No it isn't.

People aren't in the minority about being pissed off because of the BP spill. However they are powerless in terms of doing anything about it in most cases as they aren't usually the direct consumers of BP fuel. People who were against child labour have had that practice stopped. People can A. Buy B. Not buy the product. Noones rights are being infringed its just a change in the terms of sale.

Its just stupid? Thats just incredibly poor logic.

Such as? What special priviledges do they have?

Does it hurt the buyer? I don't believe it would hurt buyer. It helps used buyers in two ways, the first being a lower cost for those uninterested in online play. Thats a significant proportion of the market and especially the used market becaused multiplayer can be time sensitive with people wanting to play with their friends whilst they are all still interested in the title. The second is that it allows the purchaser to graduate his/her level of interest rather than paying the whole single multiplayer cost at once whether both features are desired or not.

Does it hurt the seller in the used market? Yes definately. However it would only in effect be a few dollars in real trade in values as the Gamestop trade value reflects the long term discounted cost price where features like multiplayer are less valuable. In the short term given Gamestops large margins they would be take the majority of the hit as they could not sell the game for $50-55 as is typical but for a lesser amount such as $40-45 depending on loyalty card.

When sales go down they will keep their plan? No that doesn't logically make sense. Given the fact that its tendency is to increase, therefore they must have had some success in an industry sense or more publishers wouldn't be adopting this tactic.

I personally don't see its relevance. EA are not preventing the sale of used goods, they are simply incentivising the sale of new goods in the initial sale period and beyond that they are monetising some of the sale of the used goods.

Your quoting didn't really work here, and I don't feel like deconstructing it.

In anycase for the last part.... it's completely relvent.

They ARE damaging the used sales.  By making the product be bought back for less and making the used costs be exactly the same to the consumer.  So Gamestop charges 10 dollars less, and offers less money to the people trading it in.

That in turn means less people are willing to trade games in.  Which means less people are willing to buy games... which hurts.  Any attempt to hamper the used market hurts.

All this is going to do is depress the value of used games, both trade in value and resale value.  Gamestop is going to keep the same margin, they are just going to buy and sell these games for less than before.  It is going to hurt gamers who finance their gaming by selling games.  It is also going to hurt publishers because it is going to push the shelf price of a used game even lower, making it more attractive.

They must have had some success for other publishers to adopt this?  No, this policy hasn't even gone into effect yet.  It starts with their 2011 sports line which hasn't even been released yet, so any publisher copying this is doing it blind.

Great work EA.

Every publisher should do that.

Play`N`Trade bases the purchase of a used game by inventory. So actually their prices ARE NOT based on GameStop's pricing. So it doesnt matter if you were trading a brand new game that was just released. If they have dozens of copies, they will pay you less then the last person who traded it in.

I think you missed the point.  Whatever EA's sport games used to be worth is going to be decreased by around $10.  You will see them on the shelf for around $10 less, and the trade in value is going to be around $10 less.  It doesn't matter what Play 'N' Trade bases their prices on, they are going to have to come down from what they are now if they want to be able to move inventory and make money.

No one will be able to charge the same prices after EA slaps a $10 fee onto used games to be able to play multiplayer.  Games where multiplayer is very important to gamers will see their used value fall very close to the $10, games where multiplayer is not very important to gamers will see their used value fall less.

Gamestop prices games at a long term discounted rate so it wouldn't effect the long term pricing of the used games significantly. Thats why they pay $25 for a $60 game. Gamestop doesn't have perfect market power and the ability to pass all of the costs onto the used game seller so they will take some/most of the hit, any economist would tell you this. If the used seller loses then the used buyer can win and its a balance between these two factors however if the price comes down then the demand goes up so the overall value lost on the used market is not the full $10 but a balanced market rate taking into consideration supply/demand.

Publishers aren't going to do anything which they believe will hurt their own interests. They are apt to experiment however and it appears the experiment has paid off given the fact that exclusive DLC for new buyers has been used in the past and this is an extension upon an already apparantly successful model.

Why wouldn't they drop that long term discounted rate?

I posted this in another thread about this issue (http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=110650):

I'm with the support of Online Game Passes completely. The USED GAME MARKET is a BLIGHT ON THE GAME INDUSTRY. I know that many gamers will feel the opposite, but if you are going to buy the game with intent to support the industry. Make sure you actually supporting the developers. This Used Market only supports retail and it makes retail more money that new. Retail get's a bigger cut on used games than new games.

If your only going to buy the game for personal consumer intent. Then to the developers you might as well committed piracy. They don't see a cent in either situation. Though you are still supporting the economy in terms of paying some ones wage.

So if a developer/publisher want's money and are disgusted with used games. Then this is a perfect alternative. I suspect though that this will lower the value of used Online Pass Games at Retail Stores by apx$10 when gamers fully catch on and don't buy them used.

Anyone thinking that a back pedal of publishers will happen eventually from the out cry of gamers.. it won't. This model is not new. It's been out for around some odd years in the PC world. You Console Kids need to give it a rest. You can't have it both ways. You can't have PC Online service design that's 15 years old(claiming it's console originated) then bitch about PC service charges. It's a service charge that's it. Get used to it.

What are you talking about?

This isn't a PC model of buisness.  EA sports games are free on PC.  Any system with online like that is free on PC.  I mean, have you ever played a PC game?

I mean are you talking about MMORPGs?  MMORPGS are totally different stories because of the vast amount of stuff that needs to be stored on a server.

Games like this are FREE on PC... and probably will only cost money when stupid shit like this from consoles pollutes PC.  You know... just like everything else does.

Aside from the fact that once again... the Used market HELPS the New market.  Feel free to read the article i've already posted twice in this thread... it's basic economic fact.

By supporting this you are merely supporting companies like EA shooting themselves in the foot and losing revenue.