EA'S online passes suck! Dont buy their new games!!!

[dunno001]

Kasz216 said:

dunno001 said:

Well, I can't say I'm a huge fan of the idea, but I can't say I'm against it, either. I understand that the publisher can still incur costs from a used game that continues to circulate. I also saw the string on movies vs games. The thing there, is that once you have a movie, you own it, and it has no further burden on the company who made it. They may have lost the sale, sure, but you're not using their resources. However, a used game with online is different. Companies expect that interest, with sales, will wane over time. But, the used market keeps the interest on the game higher for longer. Single player has no burden to the company, but you're not paying the fee for that. What you are paying is the fee to play online. The company makes less money than a new game sale, but this money is used to pay for the servers with the increased interest in the game. I see it as a similar, but better, concept than an MMO. You're using the MMOs servers, so you pay a monthly fee. Likewise, on Madden 11, you're using EAs servers. Buying the game new means you have paid for your use of the server. Both have the trait of if you sell it, the other person needs to pay again to play online. Madden 11, in this case, would be a pay once, versus the monthly MMO fee. And if you don't care about online? Then you don't need it! I personally like the options this opens up, myself, though I kinda don't like the pay twice concept. I do see where it comes from, though, why it's needed and why, ultimately, it may be a good thing for gaming.

That doesn't make any sense at all.  Here is why.

If I kept my copy of Halo 3.  I'm playing Halo 3 online.

If I sell my copy of Hao 3... someone else is playing Halo 3 online.

In otherwords... the online costs for 1 person playing online at any time are ALREADY in the original purchase.  A used sale effects that in no way.

Now if PC games started selling for 40 and had a 10 dollar online pass to stop piracy... you'd have a point.  Even then you'd need a system to allow trasfers of code if you sell your game.

Part of what is factored by the company is that people will lose interest in the game as time goes on. They know that there will always be a few people who will play it to the end, but that number is significantly less than the number of players in its prime. What the resale market is doing, is creating more interest in playing online longer, on more copies than originally planned for. Lemme use some numbers:

Game X is expected to have 80% of its players online for the first year. Expected dropoff is 50% of the remaining userbase every year. This will give you the following pattern:

80 - 40 - 20 - 10 - 5

And this is the pattern they budget for. However, used game sales introduce the game to more people at later dates, without increased revenue from the new sales. So, in this example, I'll say that the trailoff is 25%, not 50%. That would give this number pattern:

80 - 60 - 45 - ~34 - ~25 (Tildes indicate rounded to the nearest whole number.)

Notice that in year 3, the load is more than double expected, and in year 5, when things should be winding down, the load is a whopping 5 times more than anticipated! This is where the loss comes from. Of course, these are just sample numbers, not indicative of actual game numbers, but the used games do keep more interest for online on more copies for longer.