EA's Strategy to Counter Used Games Sales

[Kasz216]

Words Of Wisdom said:

strunge said:

Words Of Wisdom said:

Exactly.

If you ask for a chicken sandwich I give you a chicken sandwich without the chicken and then turn around to give you the chicken fillet on the side then am I giving you a gift or what you should have gotten in the first place?

that's the most ridiculous argument I've ever read and lacks any semblance of logic or intelligence. a chicken sandwhich inherently requires chicken, so it can't be a chicken sandwhich if you do not provide it at all, whereas a video game is still a game specific additional content. 

 

the intelligent example is offering additional chicken on the side for the sandwhich at an extra price, which most places do.  subway calls it double meat.  but the sandwhch still contains the approved portion of meat to begin with, which is what you should get to begin with.  the extra meat, like extra video game content, does not fall into that criteria, even if it is additionally withheld for DLC later.  the official game is only what is released, not every idea that was conceived in development.

 

you really should be embarrased for not grasping that simple difference.  I mean, it would be hysterical if it wasn't so sad that you don't.  

Easy there killer.  I used an imperfect analogy, I didn't murder your pet gerbil (that was Galaki).

Now, let's look at your analogy of the Subway sandwich.  Subway's staff is (modestly) trained to put specific portions of food on the sandwich.  There are set numbers of slices of meat, cheese, and the like that they are required to put on.  You only get so many meatballs, not more and not less.  Essentially you know what the final product will be.  However, a game is different.  There's no functionality that you're guaranteed to have, no definitive limit on what the content must include.  The final product is what you get in the box.

That's the way it's always worked or always used to anyway.  However, new things came along such as DLC and microtransactions which force gamers and developers to reconsider what constitutes a "complete" game and what should be in the final product.  Microtransactions enrage gamers because we know the content is there.  It was available at release and was specifically chosen to be withheld.  They are deliberately not giving it to us.  By locking away those elements of the game and pricing them, they have essentially increased the price of the "complete" game.  Sneaky way to backdoor a price increase if you ask me.

DLC is a little murkier.  If the DLC is done before the game is released or shipped, then we look at it and have to ask "Why didn't you include it with the game?"  At that point, it's no different than a microtransaction in that it's content being withheld from the gamer.  If it was developed and released long after release then it's akin to an expansion pack of old.  Maybe it's cheaper and smaller, but it's something a PC gamer can relate to and that's okay.  The murky part comes in when you have DLC that is available "soon" after release.  If they held the release of the game for a week, could the content have made it in? 2 weeks? 

Obviously the cut-off is different by the person.  A company could release DLC the next day post-release and Akvod might kiss their feet and thank them.  I'd just call them bastards because my tolerance for that is less than some others.

However, what EA is doing is a little different than what Kasz and I were griping about.  What we were talking about is timed DLC but what EA is doing now isn't really about DLC or about countering used game sales.  I'm guessing it's about pushing EA's profile service.  Really, the little slip of DLC paper in the box could be sold with the copy so gamers looking to buy used can still get it that way.  The point of locking away that content from the gamer while still making it free with every purchase is more likely to be getting them to sign up to the EA profile service.  There's very few carrots that hook people quite as well as the promise of "free" stuff and with the recent release of Mass Effect 2, it's very clear to me that EA is going to be driving their service in the future.  Can't say to where but they're going for something and this is their way of getting a foot in the door to a lot of people.

More or less puts what I was going to say well.