The first thing that hit me as I entered the South Hall of Los Angeles’ Convention Centre at E3 this year was a gigantic screen showing footage of FIFA 12, accompanied by ridiculously loud music atop a stand that must have (literally) cost tens of thousands of dollars to build, nevermind staff and maintain. And sure, the video migrated elsewhere as part of its raucous, dominating loop, but the segment that blasted out snippets of EA’s football game seemed ultimately pointless.
Personally, I could only wonder why? The game wasn’t playable, at least not in any public capacity that would warrant such brutal exposure, few details were known about the game and – most crucially of all – a few yards to the left began the queue for a sneak peak at Battlefield 3. Moments after E3 opened its doors that line of people was already offputtingly long, the initial stampede seemingly targeted solely at DICE’s admittedly rather impressive first person shooter.
[drop]The point, in retrospect, of this ballsy, expensive gesture was to show everyone that walked into the South Hall (which, along with the West Hall made up for about 80% of the show) that EA have all bases covered. They’re prepared to not only shout about it, but also make sure that everybody listened: FIFA makes serious money, and it’s a good job, because this, along with pretty much everything else in downtown LA for those few days in June, must have cost an absolute fortune.And so as the gaming industry manages to spend more and more on itself to attract more and more potential buyers of whatever this year’s big thing might be, so it must try new things to rake that expenditure back in. Let’s make no bones about it – publishers aren’t your friends: their roles may vary from company to company, project to project, but if the end goal isn’t to ensure that their game gets onto the shelves and sold, in high numbers, they’re probably doing something wrong.
I’m not just referring to online passes, either, before you decide you’ve heard this one before. The concept of paying an extra (for argument’s sake) £10 to get the most out of a game if I don’t buy it new (and having the potential resale value of anything I did buy new reduced) bothers me, by the way, but we’ve been over that before here. I’m more interested in a rather more general look at what publishers are doing differently this year, and whilst this newfangled trend of codes-in-boxes appears to be taking hold like nothing else, it’s certainly not the only craze to stumble out of a boardroom.
It’s not the worst, either. I’ve already voiced my concerns about what Capcom have done with the recent 3DS Resident Evil title (and voted with my wallet by staying well clear) but the apparent acceptance of this practice by all retailers bar a select few shows that not everyone feels the same way. Does the general public appreciate that by buying Mercenaries 3D they’re showing the publisher that it’s alright to lock out the ability to clear the on-board save game, or will that realisation only take effect once they try to trade it in and realise it’s (potentially) not worth as much as they might have hoped?
Certainly, it doesn’t mention anything on the box, and the GAME I entered recently proudly had the game featured all too highly in their chart section. The odd thing, picked up during the vitriol of the whole thing when it came to light a fortnight back, was that Capcom weren’t the first to do this – SEGA’s Super Monkey Ball 3D does exactly the same thing. Nobody really seemed to care about that instance, though, and it seems that now any issues with either have been swept under the carpet.
[drop2]Of course, certain publishers are also keen to come up with ways to add extra value to their flagship games. This year both Activision (with Call of Duty Elite) and EA (with Battlefield 3’s Battlelog) will try to ensure their games aren’t piled up in the pre-owned bins by making the online sections ‘sticky’. By providing detailed, multi-game statistics tracking and the ability to keep up with the games on mobile devices, players will – hopefully – want to keep their first person shooter of choice and buy into long-tail DLC and subscription fees.And speaking of DLC, this year saw the ‘freemium’ model turn into something that didn’t just populate Facebook. Countless iPhone games have released with in-app purchases – the likes of Tiny Tower lets you play the game entirely for free, but at a much reduced pace than if you were to turn real cash into Tower Bux to accelerate various steps in the game. Console DLC was once a laughing stock (anyone remember Oblivion’s horse armour?) but it’s now part and parcel of almost every game you buy, with many publishers holding back content so they can sell it on weeks and months after release.
But this wouldn’t be a comprehensive review of the changes publishers are making this year without looking back to the whole online pass situation. It’s clearly there to reduce the second hand market, regardless of whatever PR line spouts forth, and on the whole it’s something I personally don’t really find much favour with. It’s not just about having to pay extra if I rent a game, or buy it second hand, it also – on a few occasions – makes reviewing games considerably more difficult if a) we don’t get an online code pass or b) the Store isn’t up yet to buy our own.
But with publishers on the surface not making anything from the sales of pre-owned software (despite subjective opinion that suggests such a market keeps the industry buoyant and retailers in business) the concept of online passes is here to stay.
EA might have been the first out of the gate with ‘project ten dollar’ but they’ve been swiftly joined by other publishers (Codemasters went a little further than just locking out multiplayer – codes for DiRT 3 also included a car pack) and last week’s arrival of Sony to the scene cemented the notion firmly: online passes are going to be the medium-term future of the industry, and if you don’t like them there’s very little you can do apart from deciding not to buy any games sporting the system second hand.
Which, of course, might be exactly what those pesky publishers wanted.
