she's lounging by his gold-lined inground olympic swimming pool.
Point is that I know game studios make plenty of money as it is, enough to get buy and make a profit if their product is well received. If its not well received, then that's a failure on their part. All these anti-used-game policies seem to me as nothing more than studios trying to make all the money they can in a down economy. "Companies are trying to make money on the games that they make when they are bought. Is that wrong? If so please tell me how." I'd be happy to. You've already made the money on the game that you made...you made it when someone bought that copy first-hand. What it all boils down to is the game companies feel they are being cheated because they're not getting paid multiple times for the SAME game.
I know it's not a perfect argument, I know there's the hole of "Well why should people bother buying a new game at all when they can get it used?" To which my best response is simply that games don't come out used, as such it goes back to the point that I made that if your product isn't good enough to make people anticipate it and WANT to go out and buy it immediately once it's released then that's your failure as a developer. I don't see Activision complaining about people buying CoD games used. Why? Because their product is like crack, they know they're going to sell 200 quadrabuhzillion on day one and make all their money right there.
Make a game that people can't wait to play and they'll buy it new. I just find it very hard to believe that while developers don't get paid on used games, those games can't be eating into profits to the point that you have to start holding content for ransom.
