I guess you never played the Sims because EA does the same thing with those games.

I can't believe people are complaining about this.

They're offering an incentive to buy a game new. Extra content. No fussy DRM, no hassling with limited installations, just some free shit to entice buyers to drop $60 on a game instead of waiting and pirating it or getting it cheaper used.

This is the very definition of how a free economy is supposed to work. Mutually beneficial programs that help EA make money and the customers get more content for early adoption. It's ridiculous that publishers have taken this long to figure it out. There are a few that have tried this in the past but nothing consistent.

My thoughts? Companies are getting cheaper by the day.

Guh. This is nothing like DRM to those who were connecting the two. DRM is used because you are licensing the game, and essentially when you buy a PC game, you are buying that license to play it. Thus, the developers put in measures to avoid multiple uses of one license, although they happen to be shitty measures that hurt most normal users more than pirates.

This type of code is used as a free bonus to those who buy it. If the person who buys it chooses not to activate the code for some reason, then trades it in, then the person who buys it used will still get it. By the same token, is anyone pissed that places like Gamefly won't be giving every person who rents the game the free 20 downloads, or are they "scam artists" like Gamestop, too?

I realize it's fashionable in the gaming community to rip on Gamestop, but they provide a valuable service. How much will Best Buy or Walmart give you for your old games? I worked at a Gamestop for 3 years, and really have no affection for the company, but when I see people bitching about them because of practices like "opening a display copy for the shelf" it's just illogical ranting by someone who has no idea how business functions. Don't want a used game, or an opened copy of a new game? (Which would only be the last available new copy at any Gamestop, BTW.) Go somewhere else. Gamestop will honestly not miss your business, and you can feel very good about taking such a bold stance against that type of large scale conman.

well i was really only talking about console games. i know that they have registration codes for pc games.

If the game gets traded in and the person doesn't use the code, I doubt that the next person who buys it will get the downloads. Most likely an EB/Gamestop employee will jack the code and use it themselves before it gets sold again. There are some corrupt employees out there. Some of them take the pre-order bonuses, which should go to customers, and sell them on ebay.

On this basis then LittleBigPlanet must be evil and the monster of all that is due to the exclusive Sackboy/Girl you can get for pre-ordering it?

In addition Blizzard must be evil as now if I sell on my Collectors editions of Wow they will not get the in-game exclusive Lurky or Netherwhelp pet.

Geez, big deal

How is this comment even relative to Rock Band 2? There are more songs than ever before on the disc and in addition to that, they are offering buyers of new copies a download code for 20 more. If anything EA is becomming more generous by the day, not cheaper.

I am 110% in favor of giving huge bonuses to original buyers of games. I think there should be a single online account locked to the game, downloadable content only the original owner can get and any other features they think of.

Used games are a racket that doesn't save anyone much money and only enriches gamestop. People go in there, sell 10 games and get like 70 bucks total. Those same games are sold at a 300% profit soon after. The savings for consumers? You get a 59 dollar game for 55 dollars. Because you are buying it used, the publisher doesn't get a penny of that money which means that it doesn't go towards sales numbers, development of other games or anything useful, it just goes into gamestops bloated pocket so it can buy every game store that isn't best buy and continue to corner the market and kill competition.

I usually try to avoid buying used copies.

I'm a hardcore neat freak, everything in my house is completely spotless, all my games have no scratches, not even on the plastic covering of the game case. If someone were to look at any of my games they would think I just bought it and unwrapped it the same day.

Now when I buy a used game even if they say "like new" condition, the case is all crappy, disc scratches everywhere, manual torn / crinkled, and all sorts of other crap, i've seen people sell just the disc, no case or manual, for $40!.

The only time i'm forced to buy a used game is when the price on ebay is something ridiculous like $80.