Online Pass Required to Play as Arkham City's Catwoman

[UnderCoverGuest]

I'm buying the game new. I'm paying for all the content. If you're gonna buy the game at discount price and not from the original distribute or producer, there should be less content.

It's like buying used books for college: when you buy a used book, you're depriving the distributor of revenue, and the writers (who spend years investigating to make sure that the records are kept updated with accurate information) of royalties that are their source of income. Thus, you occasionally don't get the CD companion or something. If you buy the book new, you're guaranteed all the content that came with the original product.

If you buy a game used, you're paying a fraction of the cost, you get a fraction of the content. And as we've seen from the gameplay video, Catwoman is a very integral part of the story--not essential, but very involved. It's not DLC, it's something that is coming with the game. You're paying the full price of the game so you can play the entire main story. If you're only gonna pay for part of the game, you only get part of the game.

But then again I'm a PC gamer, and have this wonderful feeling of resource-management and economic superiority. Whoop whoop. Anywho, I'm paying for the full game, and I'll enjoy it. But I'll probably enjoy Saints Row 3 first...

 

[Epona]

Well see Online passes only exist so as to hurt and eliminate used sales all together. So Im not certain on how it can be seen that Online passes don't hurt gamestop as the online passes are currently structured to mirror the specific difference in value between a new and used copy. Without that benefit for buying used, there is no reason to buy used and no reason to sell a game.

I bring up gamestop only because they truly have the ability to eliminate this. All they have to do is exactly the same thing the publishers are attempting to do. Devalue the opposing product. Granted in gamestops instance they CAN do it. However in order to do it they would have to take a temporary financial hit until the message has been made clear and the online pass thing is eliminated.

I'll explain how it doesn't hurt Gamestop.

Scenario 1: No online pass
- Gamestop pays $25 for a $60 game.
- Person buying new got $25 back from their purchase meaning the game only cost them $35.
- Gamestop sells the game for $55. Gamestop makes $30.

Scenario 2: Online pass
- Gamestop pays $15 for a $60 game.
- Person buying new got $15 back from their purchase meaning the game only cost them $45.
- Gamestop sells it for $45. Gamestop makes $30.

Scebario 3: Online pass, gamestop buys the online pass for the used customer
- Gamestop pays $15 for a $60 game.
- Person buying new got $15 back from their purchase meaning the game only cost them $45.
- Gamestop buys online pass from publisher for $10.
- Gamestop sells it for $55. Gamestop makes $30.

The only people directly hurt are new buyers.

 

[Epona]

First things first.

I dont apprisiate being called ignorant. Now you might say you didn't call me ignorant, but you did call the group of people who allow this to happen. I am in that group. I am ok with not being able to sell my games, because I have never wanted to do so. I get the amount of entertainment I want for the 60$ (its more like 100$ here, but we use the "common" number for better comparison). I got a good deal. That you need to be able to resell to make it it a good deal for you, has no effect on me. It does not make me ignorant.

Now on the right on ownership I already made a post here

Well look, I didn't call you ignorant, much as you said. I am referring to those who simply have no clue on the negative impact of their actions with my cited examples. You clearly are not ignorant because you have been made abundantly aware of the negative impacts of the choices your defending and such is your right to do so.

If you happen to be one who does not feel effected by this does not mean that defending it is any less defending the publishers ability to eliminate lawful competition because despite claims made to the contrary used games DO have a right to exist as do all forms of second hand sales. That is why laws exist to protect that because NO organization likes having to compete for profits.

This has been approached from too many angles now To continue to explain it further would be a fruitless task. You've been presented with the explanations. You will either modify your line of thinking or you will reject those notions presented.
______________________________________________________

Online passes don't hurt Gamestop, they simply give the seller $10 less and sell the game for $10 less or they buy the pass to give to the used buyer. In the end, the only people hurt by online passes are those who buy new.

Well see Online passes only exist so as to hurt and eliminate used sales all together. So Im not certain on how it can be seen that Online passes don't hurt gamestop as the online passes are currently structured to mirror the specific difference in value between a new and used copy. Without that benefit for buying used, there is no reason to buy used and no reason to sell a game.

I bring up gamestop only because they truly have the ability to eliminate this. All they have to do is exactly the same thing the publishers are attempting to do. Devalue the opposing product. Granted in gamestops instance they CAN do it. However in order to do it they would have to take a temporary financial hit until the message has been made clear and the online pass thing is eliminated.

