PSN Pass Makes Uncharted 3's Online Content Possible, Says Dev

[chadachada123]

How can you justify gambling on a used game for $55 when you can go to Target, or Walmart, or any of the many other stores that sell video games, and find it for $50 or less brand-new?

I don't see desperation in people buying used games so close to release. I just see stupid people making stupid decisions.

I am not seeing the gambling part here. If there are two identical copies of a game and one costs less I am going to buy the one that costs less. There is no gambling involved because if something is wrong with the game or it breaks I can just return it. If the game costs $55 used somewhere then a brand new copy will not cost less at a place like target or walmart.

The gambling can be from having to buy the extra pass if the original owner already used it, yada yada. Your used copy may also work at first and then crap out past the return date.

That's not the main thing, though, and my use of the word "gamble" was light.

You are completely wrong about the pricing, though. I work at Target and have seen brand new games on sale for $40 a week after release, with used prices at Gamestop still $55. Perhaps you've simply never been to Target before, but they have great sales for some of their games fresh out of the gate. The week of the release of Dark Souls, you got a $10 giftcard for buying it. Brink went on sale the week after its release for, if I recall correctly, $50. Portal 2 went on sale for $40 the week after its release.

So, yeah, I won't call you an idiot, just hugely misinformed about pricing.

 

[Electric Alpaca]

Doubled up, singled down

 

[vivster]

That's the most stupid thing i've ever heard. Someone buying a used game doesn't create a new player online it just replaces an old one.

an old one who wouldn't be online anymore thus not costing the company anymore money
the new player creates costs where there wouldn't be any

But the multiplayer has still been bought and payed for by the original buyer.

he paid his time on the server not yours
or do you try to get with used movie tickets into the cinema claiming that the other guy already paid for you?

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

In other words, "we're screwing over our customers with a defective product."

not correct at all since used buyers are not their customers
their customers are getting a fully functional game(where you have to spend 10 seconds to type a code)

actually i'm a bit surprised about this negative reaction
sure it's cool now to bash Sony and EA but i thought of naughty dog as a fairly likable publisher that people would forgive
seems i erred on that

If I buy the game, I am the customer. And the product is defective. For starters, the online code business robs the game of some it's resale value. I can't loan it to a friend or give it away to my brother. At least, not in a fully functional state, and that's a load of horse hockey. And when man-bear-pig bricks my console and steals my account, I'll be left with half a product. I don't even participate in the second hand market, and this garbage prevents me from doing what I want with the product that I paid for. It's a defect, albeit an intentional one, and I will definitely think twice before purchasing any defective product.

wrong again
the customer bought a fully functioning game from the publisher
and then sold a defective product to you because he already used up a portion of a game
you are not the customer since you didn't pay squat to the people who produced this product
that's not the fault of the game company but the fault of your seller who made a functioning product less valuable by giving it away
it's not the company's fault if your seller scratched the disc before selling it to you

the developers and publisher do not intend it to be sold again so why should they give a shit about resell value?
the used game market has just been tolerated by the companies and then became an accepted concept and a given by consumers
that doesn't make it right or anything

welcome to capitalism
if you can't afford a new game you can't afford a new game
you neither have a right nor the obligation to own a certain game

I personally don't buy anything second hand, remember? I am the original customer. And the product is not fully functioning even for the first purchaser, for reasons I have already described. The only portion of the game that is 'used up' is the ridiculous online pass, which is what we're here to talk about. For those who buy second hand, it is directly the fault of the publisher and developer that it no longer functions completely. We can argue if that is a good thing or bad, but that is who implements the online pass and that is what it does. You seem to be placing responsibility for the online pass on the head of the original purchaser, which is way off.

I know developers don't give a shit about resale value. So what? I'm the one who cares. Me.

There are used markets for everything, and it's even codified in law that I can sell what I legally own. Game publishers simply find themselves uniquely positioned to influence my ability to sell what I own because of the nature of the product.

"Welcome to capitalism" is meaningless. I could construe my argument as pro capitalist and it would be just as empty. Lets just move past it. I can afford new games. I only buy new. And I have no idea what rights and obligations have to do with any of this.

