Last week we asked for your opinion of the Catwoman pass, a piece of single player DLC that would only be available to first time buyers of Batman Arkham City. Since then it’s all gone a bit Pete Tong for Rocksteady and Warner Brothers with missing codes, corrupt data, stuttering sound and bodged Collectors Editions.
Karma, it appears, can be a bitch.
With nearly one thousand votes cast, the majority thought that Warner Brothers were being greedy. With no online content in Batman Arkham Asylum the pass has one function; to stop people trading the game and if they do, giving Warner Brothers a £7.99 slice of that pre-owned pie.
Fifteen percent of voters deemed Warner Brothers’ actions as perfectly acceptable and another ninteen percent were unimpressed with their actions of the publisher but could understand their reasons.
That means over a third of voters are siding with the publishers and that’s bound to spark more debate.
The big question is: What price will shops be selling pre-owned copies of Arkham City? Will it be almost full price next week or will the retailers take in to account that a percentage of the game is locked off?
The Lone Steven
Batman had no reason to have an online pass as there is no fecking online features! FFS, that is just pure greed. As a single player gamer, i expect to be able to be able to get the entire game regardless of how i brought it. I don’t want to pay £7.99 just because i went for the cheaper option and thought that i would get the entire game.
The preowned market has been around for donkey years and the gaming industry has not been damaged by it so why do they think it is now? O-o Without the preowned market, i would have never discovered some excellent games. If it is a such a bother then why can’t publishers contact the retailers and ask for a cut? Oh wait, that makes too much sense and doesn’t punish everyone. Tut, silly me.
I bet some publishers won’t be happy untill we have PC style DRM.
Kaminari
I bet a third of these voters would be enraged if the used car they just bought was remote-crippled by the manufacturer to go under 100 km/h.
The Catwoman segment is not a DLC, it’s part of the whole game. Cutting it out to forbid second-hand buyers from playing it is equivalent to sabotaging a commercial product, which is illegal in many Western countries.
colmshan1990
Who says it’s part of a game? You?
Every person under the sun knows that a product is never finalised until it’s released.
You can read all you want about something in advance, but if it’s changed before release so it’s not in the game, it was NEVER in the game.
Misleading information previously given aside, everybody knows any preview we see does not represent the final product.
It’s not on the disc, people can buy it from the PSN or get it with a code, and then download it.
How is it not DLC?
hazelam
have you not been paying attention?
rocksteady have been saying it’s part of the game for months now.
this is the weakest argument yet for supporting this, and given the other excuses i’ve read, that’s saying something.
wonkey-willy
total pi$$ take mates from where i stand and i got it from day 1
understand the multiplayer codes but fek me single player cmon”!
Mick939
To be fair, the catwoman section took extra dev time, and if warner want a bit of cash from preowned why not? If anything i see it as much better than locking out online because thats generally a large part of the game package for things such as bf. I see it as a ‘thanks for buying new’ as i see robin as ‘thanks for preordering’. If you buy preowned you have the whole game but if youd like to have more theres some dlc. Also notice that catwoman was a couple hundred meg download, surely that points to it not being on the disk which was the same with robin dlc, yet no ones kicking off they dont get him if they buy it preowned from game.
Starman
“If you buy preowned you have the whole game” – well clearly you don’t, they said its 10% of the game. And its nothing to do with thanking you for buying new, its done for 1 reason only – greed.
Mick939
Its an extra 10%, have you played it? It is generally separate. To be fair, if there making fuck all from a preowned copy sale why not if everyone else now is? I’d say online takes up more than 10% in all honesty the main focus point on bf is the online yet because its online not extra single content it won’t have anyone as angry. I think the point is in stead of people moaning, just buy it new…
Starman
Will you still defend the corporations when the only place to buy games is on the ps store/360 mkt place at £60, no discounts, no special offers? Because thats where the industry is heading & what they want. Eliminate the competition then charge what you want.
Mick939
Thats a ridiculous comment, ‘the corporations’ are we also fighting ‘the man’. Im sure they would love to cut off there biggest source of revenue and bankrupt stores worldwide who’s main product is gaming. Your completely correct.
jikomanzoku
Any section of a game requires extra dev time, the issue here arises due to the fact that the segement in question was cut out only at the last moment. This was obviously not a seperate section coded specifically as DLC (a la Fallout’s add ons) and I don’t think Warner have ever claimed it is – though I may be wrong.
The only reason it’s not on the disc is because that would have created an even bigger stink and been even harder to “justify”.
OneShotWook
So heres what i’m doing,trading up for day 1 purchase,enter lousy Dlc code and see if i like it,then re-trade and sticking the game on my Lovefilm list.
Batmans value is currently 33quid (CEX Uk) and will be by the time Battlefield is out.I then get a fiver bonus for trading in 2 games towards Battlefield(2nd game Zombie Bikini Slayers,99pence retail).
This means i can play the full Batman game at anytime without losing too much value or indeed parts of the game,as well as owning Battlefield 3 day 1.
The marketing measures and apparent lack of competence coming the same week were seeing protests worldwide against corporate greed has really taken the shine off this release for me.
Starman
Heres something i’ve been wondering. If you buy a game from the ps store that uses a code for online, how do you obtain the code?
cam the man
Some how missed the poll but I would have voted, like the majority, ‘Warner Brothers were being greedy’.
jikomanzoku
I honestly believe that until a consumer rights organisation decides to challenge the bahaviour of publishers like WB in the courts, we will just see a gradual worsening and erosion of our rights as consumers on this. Sooner it happens, the better as it would be nice to see it settled and soon.
Mick939
They couldn’t as technically there doing nothing wrong, what warner is supplying is its full title, it would hit the preowned sellers..