Sony makes PSN Pass official

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 6 July, 2011

Single use code grants full online access.

Sony has made the PSN Pass, first spotted this morning, official.

It launches this September with PlayStation 3 exclusive Resistance 3.

In a statement issued to Eurogamer this evening, Sony said PSN Pass will grant "full online access" to participating games.

"We are always evaluating new programs for our online offering, and starting with Resistance 3 this September, we will be instituting a network pass program for PS3 games with online capabilities," Sony said.

"This program will be game-specific. Games that are a part of this program will include a single-use registration code that grants the account holder redeeming the code full online access for that title.

"This is an important initiative as it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhancing premium online services across our first party game portfolio."

The implication is that second-hand copies of Resistance 3 will not include PSN Pass, forcing pre-owned buyers to pay for full online access.

With PSN Pass Sony is following the lead of EA, THQ, Codemasters and Warner, all of which have implemented an Online Pass scheme.

Will other upcoming PS3 exclusives, such as Uncharted 3, use PSN Pass?

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (184) Latest comment 10 months ago

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  • lemonfist #1 11 months ago

    One small step for Sony, one giant slap in the face of people who like cheap preowned games.

  • Architect_z #2 11 months ago

    I wonder what happens when you re-buy the same game?

    Lets say you sell a game, then re-buy it? Can you still play it on the same unique code you originally had?

    Hope it doesnt cost an arm, or a leg.
    Edited by Architect_z at 06/07/11 @ 19:42

  • HyperTails #3 11 months ago

    I can see why Sony's doing this, and i'm sure everyone else can as well. I actually support Sony in doing this, as they aren't making any money from pre-owned sales.

    If people think games are too expensive, then they can wait a few weeks, as online prices drop quicker than retail stores. You can also ignore Game's high prices and look towards Amazon and Play.com as they are much cheaper.

  • God_Octo #4 11 months ago

    I'm not really sure what I think of this. Yes, being forced to pay for online play seems a bit mean, but I normally buy games new if I'm really interested in them, and the second hand ones in Game and the like are always over-priced so you might as well buy new.

  • Kazzahdrane #5 11 months ago

    With a platform holder moving to this system I guess we'll see all the major publishers following suit. Personally I don't have a problem with it, but then I make games so its in my interest for people to buy new or at least pay the developers something if they want to buy second hand and use all the game's features.

    Probably not a popular stance but baby needs a new pair of shoes!

  • GamesConnoisseur #6 11 months ago

    Ah ha! Is this the beginning of the partings of the way between the free PSN online gaming and the second hand Sony's games?

    No concerns if you buy games new but second hand owners, you ll be asked to contributes to the costs of the network.

    We all knew that nothings actually free, as all of them are costed and someone somewhere needs to cover them.

  • Kano-11 #7 11 months ago

    What about PS+ subscribers? Will they have to pay for this psn pass on top of the subscription they already fork out for?

    This whole online pass business will only end in tears.

  • lewiep #8 11 months ago

    EA speaking to IGN:
    "This is an important inflection point in our business because it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhance premium online services"
    [link url=http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/108/1088621p1.html
    ]http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/108/1...[/link]

    Methinks Sony has been borrowing their homework.

  • FenderMaster #9 11 months ago

    pre owned games in gamestop or game aren't worth it, I'd rather get a brand new copy than a pre owned one for a measley £5 saving.

    It's really the shops fault, nobody cared when it was car boot sales, but seeing brand new titles on shop shelves sitting next to (barely cheaper) second hand copies a week after release was never going to be good for the games industry. Make no mistake, gamestops trade in business is on a vastly different scale than in the old days, it's in store, in your face, and parents buying games will always choose the cheaper option.

  • Xardan #10 11 months ago

    Pretty lame move. You wouldnt see Xbox live doing this, but then i guess it doesn't need it since it already has a large percentage of gold subscribers.

    Looks like Sony is just taking advantage of their ever increasing online userbase.

  • carrotcake #11 11 months ago

    suppose it is pretty cheap to get a pre-owned copy of a game from somebody and expect to have unlimited online use which costs the company money to provide you but you have given them no money for your copy of the game. and thus, online pass.

  • Feanor #12 11 months ago

    "Pretty lame move. You wouldnt see Xbox live doing this, but then i guess it doesn't need it since it already has a large percentage of gold subscribers"

    It already happens with third-party Xbox 360 games like Mortal Kombat. I wouldn't be surprised if MS introduce something like this for Halo 4.

