We heard last week how EA will start a new scheme starting with the latest Tiger Woods game whereas customers who buys their game new will have a free pass to exclusive online content and modes, then when a person who buys the game as pre-used will have to pay a fee to gain access to that service. At first this caused an uproar among gamers, especially since the whole reason behind buying pre-used games is to save money. But on the otherhand people are starting to realize that game developers lose a lot of money because of the pre-used market and a move like this is required.
Now GameSpot, the game retailer who gain a huge amount of their income from pre-used games, have stated that they support EA’s new approach according to Paul Raines, chief operating officer from GameStop:
“We support the creation of added downloadable content for popular franchises, as we see that as extending the life of titles and broadening the base of game players,” he said.
“We do not anticipate an impact to our used margins due to this program. The amount of used game buyers currently playing online is low, and as it grows, our proprietary models will manage trade and sale pricing to reach margin goals.”
Dan Matteo from GameStop also stated that this move will make more customers aware of Downloadable Content:
“There have been some questions concerning… user-only content and the effect on our used business,” he said.
“We have not seen an impact thus far and, as a matter of fact, we will turn this into a positive with our ability to sell DLC through our investments made in technology to market and sell this content in our stores.”
From the Developers point of view i guess this makes perfect sense and is a smart move from them. But from a consumers point of view it only means that not only will they have to pay money for DLC for almost every game they buy, but now they also have to pay to access certain online features, if they buy the game pre-used of course. Either way its happening and going to continuing happening for futures games and there is no doubt that most other developers will also follow EA, as some already have.
Thanks to VG247 for the news and Discuss in our Forums here.
