Holy PR disaster Batman! After months of teasing us with the frisky feline Catwoman, Warner Brothers have added a pass system that will lock her out of the game for those who buy a pre-owned copy and, more importantly, anyone who does not have their Xbox or PS3 connected to the Internet.
Until now publishers have always used the argument that online passes are there to support server costs. Batman Arkham City has no online element so the pass confirms what we’ve known all along – it’s to stop gamers reselling or buying a pre-owned copy.
Those who do buy a pre-owned copy and wish to play as Catwoman will have to pay £7.99 for a pass.
Rocksteady have repeatedly stated that the Catwoman missions represent about ten percent of the game and you can play her character in the challenge rooms (but there are no Catwoman specific rooms). Batman Arkham City has a RRP of £49.99, ten percent of that is £4.99 – rather ironic that Warner Brothers making you pay extra for a character who is a thief.
It’s time to get clicking and let us know what you think of this new tactic. You have until midnight Sunday to vote and the results will be published on Monday.
hazelam
the way i see it this all revolves around who they think owns the games we buy.
take that guy from codemasters.
he said preowned sales were tantamount to theft.
because he doesn’t believe we own the games when we buy them and he doesn’t believe the stores own the games when they buy them.
no, only he owns them.
so he’s the only person who can make money on them.
and it’s become clear lately that his is an opinion shared by many in the industry.
why do you think they all love this cloud gaming thing?
because we can never own the games we buy.
Nocure-fd
Seconded Haze.
Cloud gaming will mean we will essentially be paying for a service rather than a product. Bringing with it all the implied legal ramifications.
I have mixed feelings about this in terms of what it will mean for both developers and consumers. Publishers will effectively have us both in a strangle-hold.
colmshan1990
Slightly off topic, but is anyone else thinking of Harry Potter and the goblins when publishers rail about people selling on their products, and calling it theft?
Bladesteel
I didn’t but from now on I will :)
jikomanzoku
Haven’t read Potter but I’m curious? :)
Geffdof23
I don’t like online passes at all and now that they are creeping into single player I see it as a bit of a worry to the way gaming is headed. It’s obviously nothing to do with “server upkeep” and is just about pure greed. That’s right – GREED!! I don’t understand what is wrong with all of the people who think this is ok. Nobody else, anywhere in the world, charges a fee to use a second hand product/borrowed things – I recently sold my car but Ford didn’t charge the new owner a “registration fee”, I borrowed a drill from a friend to put up a shelf but I didn’t get a “licence bill” from Black and Decker and I’m planning to sell a camera lens that I no longer want but I’m not expecting Nikon to charge a “we want more money fee” to the new user.
This model is absurd. What people seem to not be understanding is that when you sell a game, you no longer have that game! It may seem so obvious, but so many people seem to be missing this very simple point. You purchase the game (and any rights to play that game, assuming you are just buying a licence – although I don’t really agree with that) and exchange money with the retailer etc. which goes to the makers of the game. If you then don’t want it any more, you can exchange that thing you bought (the game or licence or whatever) to someone else for cash. But you no longer have that game! It isn’t yours any more. You cant play it any more. It has been exchanged to someone else. And there is nothing wrong with that. You don’t sign a contract to say you will keep the game forever when you buy it. And you don’t have the ability to play it once it is sold so I don’t see a problem.
If the manufacturers have a problem with the middle men who take a healthy chunk of the profit from pushing S/H, then I can understand their concerns, but why punish the consumers?
wuntunzee
I don’t think they are punishing consumers dude, they are saying,
Hey consumer, have 100% of this copy!
Oh, secondhand consumer, we didn’t receive any of your money, you can have most of our stuff, I guess, but if you like, please compensate us for the copy that you didn’t buy, so that we may produce a game that you will buy new.