  • Architect_z #13 11 months ago

    I think alot of it is the game companies who are introducing this pass thing, the PSN pass is just Sony's version of it for Sony made games.
    I think its a good idea if they make online play well by having dedicated servers etc.

  • kirankara #14 11 months ago


    Can't believe people have an issue with devs introducing online passes for , making sure they at least get a small percentage of money they would make from selling new copies of a game , from second hand sales. They could always introduce a pass for entire game , to cut out second hand sales altogether. Seems only fair they make something out of second hand sales, as they eat into their profits, and making games these days is a huge expense , with average big games weighing in at around 30 mil , and more for huge titles .

  • Balboa #15 11 months ago

    @lewiep Nice catch

  • Eraysor #16 11 months ago

    Nice to see Sony making my game purchase decisions easier. One sale lost.

  • riceNpea #17 11 months ago

    the price of games online are pretty reasonable and get better as the game ages. there's not a lot of reason to get pre-owned especially considering they're near enough the price of a new game bought online.
    Edited by riceNpea at 06/07/11 @ 20:36

  • Davemanz #18 11 months ago

    Second hand sales are ludicrously profitable and really, really hurt the industry. If you want to blame somebody, blame the shops. Ask that they cut the price by however much the online pass will cost. If the shops care at all about the customer they'll cut their used game prices so it ends up costing the same. Lord knows they're making enough to afford it.

  • Widge #19 11 months ago

    I buy new games one year later. Cheap cheap cheap!

  • vizzini #20 11 months ago

    I still think a second hand market is a good thing in most areas of consumerism, but the practices of retail buying and pitching 2nd hand so aggressively, gouging the first time buyer and stealing developer/publisher/platform holder sales revenue has meant they only have themselves to blame for this issue.

    The introduction of PSN pass now encourages me that Sony won't ever follow suit and charge for timed subscriptions for online play in the way Live Gold does(for non-MMOs); which I personally think is the worst idea to be implement in gaming in 30years.

    I'm not opposed to games being sold without PSN pass from new, if they are genuinely worth the money for their offline component as many exclusives are. Followed up by a patch sixth months later with a charged PSN pass to add the online component if it worth the cost.

    A fine example of this would is Virtua Fighter 5 (b) on the PS3; that is arcade perfect. It doesn't have the online component added for the 360 version for use exclusively by live gold subscribers.

    But all VF fans would welcome a charged PSN pass patch(even at 6.5GB) that would add the feature(and updates). Although; I guess very few games are a good as Virtua Fighter 5 in local 2 player or online to begin with to fit this new type of sales model. Lets hope VF5 PSN pass is on the cards at the Tokyo game show this year.

  • arcam #21 11 months ago

    really, really hurt the industry.

    Any evidence for this? The industry is bigger and more profitable now than it has ever been.

  • bikmate #22 11 months ago

    Damn.

  • Ford #23 11 months ago

    It "seems only fair" to me that you can sell what you buy. It's not like I can use my own online access after I've sold the disc!

    This is just ridiculous, especially from the platform holder who promised that online would stay "free". How can it be "free" if they've just attached a price to it for borrowers and second hand buyers?

  • CrispyXUK64 #24 11 months ago

    Good news.

  • silversun #25 11 months ago

    No problem with this as long as it only is the online part of the game, the moment it is anything else is moment i give up gaming for good , well at least games that might do that.

    On another note if ps3 had not been jailbreaked sony might not have to do this.

    The other issue is typing codes everytime you buy game new is just not good , people like simple things and easy to setup , if this becomes standard across all games it might hurt them more than they realise.

  • bad09 #26 11 months ago

    "as they aren't making any money from pre-owned sales."

    That's because pre owned has nothing to do with them in any shape or form and they are not entitled to money from it but carry on suckling at the teet of bullshit this industry feeds you.

  • layleeloo #27 11 months ago

    @arcam. Bigger yes- more profitable - no.

  • cheeky_BILLY #28 11 months ago

    Got no problem with this. The 2nd market is not cheap anyway, especially at the likes of Game.

  • TheRealBadabing #29 11 months ago

    Publishers can sell me as many online passes as they want for games with dedicated multiplayer servers. People who buy 2nd hand can fund the upkeep and everyone is happy. Will need some guarantees about how long the servers will remain online though...