Foxhound
I never thought I would but I am all for the pass. I love games, new.games, but I love campaigns more than online so its a win win really….
hazelam
it’s ironic, how the gaming industry is always putting out propaganda about piracy, they can’t just say piracy is bad, it has to fund terrorism or organised crime.
but they they have a perfect right to protect their copyrights.
but then they turn around and show zero respect for our rights.
somebody said “preowned is piracy”.
i say drm is piracy.
except drm is worse, because piracy is the theft of potential sales, while drm can actually take something away from a person, something they legally own.
from what i understand of the law, preventing preowned sales is a criminal act.
fattyuk
You might wanna speak to anonymous as this is the sort of situations they are fighting for.
Sad Panda
For me it’s simple, I buy a lot of games and most of them are new. I am fortunate to be in a position to do so however my main reason for buying so many games is for my two disabled brothers, for whom playing games is their only respite from a pretty crap time of things. These online codes mean that for me, and a lot of parents or carers in a similar situation, the price of buying games has just gone up.
When I buy a game new, if I play online, then I am denying my brothers the chance to do so or face spending more money to play the game I bought new. To me this is unacceptable.
To help finance my purchases I generally trade in my old/unwanted games. Whilst I have a pretty good job, it would be impossible for me to buy in the volume I do without the ability to trade.
This may be my own selfish point of view, but its the one I’m stuck with.
cc_star
Yup, a lot of people trade-in to buy new. Of course some trade-in to buy pre-owned but its usually the big hyped releases & in particular annual franchises which sees people (sensibly) subsidising their gaming habit. the alternative will probably be to wait fort he price-drops where retail/publishers/devs will make less anyway.
Crocadillian
Mmm, you both actually bring up an interesting point. This kind of greedy tactic will see them suffering in the long end, as people find other ways to be able to continue their gaming habits. So many people on reviews and other articles here comment on how they will wait for the price to drop before buying it.
With Online Passes, the desire to buy new games at cheaper prices will continue, which I am sure that publishers will blame on developers for not making good enough games, like we are seeing currently with the many bad (and some good) developers that have closed their doors.
If I am ever properly make games, i swear ill be staying as a PC indie developer that publishes on Steam or otherwise.
cc_star
I buy a mixture of day1 releases, wait for pricedrop & pre-owned
I can tell you one thing for certain a lowering of the trade-in values either through the publisher’s policies nibbling away at them or retailers being squeezed through lower volume of pre-owned sales will mean with 100% certainty there will be less day1 purchases for me and more price-drops/pre-owned/rentals
Darksidesystems
The photo at the top of this article looks like “Ironic Entertainment”. Made me chuckle :)
xdarkmagician
They could very easily just sell story based discs for half the price and then sell the multi player part on the PSN/XBLA/Steam…ect stores instead. Then everybody pays to play. But that’ll never happen because then they would have to reduce the price of the discs. Mega-publishers ONLY care about money. They don’t care about quality, the consumer, they don’t even care about their own developers. What’s ironic is BOTH EA and Activision are here today because they pirated IP’s and reversed engineered SEGAs back in the 80’s. They’re criminals that instead of going to jail lobbied governments to change the laws they break. The hide behind ToS/ UA /EULAs to convince (scare) normal people into believing that they have no rights. IMO these (All) mega-publishers are the same as organized crime rings. They should be burnt to the ground so the industry has a fighting chance.
xdarkmagician
It’s also interesting how much cheaper gaming could be without E3, TGS, GamesCon ect. Why should consumers be forced to fuel the egos of the industry? 100 million for BF3, so if it sells 10 million copies we’re each paying 10 for advertising.
tritium
valve is my friend
Crocadillian
Seconded. Valve is a really enjoyable gaming network, and they actually have their hearts (and minds) in the right place, which is why it’s thriving and other businesses are attempting to copy it poorly.
Crocadillian
lol, steam. I get them mixed up X_X
KeRaSh
Why don’t they just release their game comepletely without the MP functionality and sell the game cheaper. That way the resale value would be fair again and if you want to play online you just buy an online pass.
I have a lot of games that I never played online. Would be cool to save a few bucks that way… :D
Crocadillian
The mainstream gaming industry seems to have gone insane. The fact that people are willing to support a game that allows you to make more progress by paying money for it is backwards and completely against the idea of a videogame! You are supposed to make progress through skill by understanding the game mechanics, an experience like this can only be designed to try and be addictive, not entertaining, and therefore probably shouldn’t even be considered a game.
For me, online passes wouldn’t be a problem at all, but the price they ask is not economical. Asking £4 to make a contribution towards the online is not only fair, but a lot more encouraging than the £8-£10 thats currently being asked. It makes a purchase a lot easier to make and could make someone a customer of a franchise or developer that will buy the game new in the future. Current strategies seem to be very short sighted, and game publishers don’t seem to want to recognise the obvious problems of this until it starts to affect them in game sales at launch.
Seriously publishers, what happened to the sole reason you bought a videogame, FOR FUN!? Any passion for waiting to create something new and invigorating seems reserved for Indie developers, Valve, and a few other developers that haven’t been killed at the hands of the moronic publishers that bought them.