 

[sindremaster]

That's the most stupid thing i've ever heard. Someone buying a used game doesn't create a new player online it just replaces an old one.

an old one who wouldn't be online anymore thus not costing the company anymore money
the new player creates costs where there wouldn't be any

But the multiplayer has still been bought and payed for by the original buyer.

he paid his time on the server not yours

If I buy the game new, and play the multiplayer for a year, and a friend of mine buys the game and sells it after six months to someone else who plays it for six months, why should they get more money when my friend already paid the same as I did?

or do you try to get with used movie tickets into the cinema claiming that the other guy already paid for you?

Have you ever bought a used car? a used movie? anything used? Why should videogames be any different? Sorry but a used movie ticket is not the same as a used game.

 

[chadachada123]

snip

Fair enough, I tend to forget that non-Americans frequent this site often as well, unless some indicator is given (like that Australians tend to put AUD in their pricing).

Sorry for the hostility, but yeah, pricing here in the states can be random at best, with gamers buying mostly exclusively from Gamestop or Best Buy, and family-members/relatives buying from Walmart, etc, without any comparisons between the two for pricing. At least, in my part of the US.

 

[chadachada123]

snip

Professional reviews can grossly differ from purchaser opinion, you know.

On top of that, how good a game is for its first playthrough does not guarantee longevity, which would be a reason to sell the game to someone else.

If a game is really good, and stays really good, few people are going to sell it. Like Super Smash Bros, for example. You'll rarely see those being sold used (even in the times closer to the release of them), and those that sold it are probably just shitty gamers. An exception being Yahtzee and other single-player gamers, but whatever.

 

[chadachada123]

That's the most stupid thing i've ever heard. Someone buying a used game doesn't create a new player online it just replaces an old one.

an old one who wouldn't be online anymore thus not costing the company anymore money
the new player creates costs where there wouldn't be any

But the multiplayer has still been bought and payed for by the original buyer.

he paid his time on the server not yours
or do you try to get with used movie tickets into the cinema claiming that the other guy already paid for you?

I go to a theater and buy a ticket. I go in and watch half of the movie, then walk out and sell my ticket to someone else, who goes in and enjoys the rest of the movie, with me no longer enjoying that movie.

If we're gonna use shitty analogies, at least be consistent with them. Selling a game to someone else is just a transfer of resources, NOT a use of additional resources. The seat in that theater does not cost extra if the first person gives the ticket away; it'll cost the same.

 

[Epona]

Translation: We want to make people who buy used pay us. Either $10 for the pass or $60 for the game. They'll have two choices, since they didn't like the game enough (or didn't have enough money) to get it new: Pay extra, or Don't buy it.

They can't show numbers and magically say "These are the people who wouldn't have bought the game, but did/didn't", this online pass is desperation of the worst kind.

Buying used within the first 4-5 months of the game being released is desperation of the worst kind. You know, that window where it's still only $5 cheaper than the new product, and the new product has gone on sale multiple times at other retailers, but people will still ***** at publishers, because they're lazy and can't be assed to find sales.

If the game was that good, no one would get rid of it.

Bullshit.

Tactics like this make me want to buy used even if I am only saving $10 (the Edge card) because I don't want to encourage this kind of nonsense from publishers. So when your tactics to fight something actually help that which you are fighting, is that bad?

 

[chadachada123]

snip

Professional reviews can grossly differ from purchaser opinion, you know.

On top of that, how good a game is for its first playthrough does not guarantee longevity, which would be a reason to sell the game to someone else.

If a game is really good, and stays really good, few people are going to sell it. Like Super Smash Bros, for example. You'll rarely see those being sold used (even in the times closer to the release of them), and those that sold it are probably just shitty gamers. An exception being Yahtzee and other single-player gamers, but whatever.

Even if that were true (and it bloody isn't, there are a metric fucktonne of used copies of Brawl floating around, and Melee is the easiest preowned Gamecube game to get your hands on), but even if, all that prooves is that fighting games tend not to be traded in, Whereas if you didn't notice, Uncharted 3 is not a fighting game. ITs easy to miss, considering the hand to hand combat alone for Uncharted 3 has had more care and balance put into it than the entire Smash Brothers franchise, but I assure you its not the same genre and therefore isn't bloody compatable.

