Online Pass Isn't Hurting Used Game Sales

[SelectivelyEvil13]

Want to damage pre-owned sales? Lower the price of games.

Its that easy. You'll sell more games, hurt used sales, get more money, and the consumers will have cheaper games.

Everyone wins.

Exactly. I wouldn't buy as many used games if the prices on new games were affordable. If games released for $40 instead of $60, I would not only buy more new games, I would buy more games in general. If Gears of War 3 was released with a $40 or even $50 price tag, that would be great for new games sales. People who otherwise wouldn't have been interested are now giving them attention because their game is cheaper than everyone else's. And when other companies start seeing that, they'll start releasing their games for cheaper and more people will buy games. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a brand new game that I'm interested in, but just wait for the price to go down before buying it because it's too much brand new.

As someone who used to only have a 360 and a Live subscription, buying used games was a great option available when trying to save a buck. I already was paying yearly to play online, so anything extra that could be saved felt like it was balancing out the costs a bit.

Even now with my PS3, I still buy used games just because the price difference can be remarkable. A new copy on Amazon can sometimes run close to double the cost of a used game for the same amount of hours of single player. I don't really play online, but if that used game required an extra fee for the feature, it would still be cheaper than the brand new one! It does not help the matter when many games do not hit a reduced price nearly has quick as they should, nor do they offer "deals" or coupons to stay competitive.

Another problem that I see with the Online Pass is that if one purchases Game Z once it is really cheap for a used copy, there may be little to no incentive to even bother with the online if it is no longer popular anyway. In addition, some games are not even worth that online to begin with and are hard to justify full-retail, particularly with the yearly update games.