Geffdof23
But the secondhand consumer did buy it from the developer. They bought it via a middle mad, and the money has to follow a chain, but there is only one copy of the game and one amount of money being exchanged at any one step, but that’s exactly what retail is anyway. Technically all things bought from shops have already been purchased by the shop. Once the developer has sold it, it isn’t theirs any more. It shouldn’t matter how many secondhand sales happen as there is always an exchange of game for cash so the developer got their money at the first sale.
wuntunzee
Wow, that is the best way of putting it that I have seen, and you didn’t have to drop one f bomb.
You are saying that the publishers have sold all of their copies to the retailers, so all their sales are done?
(I synthesised your point ;)
OK, that’s fine, if I made a product, and I sell 100% of my stock, I am happy, but the retailer will look at their figures and think, we make more on S/H, we shouldn’t buy so many in future and just keep buying and selling units already in the market.
This means demand for my product will go down and I will make less money in future.
Geffdof23
I’ve never seen anyone express it that way and don’t understand why nobody else sees it like that.
I understand why the developer feels that it is unfair but that is how it works with every other product in every other industry. Really its the greed of both developers and retailers. That is the balance that needs to be sorted. The consumer is the easy target. Most of us are connected to the internet so the developer can essentially control our content, even post purchase, but I feel they are targeting the wrong group.
wuntunzee
Really we need a nice fact based pie chart to show 2nd hand sales of games vs retail sales of games, and then equally lovely pie charts of other media and industries.
It’s my belief that the games industry is suffering from secondhand sales, from anecdotal evidence, and the fact that we are seeing these seismic shifts in the market, so I still think it is fine and right for publishers to incentivise first hand sales.
Geffdof23
I kind of agree with that. But an incentive to buy new should be a free t-shirt, rather than only getting 90% of the game for buying second hand.
Games are partly popular because retailers have been selling them for years. Its not like its only the developers who have had anything to do with the success of the industry.
I’m playing devils advocate a bit with that last comment tbh. But I do feel that the developers (or publishers I suppose) are taking a cut with these passes more because they can rather than because they should. Its not that dissimilar to when you book tickets to a gig and get charged a booking fee. Come on ticket sellers. I’m booking tickets. Surely you don’t need to add a booking fee to that. That’s like paying a pint pouring fee after getting a pint at the pub. This is what the online passes feel like to a smaller extent.
If only we could see those imaginary pie charts…
hazelam
but what about those who buy preowned games months or years after launch? like almost all of the prowned games i buy.
they’re missing a huge chunk of the game.
i’ve bought games preowned that i never would have bought new.
and some that i could never find new.
and what about people wanting to go back and play these game 20 years from now? assuming any of today’s machines are still functional by then.
so in future there will be people that never get to play some games because they happen to be born to late?
can you imagine what that would do to culture if that had happened with books or music?
would uematsu has created such beautiful music if he’d never heard any mozart or chopin or any other classical music?
would we have star wars without the seven samurai?
Aladdin without the thousand and one nights?
would we have twilight without dracula?
ok, forget that last one, but you get my point.
and yes, lucas probably saw seven samurai in a cinema.
this is a purely emotional thing for me.
that’s is one of the main reasons i refuse to support this kind of thing.
making sure nobody could experience these works in future would be akin to burning books in my mind.
Geffdof23
+1
colmshan1990
Please stop these posts.
They’re NOT getting rid of the pre-owned market, and I don’t think they want to.
They are trying to get a cut out of it, that’s the difference.
Geffdof23
Nobody said they were getting rid of the pre-owned market. The issue is partly about retro gaming of the future. In 20 years time when you cant buy Batman brand new and the servers for the PS3 are no longer active – how do you play the catwoman section of the game?
colmshan1990
Somehow I don’t think that’s a problem that’s going to affect the majority of users.
hazelam
firstly, don’t you ever fucking dare to tell me what i’m allowed to say.
you can disagree with me all you like, but you cross the fucking line when you try to tell me what i can say.
anyway, on to the important part of your post.
