EA's Strategy to Counter Used Games Sales

[greenmedic88]

If anything, the used game market speaks more for the advantages of standardized console platforms rather than the other way around.

You can't do rental services with PC games due to no one set standard. Each game literally has its own minimum and recommended hardware requirements, and virtually all games are installed to run off HDD with DRM measures to keep everyone from installing the game on as many PCs as they want.

Consoles being based off one fixed standard simply means all game playing devices are functionally identical. Installs, when used, aren't security measures. There is no current way to bind a copy of a game to one user account or console, making it ideal for the purpose of exchanging (whether by trade or sale) purchased copies of games.

That's the reason why there is a used game market, or rental services for that matter. Because it's a viable trade. Not because they drive new game sales.

The relative success of XBLA and PSN DD titles also fly in the face of the notion that gamers/consumers won't buy new games they can't resell.

It's really only the console gamers who are hardwired into the infinite loop of buying new games (or new releases "discounted" for $5 at GS used) and shortly trading them in for credit who would have serious issued with publishers offering extra content vouchers (bound to individual accounts).

But as long as they don't do something stupid like make the ending of the game or any main part of a game available as "extra content" there isn't a real problem. You want the extra content, buy a new copy. You don't want to pay $60? Wait for a sale or for the price to go down. You want it immediately upon release, with extra content and discounted at a used price? Sorry, but can't always have it all. Take advantage of new game sales instead (Amazon typically knocks $5 off the price of all new games for example).

Frankly, I don't think publishers would particularly care if gamers who always buy used copies would take their money and spend it on someone else's used game in protest since the only one who sees any benefit from that sale is the retail outlet.