Better late than never, it’s time for the results of the Massive Poll! I do apologise for the tardiness, the delay occured due to a combination of a bad back, leaves on the line, rioting and single mothers.
We asked you ‘When would you be willing to pay $10/€10/£8 for an online pass?’ to try to discover the spending habits of people who buy pre-owned games have altered.
With over 500 votes the results show that 30% will never buy an online pass and nearly 9% of voters will not buy new games that feature the system.
Whilst this is considerable percentage it does mean that over 60% of TSA gamers have accepted passes in some way, quite a feat considering the huge opposition when the first online pass arrived a little more than a year ago.
23% of respondants would buy a pass if they thought they would enjoy the online component of the game, closely following that 21% of you thought that the original retail price of a game should be lowered by $10/€10/£8 to account for the pass system.
A thoughtful 12% of voters (who are probably parents) wanted passes that were locked to a console rather than user, meaning that a single pass could used for multiple accounts.
Finally, just 3% (sixteen voters in total) would always buy a pass.
For a concept that is barely year old, the gaming public seem to be slowly accepting online passes. As Alex said in his E3 report, ‘the concept of online passes is here to stay.’
gazzagb
I put I only buy it for a MP franchise I know I’ll enjoy, and that means that with new/different games, I may overlook them because of this. This highlights the fact that I think all games need to have a ‘trial’ period, like in Homefront, where you can play up to Rank 5 before having to enter a code.
stonyk
i really don’t think this survey can tell us much about the online pass. It just tells us how a survey of people who access this site would click on a button when asked the above question.
My reason being (other than the obvious) is that I think most sixthaxis members are not representative of typical consumers.
Another example – if you were to ask “if you had to choose between MW3 and BF3” the majority would probably choose BF3, but the general public won’t.
This is not meant as criticism or negative – its more my thoughts on the sixthaxis community related to the general public.
Totodile
That just sucks!
rawr!
Sony, how could you?
And most of all, WHY?
Now it’s public, you’re being greedy!
skibadee
Sony?
Awayze
Online pass scheme is pathetic..
Dimpoc
I am pro online pass so long as the new game comes with an online pass at the usual RRP or even better the price of the online pass is deducted from the RRP and you can chose whether to buy it or not.
All I think it will do is drive down the resell value of some games meaning you pay less in the shop for second hand but you pay the some of the money you would have spent in shop on paying the publisher instead.
It will have to go this way as people will be less inclined to spend £20 on a second hand game knowning they will have to buy a £10 online pass. They may as well get the game new for £30. Therefore the retailer will drop the second hand prices and therefore the trade in prices will be lower and less people will be tempted to trade their games in.