PlayStation®Network General

[Wait-Jester-Sec]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/310905/news/psn-pass-not-timed-particularly-well/

Gee ya think not timed well at all

[AAAAAAAARRGH]

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Oldest_Ancient wrote:
@ AAAAAAAARRGH

I would imagine you're correct in the fact that pre-owned sales can help bring fans to the franchise in the long term but the likes of CoD, FIFA etc are not going to have problem with sales whereas new IP's from lesser developers are likely to be the ones hit hardest.

I agree about the server issue companies, EA in particular can be too quick to pull the plug on their servers, without offering an alternative (I'm guessing these games could be patched to allow P2P instead).

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Good points. I guess what kind of bugs me is that it's mainly the major studios imposing this pass while, to my knowledge, so few of the smaller ones are adopting the same approach.

I think Stuart Hood, one of the lead designers on F1 2010 summed it best for me:

"I don't think it's enough for developers to go round whinging about cutting that market up because you get rid of a game when you're tired of it or you want to move on to something else."

"So first and foremost it should be our attempt to get the game more entertaining over the long-term."

Linky

[En-Mao]

At the end of the day it is just corporate greed, Not only by Sony but EA, THQ etc etc etc.

The way i see it is if the developer wants to make money then they should bring out an amazing product in the first place that people want to keep and not trade in, cause honestly alot of games nowdays can be completed within 2 - 3 days, and the multiplayer aspect is what keeps the game alive.

This is the way i see it :-

Games are released the publisher to the distributors who buy the games and then sell them. The developer gets the price that they wanted for the game and they are happy.

The retailer sells the game to the customer and the retailer is happy as well as the customer.

The customer uses all the codes, lights bells and whistles included with the game and then purchases all of the dlc. The developer gets more money. (although alot of the time the DLC is actually on the disc??) and in some cases released before the actual game is. Tiger woods golf being an example of this.

The customer gets bored waiting for more DLC for the game and sells it back to the retailer.

Now this is where the rip off starts.

The retailer buys the game for a fraction of the price due to "no online capability" yet they still sell it at close to the marked RRP of an origional purchase.

The retailer then sells the game at discounted "pre owned" price and makes a profit from the next customer.

now bear in mind why should the developer get any income from this sale. They have gained the money that they were happy with at the very start of this vicious circle??!

The customer knows now that they cant play on line without paying an extra £10 to the developer. Why should they? the developer has already been paid for the product?

Why do they think they should be able to get paid twice for something that will cost them nothing and improve their rating amongst gamers?

The developer also then gains more income from the DLC that the pre owned customer would buy?

DLC is one of the reasons that the "pre owned market" was born. DLC was a main incentive for people keeping an origional game, and was the main incentive for the developers to publish more added content for the game, but lately the standard of DLC has become tired, drawn out and imo developers have got lazy.

People often have to wait weeks and sometimes months for DLC to appear (Heavy Rain anyone?). People get bored in that time and move onto the next game.

The end product is that developers now decide to get greedy and charge for a code for a pre owned game.

This may lead to the following :-

People wont buy pre owned games that involve buying this code and therefore games retailers wont bother with the pre owned market.

Retailers wont want tonnes of the same game in stock that they are unable to sell and people will have no where to sell their games to after they get bored of them.

Once this happens retailers will only buy enough stock of origional games and then developers will be hit hard.

By retailers only buying enough of the stock, new titles will hold their origional price for longer, and this will cause developers to increase the price of games from the extortionate price they are now.

Corporate greed will kill our hobby at the end of the day unless people vote with their wallets and stop buying all the DLC, pre owned coded games, and start a price war between companies.

This will never happen though because of human nature.

[burtie80]

I agree with you En-Mao, that's just the way I see it.

Since the PSN has been back on line I have not bought a single thing...I have not even put my new card details on. I got treated badly by Sony's customer service back at the start of the year and its really left me feeling bitter against them. I have had a PS+ subscription since it first started and I really don't think I will be re-subscribing, I have not really seen or gained any benefits apart from a few quid off here and there and a load of free games that I have hardly no interest in playing, and now they want to throw this at us too?

They can forget it as far as I am concerned...from now on I will hardly buy any brand new games and stick to second hand instead, and I wont be buying any PS pass or and future DLC because like you said the DLC has gone downhill quite considerably and really doesn't enhance any gameplay at all.

And why is it OK for corporate businesses to be cost effective, look for new ways of generating income and to cut costs so they can save money but yet when the consumer tries to save a few quid we are suddenly labelled as "cheap" and "damaging the industry?"