The thing is

When you say "Used games have a right to exists" You say that you have a right to buy the product. Used games cannot exists without ownership of them. And I am against that because that goes against the idea of ownership. I have no "Right to buy", the owner has a right to sell. That's it. I believe in ownership. Yours and the publishers equally. If they sell it to you, you have a right to sell it. But if they dont sell it to you then they don't. I am not going to put ones right of ownership over another and say they cant do what they want with their property.

More importantly you cannot complain about the quality of the product to the original owner when the owner has changed. People like to draw the comparison to cars. You cannot go in and complain that there is a feature missing from you used car (car was sold with a full tank of gas) to the original salesman. Why do you apply this logic here?

If the car manufacturer had deliberately crippled the car then yes, you could complain about it.

The wear and tear on a used car are caused by the original owner, not the manufacturer. In the case of games, if you buy a game without the manual and original case, well, that's wear and tear caused by the original owner, not the publisher. What is going on here is similar to Ford coming and ripping the air conditioner out when you resell the car and then offering to sell the air conditioner back to the new owner. Would it be ok if Ford did that?

 

[Epona]

If the car manufacturer had deliberately crippled the car then yes, you could complain about it.

The wear and tear on a used car are caused by the original owner, not the manufacturer. In the case of games, if you buy a game without the manual and original case, well, that's wear and tear caused by the original owner, not the publisher. What is going on here is similar to Ford coming and ripping the air conditioner out when you resell the car and then offering to sell the air conditioner back to the new owner. Would it be ok if Ford did that?

No.

Its more like it was sold with a 2 year insurance policy. Or a one time full service check. Or one free rust protection. Needed things but good only ones.

And I would be ok with that. And I am betting so would you. The publisher doesn't remove value. They sell it at full value and you expect to get it at that value.

Are you really going to say a full service check or rust protection is 10% of the cost of a new car? 2 years of insurance, that's not realistic. I have never heard of a car company paying for your auto insurance.

 

[Epona]

If the car manufacturer had deliberately crippled the car then yes, you could complain about it.

The wear and tear on a used car are caused by the original owner, not the manufacturer. In the case of games, if you buy a game without the manual and original case, well, that's wear and tear caused by the original owner, not the publisher. What is going on here is similar to Ford coming and ripping the air conditioner out when you resell the car and then offering to sell the air conditioner back to the new owner. Would it be ok if Ford did that?

No.

Its more like it was sold with a 2 year insurance policy. Or a one time full service check. Or one free rust protection. Needed things but good only ones.

And I would be ok with that. And I am betting so would you. The publisher doesn't remove value. They sell it at full value and you expect to get it at that value.

Are you really going to say a full service check or rust protection is 10% of the cost of a new car? 2 years of insurance, that's not realistic. I have never heard of a car company paying for your auto insurance.

In Denmark you can often buy a car new and get an insurance that would cost a 5th of what you would have to pay for it had it been new (depending on your age, but if you are young its in that area). I did the math and it is more profitable for me to buy a car new than used if I am going to be driving for about 10 years.

But may have misunderstood you. I thought it was the principal you were against and not the details. If its the value compared to the product would you say that that Zaeed was alright? If so then I completely misunderstood. I thought it was the principal and not the value of the extra that was the problem.

I live in the US, I can't speak for Denmark.

 

[DracoSuave]

-snip-

Now rather than going into your arguments one by one, ill just stick with this.

You have the fundamental right to sell crap that you own.

If you truely believe this then you have no problem with the online passes. You know why?
Because they own the game!
You have not bought it.

Really? I want you to take every single game you own, every single one, and I want you to find where on the packaging it says you are not purchasing a product. Show me where it indicates that the contract of sale you are entering into is in any way different than any other contract of sale, for any other media, including video or music.

And they can do whatever they want with it. They can rent it to you or throw it in a river. They can give it to people and sell it to others. Its theirs.

Except, that's not part of the deal. Once you've paid money for it, you've bought it. They don't get to say after the sale that you have not bought it. In order for this to be valid, it has to be in the presale contract, or clearly communicated to the buyer presale.

Anything written on materials that you only have access to post sale is not a legal contract towards the sale.

You do not have a right to buy it. They have a right to sell it.

Practise as you preach.

And once you have bought it, it is yours, and YOU have a right to sell it. They give up ownership rights by selling it to you. They don't keep the rights to sell it. If they do, they must communicate the terms of the agreement before sale.

If you wish to make your ludicrous point, you are going to require evidence and said evidence is lacking. I've seen many hundreds of videogame cases over the years, and not a single one has ever included this fictitious 'they sell it but still own it' crap you mention.

