THQ have stated, rather bluntly, their thoughts on pre-owned games. If you have purchased one of their titles second hand then they ‘don’t care’ about you.
“I don’t think we really care whether used game buyers are upset because new game buyers get everything. So if used game buyers are upset they don’t get the online feature set I don’t really have much sympathy for them.” said THQÂ Creative Director for wrestling games Cory Ledesma.
“That’s a little blunt but we hope it doesn’t disappoint people. We hope people understand that when the game’s bought used we get cheated.”
We’ve had many disussions here at TSA on the subject of pre-owned games and Mr. Ledesma’s comments come just days after the largest supermarket group on the UK, Tesco, rolled out a nationwide trade-in scheme.
Source: CVG
cc_star
I like THQs Saints Row series, its entered the space vacated by Grand Theft Auto, sure it lacks a bit of polish, but as the game is fun I tended not to notice. Red Faction was the same, but outside of these franchises I’m not to aware of what THQ do these days.
If I’m excited enough about a game I’ll buy it on launch day, if not I’ll wait until £25 on a website special offer, if I miss out on that I’m more than happy enough to wait for it to turn up in the past from my rental service.
I don’t buy pre-owned myself but I do trade-in games to fund new purchases, and without the pre-owned market I wouldn’t be able to trade-in and if I can’t trade-in I won’t be able to buy any new games.
I’ll leave the decision to whether pre-owned + online pass is worth it, to the people that do buy pre-owned, but no company owes them anything as they are not customers of theirs unless they do buy the online pass in which case they owe them the online service.
hazelam
and making the online portion of the game essentially a charged service, will they take responsibility for it when it goes wrong?
few have so far, they might apologise but what bloody good is that?
if they’re charging for a service then the buyer has certain rights with regards to that service that they may not have had when they weren’t paying for it, will the publisher respect the user’s rights?
i have my doubts, they’re quick to take money but move at the speed of continental drift when it comes to owning up to and fixing mistakes, and even slower when it comes to compensating customers not getting what they paid for.
for my money they better host the games, if we’re the ones hosting the games then they aint getting a bloody penny off me for playing online, that’s why i refuse to pay for live, but am willing to pay to play an mmo, if it’s good enough.
i bet a matchmaking servers doesn’t cost them much to run.
Grey_Ghost13
You can see the developers point of view, even if THQ are being a bit callous about it, they do loose out on the pre-owned market, it’s a part of the industry, but you can also feel us gamers point of view. We all can’t afford to go out a pay full price for every game, especially with the risk that they are going to be crap! This seems to be the best compromise, there’s still a pre-owned market, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc user do not get all of the on-line features and services that a new purchase receives. The only solution I can think of is to release better games that are worth the asking price and have better access to longer game demo’s that will give you a feel for the game and entice you to buy it.
Walker
And I don’t care about publishers who cancel awesome games like StormBirds!
BTW, if you’re reading this Cory Ledesma, I bought StuntMan Ignition and Saint’s Row 2 second hand! *blows raspberry*
hazelam
i bought saints row 2 new, but i won’t be buying 3 new, not if they’re restricting online play to new player and selling it to preowned buyers.
BetaGhast
Fair enough
solidsteven
this means war lol but why don’t they contact game or any shop which sells preowned and ask for 10% and not punish us.