“They’re NOT getting rid of the pre-owned market, and I don’t think they want to.
They are trying to get a cut out of it, that’s the difference.”
firstly, have you not seen the way this industry is going lately?
i told you all when they started these online passes that they would not be the end of it, but you all said i was wrong.
well look here, turns out i was right.
and i’ll be right when i tell you this wont be the end either.
and you don’t think they want to?
just look at the pc industry, most new retail games are locked to a single user to kill the preowned market.
it’s the same publishers that release these games on consoles, they’re only taking it slow because they know they would get roasted by the gamers if they suddenly started total lockouts.
so they introduce it stage by stage to fool people into thinking it’s not so bad.
also, geffdof23, that’s exactly what i’m saying, but i agree with you all the way otherwise. ^_^
mybe the retro thing wouldn’t affect the majority of users.
but what if this game had launched in april?
would that affect enough people?
and like i said above, how many does it take before it becomes wrong?
DrNate86
Phew try and relax a bit Hazel, you are going to end up with a stomach ulcer at this rate! It’s clear you are passionate about the subject, but there is no need to get abusive.
jikomanzoku
I’m really not trying to be iritating haze and hope you take it in the spirit it was intended bro. Hidden Fortress was the Kurosawa film that inspired Star Wars :)
Peace.
The Lone Steven
I used to be content with Online Passes. Mainly due to server costs but when it in a Single player game, that is where i draw the line. I buy preowned mostly due to finical reasons. I accept that if i buy a game that has MP, i won’t be able to play as, but that doesn’t bother me as i’m a single player gamer mostly.
However with B:AC, i can’t enjoy it 100% as 10% of the campaign is locked out for me if i get it preowned. Which could lead to some plotholes. They have no excuse to do this except greed. They cba to speak to the major retailers and ask for 10% cut of all preowned copies of their games.
I reckon in a few years, it will PC style DRM and we all know what happened to the PC market. I won’t be able to catch up on future games after a year and get it preowned as chances are that it would have the crappy pass so i would have to search everywhere just to get the full game.
Bladesteel
Online passes were the thin end of the wedge.
This is the next step.
What do you thin the step after will be?
How far will you allow them to go before you protest?
Passes that will be for original purchase only?
Passes that expire after a year, forcing you to re-buy if you want to keep playing?
One save only (could be done on ps3 by keeping the saved state on a server) buy again to reset and begin from the start?
I think anyone that believes it will stop here is being naive. They will continue to find new ways to squeeze until lost sales due to angry customers get bigger than the profit from those that take it without complaining.
jikomanzoku
“They will continue to find new ways to squeeze until lost sales due to angry customers get bigger than the profit from those that take it without complaining.”
And that is the cold hard truth of it. Well said.
StevenHibs
THE WORLDS GONE MAD!
colmshan1990
One more thing: this stuff isn’t on disc, but is a 253mb dlc download.
That makes it extra DLC in my mind, and not the main game.
Although this gives me a new annoyance- why the hell isn’t it on disc, if I buy it or unlock it, I don’t want to wait to download it.
It’s obviously already made, why make me wait to play it? At least Resi 5’s infamous on disc dlc didn’t make people wait around for it.
jikomanzoku
Sorry for noticing this late and hope you pick up on my post.
The only reason it’s not on the disc is because a deliberate and late decision has been made to withhold it from the disc. This is content that was an integral part of the story and that much has been made clear by the nature of the trailers released by thee publisher/devs.
This again goes back to my aforementioned point of missing scenes from films, missing chapters of books or missing tracks on CD’s if bought second hand – something which (thankfully) does not happen.
They have to leave it off the disc, because doing so gives them the spurious defence of it being “additional content”, which, as I and others believe, for the reasons mentioned above, it’s not.
Sitorimon
I don’t like the online passes etc but I can see why but I take issue with this one specifically because its got nothing to do with the online element that people have touted the costs for. It’s also grossly overpriced.