I think I was basing whether or not pre-owned copies exist on the fact that me and everyone else I know that has a gamecube owns Melee. Any (most) pre-owns are from people selling the console as well.

In any event, the genre of the game means nothing here. If it has replay value, it won't be sold to Gamestop very often. Additionally, quit treating this game like it's the goddamn messiah of gaming, eesh. We shall see, from the number of used copies, if the game has any replay value or is a one-trick pony that'd be good for a rental at best.

 

[Epona]

Wait no... because if that's true then Naughtydog would only be able to run online if people do actually buy Preowned games...otherwise they wouldn't be gaining any extra money than they would with normal sales.

Basically then if no one buys preowned then they wouldn't have the extra preowned online pass money to run muliplayer.

Very true! Just another "oh we shot ourselves in the foot" moment for the publishers.

 

[Epona]

Translation: We want to make people who buy used pay us. Either $10 for the pass or $60 for the game. They'll have two choices, since they didn't like the game enough (or didn't have enough money) to get it new: Pay extra, or Don't buy it.

They can't show numbers and magically say "These are the people who wouldn't have bought the game, but did/didn't", this online pass is desperation of the worst kind.

Buying used within the first 4-5 months of the game being released is desperation of the worst kind. You know, that window where it's still only $5 cheaper than the new product, and the new product has gone on sale multiple times at other retailers, but people will still ***** at publishers, because they're lazy and can't be assed to find sales.

If the game was that good, no one would get rid of it.

Bullshit.

Tactics like this make me want to buy used even if I am only saving $10 (the Edge card) because I don't want to encourage this kind of nonsense from publishers. So when your tactics to fight something actually help that which you are fighting, is that bad?

Considering the person likely to say this is a crazy vindictive person who will do something like this and deprive themselves of content out of pure spite, they likely realise they can't win with you, and gave up trying to satisfy you, as you won't allow yourself to be satisfied.

Deprive myself of content? Where do you get this idea? I can buy it used, with the online pass intact for less and give no more than $10 to publishers who want to be overly greedy and lie to me about it.

 

[Epona]

How can you justify gambling on a used game for $55 when you can go to Target, or Walmart, or any of the many other stores that sell video games, and find it for $50 or less brand-new?

I don't see desperation in people buying used games so close to release. I just see stupid people making stupid decisions.

I am not seeing the gambling part here. If there are two identical copies of a game and one costs less I am going to buy the one that costs less. There is no gambling involved because if something is wrong with the game or it breaks I can just return it. If the game costs $55 used somewhere then a brand new copy will not cost less at a place like target or walmart.

The gambling can be from having to buy the extra pass if the original owner already used it, yada yada. Your used copy may also work at first and then crap out past the return date.

That's not the main thing, though, and my use of the word "gamble" was light.

You are completely wrong about the pricing, though. I work at Target and have seen brand new games on sale for $40 a week after release, with used prices at Gamestop still $55. Perhaps you've simply never been to Target before, but they have great sales for some of their games fresh out of the gate. The week of the release of Dark Souls, you got a $10 giftcard for buying it. Brink went on sale the week after its release for, if I recall correctly, $50. Portal 2 went on sale for $40 the week after its release.

So, yeah, I won't call you an idiot, just hugely misinformed about pricing.

Sales =/= regular, every day price.

Some games will be on sale sometimes but all games will not always be on sale, that's why it's a sale and not regular price. People waiting for a game to go on sale are wasting their time because that game may never go on sale.

In other words, you can't compare regular prices to sale prices because sales prices are not dependable.

 

[chadachada123]

snip

Professional reviews can grossly differ from purchaser opinion, you know.

On top of that, how good a game is for its first playthrough does not guarantee longevity, which would be a reason to sell the game to someone else.

If a game is really good, and stays really good, few people are going to sell it. Like Super Smash Bros, for example. You'll rarely see those being sold used (even in the times closer to the release of them), and those that sold it are probably just shitty gamers. An exception being Yahtzee and other single-player gamers, but whatever.