This idea they are only selling media? Again, ludicrous. Copies of software are owned by the buyers of those copies. Paper you get after point of sale is not part of the sales contract and is therefore irrelevant.

 

[Monkey_Warfare]

Meh, steam sales are generally cheaper than used so what do i care? If it bugs you that much either a: don't buy it or b: pirate it c: play it on a mates account.

 

[UnderCoverGuest]

I said all this stuff blah blah blah.

Yes you might not get the companion CD [...] you do have to admit it's kind of a dick move to advertise her involvement then reveal the online pass thing. They could have at least revealed that first.

Yeah..that's pretty darned true. Still, got to remember, businesses, companies etcetera--economics is about numbers. They may be dicks, but often time being a dick yields better numbers.

...not that Rocksteady and the other developers are dicks, no way--they make an awesome game...hmm, where was I going with this...anywho, you're right. Oh, but, yeah, maybe they hadn't come to the decision yet, ya' know? Maybe they were still discussing it when they made those videos and stuff with playable catwoman and such, and only came to a decision afterwards. I dunno, blah blah, I'm gonna go back to making dinner. Yum yum.

 

[AzraelSteel]

Really? I want you to take every single game you own, every single one, and I want you to find where on the packaging it says you are not purchasing a product. Show me where it indicates that the contract of sale you are entering into is in any way different than any other contract of sale, for any other media, including video or music.

Thought I'd try this, and of course the first game I looked at was a PC game which did actually say those things, but I suppose that's not a good example. I assume, though, that the typical PC user agreement is where the belief stems from, though. That assumption, which typically has been not true of console games, I think is the source of the belief that a publisher can pull things like this on their customer.

As a related note, Arkham City was something I was looking forward to before this. But since I was going to borrow a friend's copy, I'm not sure I want to play a truncated experience. I never had a problem with the Online Pass before (mostly because it seemed to be more of a multiplayer part, which the publisher has typically had more say in), but this feels really dirty to me. I get that without a substantive multiplayer portion, this is the only way they can get it in there, but I'm not sure shoe-horning an online pass into every game is really a way of building any sort of long-term loyalty as a business goal. But I suppose most companies aren't really looking long-term anymore. Sigh.

 

[Koroviev]

I'd rather spend my money on Dark Souls. Arkham City looks interesting, but at this point, it is going to be a Red Box marathon at best.

 

[Low Key]

See, it's this kind of shit that is getting me out of gaming. I buy a 360 three years ago, barely play it. I build a gaming computer this February, only have one game for it. It's almost as if companies like Warner Bros. want to piss people off, you know, just for kicks. Why not, right? Fuck the customer. I wish I could treat customers like that at my job and not only keep it, but see massive profits.

 

[Low Key]

See, it's this kind of shit that is getting me out of gaming. I buy a 360 three years ago, barely play it. I build a gaming computer this February, only have one game for it. It's almost as if companies like Warner Bros. want to piss people off, you know, just for kicks. Why not, right? Fuck the customer. I wish I could treat customers like that at my job and not only keep it, but see massive profits.

If you only have a single game for a gaming computer you have been doing something horribly wrong.

I have bought atleast 12 games in the same time frame as you, all new on my PC, without paying as much as a brand new console game.

Good for you. Irrelevant.

But the way I see it, I just laugh this off, seeing all the rage over having to input a code for a single character! ZOMG! its like watching my little cousins complain about the fact that they have to pull weeds for a day before their parents will buy them each a game.

Probably one of the worst analogies I have seen on this site. Pat yourself on the back.

This thread is about game companies killing off the used games market and charging people unjustly, not a funding issue or the difficulty of entering a code. I assure you, both my fund making and code entering skills are excellent.

Try having to put in the code for 100% of the single player game like PC gamers. I will smile when developers realize that they can do that with consoles as well and just make console gaming the same as PC gaming has been for years.

Most PC gamers buy their stuff digitally. As far as I know, you don't need any code when doing that. Who knows though? Maybe Steam is completely different from when I bought that one and only game a couple months ago.

 

[gphjr14]

As Jimquistion said in one of his recent videos this type of system isn't as bad considering its just part of the game and not a core piece of the story. It's a way of rewarding people who pay full price while not fully alienating those who may not have enough money or just chose not to get this brand new.

The game is worth getting brand new so I'm getting it if its something like MW 2.5 err I mean MW3 I'll wait for it to go down since its more of the same with a $60 price tag.