PlayStation®3 General Discussion

[Mollinz]

Could someone explain to me why EA want me to pay an extra $9.99 (£4 - 5?) for an online pass to play one of their games online on a service that is already free? (PSN)

Okay my mate gave me a shot of Dead Space 2 and I really enjoy playing the game. I fancied a crack of the online but when I went to play it asked me for an online pass. At first I thought if I put the pass in it'd work fine but as my mates clearly already put the pass code in his PS3 it won't work on mine. A one time use thing.

WHY?!

Why are they now doing this "Require an online pass" just to play their games online? Don't I already pay £40 for the feature to play online already?

So say I went out and bought DS2 tomorrow, put the pass in and so fourth, then a week down the line wanted to play it at my mates house or something I wouldn't be able to play it online with them. That is completely shocking if you ask me. What they're collectively doing is forcing people who want to play their games online away from their own PS3 consoles to fork out more money.

Or for those who bought the game pre-owned, again if the previous owner has already used the pass then the new owner will have to fork out more money to play it online on a service that is already FREE. (PSN) 

I can't even comprehend the reasons why they are implementing to their customers to do this. They seem to think their status has risen so high that people should pay more just to play their games online. That for me is an absolute disgrace and totally out of order.

Unless someone can shine a new light on me as to why they are doing this, because I can't even get my head around it at all. To me all they are doing is asking for more money.

[Muttykins]

The online pass is only if you have bought the game second hand.

If you have bought it new it comes with an online pass.

[DJ_MOUSEY]

True but doesnt the orignal online pass die after you have used it having you to buy it from ea? Its the same with NFS Hot Persuit, i have the code but the games my mates and i dont want to type the code in, incase the code distroys itself making it usless for my mate

[mont348]

Simple dont buy pre-owned EA if your counting pennies like most of us are doing wait for a price drop.

[shanethegooner]

It's mainly to stop people playing illegal copies online, so I thought?

Though, they could easily pay for the online pass, cheaper than paying for the whole game. 

[DJ_MOUSEY]

i think its to stop shops earning all the profit, think about it shops only give money to the company when they buy brand new, they buy second hand game, lets say portal 2 for 20+ or something then sell it for about 5 pounds under the rrp the shop makes the money, i dont think the game companies like ea like this as the dont see any money from it, so rather than just giving the game with no code they shove a code on so they still make money from preowned games .

[mont348]

Shane they still need a copy of the game its EA's way to get some money out of the second hand rental market i dont blame them i usually buy new.

[kexlar]

Yea they do this to limit the amount of people buying pre-owned games as they wont be getting any money from it only the shop selling the pre-owned games will profit from this, just another way for EA and other companies to make more money out of us.

So like me for instance I brought Homefront Pre-owned, I had no online pass to put in and it will cost £8 for me to play online after level 5, so I pay £15 for game then 8 quid for the online pass, thats still cheaper than brand new tbh.

[LtWash]

It's to tackle the "problem" of second hand games. Most games that feature multiplayer heavily have this "feature"

Games developers/publishers get nothing from second hand game sales, so they miss out on revenue due to people buying second hand instead of new because its cheaper.

Usually newly released traded games are sold for a tenner less than new ones. However buying second hand means the online pass has probably already been used.

The £9.99 Online Pass basically nullifies the newer traded games market as a customer would end up spending the same amount on a new copy of the game as they would on a second hand one, raising the chance dramatically of the customer buying the new copy and thus increasing revenue for the developers/publishers.

[dannyjt]

When people buy the game second hand or rent/lend the game, EA get no money from the sale. EA are paying for the player to play online on their servers, when they get none of the money that the player spent on the game. Therefor they charge you a small amount of money if you did not buy the game brand new and want to play online.