Even if that were true (and it bloody isn't, there are a metric fucktonne of used copies of Brawl floating around, and Melee is the easiest preowned Gamecube game to get your hands on), but even if, all that prooves is that fighting games tend not to be traded in, Whereas if you didn't notice, Uncharted 3 is not a fighting game. ITs easy to miss, considering the hand to hand combat alone for Uncharted 3 has had more care and balance put into it than the entire Smash Brothers franchise, but I assure you its not the same genre and therefore isn't bloody compatable.

I think I was basing whether or not pre-owned copies exist on the fact that me and everyone else I know that has a gamecube owns Melee. Any (most) pre-owns are from people selling the console as well.

In any event, the genre of the game means nothing here. If it has replay value, it won't be sold to Gamestop very often. Additionally, quit treating this game like it's the goddamn messiah of gaming, eesh. We shall see, from the number of used copies, if the game has any replay value or is a one-trick pony that'd be good for a rental at best.

We all saw that Uncharted 2 had incredible replay value and was unbelievably good, yet there are still preowned copies around. Same with Batman Arkham Asylum, and every fucking game released this generation or last. I'm curious, what is this hypothetical game with so much replay value that it proves your theory is anything other than a complete failure and in no way connected to any reality.

You are using circular reasoning. You say that games with little replay value get traded in. How can you tell which one has little replay value? They get traded in. What is that? Thats textbook circular reasoning, the crowning awful logic.

I'm not using circular reasoning, because my logic for trading in games is THAT they have little replay value. I'm basing data on my own personal experiences, since I have NOTHING ELSE to base it off of.

Likewise, you have nothing to base your own assertions on, and while it is slightly fallacious of me to assert that the plural of anecdotal evidence (that is, that the only reason that I would trade in a game is if it no longer has replay value) is data, my argument itself is not circular in basis. However, you bring nothing to the table with your arguments.

In any event, I think that Uncharted 2 was complete crap, making your argument against my own just as moot.

Also, you seemed to have FAILED to read one of my earlier points, that a person that traded in Melee/Brawl was a shitty gamer. Similarly, perhaps to you, a person that would trade in Uncharted 2 is a shitty gamer. If the game had replay value, though, people that bought it AND LIKED IT would not trade it in.

Thus, we can base the replay value of a game off of the percentage that is traded in, but I did forget to include that the number would be skewed by people that simply didn't like the game, something that has little to do with how good the game itself was, only the audience that it caters to.

*Edit for grammar*

 

[chadachada123]

How can you justify gambling on a used game for $55 when you can go to Target, or Walmart, or any of the many other stores that sell video games, and find it for $50 or less brand-new?

I don't see desperation in people buying used games so close to release. I just see stupid people making stupid decisions.

I am not seeing the gambling part here. If there are two identical copies of a game and one costs less I am going to buy the one that costs less. There is no gambling involved because if something is wrong with the game or it breaks I can just return it. If the game costs $55 used somewhere then a brand new copy will not cost less at a place like target or walmart.

The gambling can be from having to buy the extra pass if the original owner already used it, yada yada. Your used copy may also work at first and then crap out past the return date.

That's not the main thing, though, and my use of the word "gamble" was light.

You are completely wrong about the pricing, though. I work at Target and have seen brand new games on sale for $40 a week after release, with used prices at Gamestop still $55. Perhaps you've simply never been to Target before, but they have great sales for some of their games fresh out of the gate. The week of the release of Dark Souls, you got a $10 giftcard for buying it. Brink went on sale the week after its release for, if I recall correctly, $50. Portal 2 went on sale for $40 the week after its release.

So, yeah, I won't call you an idiot, just hugely misinformed about pricing.

Sales =/= regular, every day price.

Some games will be on sale sometimes but all games will not always be on sale, that's why it's a sale and not regular price. People waiting for a game to go on sale are wasting their time because that game may never go on sale.

The thing, though, is that every major title I've seen for sale at Target HAS gone on sale, generally right after release. The point being that, before spending $5 less to get a used copy, it would be smart to look around other stores first, since there is likely one on sale at another store.

I'm not arguing to wait for sales, only to check around before deciding on the $55 used version over the $60 new one.