    If the game is peer-to-peer and the pass is just for access to a shitty stats page they can fuck off.

  • FireMonkey #30 11 months ago

    One question about this. Is for Sony published games only or is a console based thing so other publishers could get their games using it?

    In a way if lots of publishers are going to start using a system like this it makes sense for the platform holder to create the system as then the customer is less confused with multiple systems and different names for essentially the same thing.

  • Rodster #31 11 months ago

    I'm sure these publishers are getting sick and tired of watching their games sold over and over and they don't make a profit on any of those sales. Good for them, I have no problem with this decision.

  • joelstinton #32 11 months ago

    "With a platform holder moving to this system I guess we'll see all the major publishers following suit"

    True, with developers yet to do this, but sony are following EA, codemasters, and various other publishers who have already utilsed this system.

    Thing is, its shows how much of a bastard consumerism is. I got a local independant game shop in town, and the guys that run it (exit in helston btw) are top notch guys, but pre-owned games i guess keep there buisness alive. Its unfair on them at the end of the day. Yet as a photographer, i much rather someone buy one of my prints rather than buy it of someone who had one of my prints. It swings and roundabouts, but i would like sony, msoft and nintendo and branch out and help out independant stores, sell there stock to them are cheap levels, that amazon and that can get because they bulk buy which independant stores can't.

  • bad09 #33 11 months ago

    @Rodster

    Maybe they should think of starting their own 2nd hand shops then instead of crippling games so people can't sell 'em when done.

  • King_Edward #34 11 months ago

    And that's the last time I buy one of Sony's games.

  • Scimarad #35 11 months ago

    This actually makes me want to buy MORE second-hand games...

  • addugg #36 11 months ago

    Lets punish the customers! We can't punish the game stores, they buy our product off us, so we'll just shaft the people who play the games instead.

  • darkos87 #37 11 months ago

    People are bitching about how XBOX LIVE doesn't do this thing, but let's be honest... what first party game with online multiplayer has Microsoft released in the last 9 months? The last game Halo Reach was released only 4 months since the EA Online pass inception. It seems the EA model worked pretty well if THQ, Warner and Sony are following suit.

  • FireMonkey #38 11 months ago

    @God_Octo - "Yes, being forced to pay for online play seems a bit mean"

    You are not being 'forced' to pay for anything.

    If you buy new and support the devs then you get a free bonus which is the multiplayer. It's just an added incentive to buy new.

    For those that will undoubtedly say that we had multiplayer before and it has actually been taken away, then I urge you to look at the online play from 8 years ago. Most games never had any and if they did it was usually fairly quickly put together. Now-a-days the multiiplayer side is usually really well polished and quite often as important as the single player game.

    I wonder how long it will be before the single and multi-player versions of games are sold completely separately?

  • FireMonkey #39 11 months ago

    @frod - "This is just ridiculous, especially from the platform holder who promised that online would stay "free". How can it be "free" if they've just attached a price to it for borrowers and second hand buyers?"

    That's like saying 'how can it be free when I have to buy the game'.

    Access to the network to play the game is free. Access to own the multiplayer portion of the game is not.

    @Addugg - "Lets punish the customers!"

    If you buy second hand then you are NOT the publishers customers. If you buy second hand and play online you ARE a leech.
    Edited by FireMonkey at 06/07/11 @ 20:42

  • fillip2k #40 11 months ago

    I can see why they are doing it, and whatever if they want to do it then the whole industry is heading this way so whatever. But why brand it PSN pass as his implies that access to PSN as a whole is being charged for...

  • -cerberus- #41 11 months ago

    Yeah count me out.

  • Ashcroft #42 11 months ago

    The only people to blame for this are the retailers abusing the pre-owned market. They've pushed it too far, with pre-owned pre-orders, selling the used games right next to the new copies for only £5 less, and offering incentives designed to encourage trading games a week after buying them, allowing the shop to make hundreds of pounds off a single copy of the game, while the developer gets fuck all.

    There's nothing wrong with selling your own games, but when the stores start to base their business model on bleeding the developers dry and diverting the customers away from the new games, there has to be a reaction, and this is it.

  • arcam #43 11 months ago

    The idea that it is to pay for online service is a smokescreen. Do you think it costs EA £10 per game to run a multiplayer server?

    It is simply a method to discourage buying second-hand. Let's debate from a position of honesty.

  • RoaringPanda #44 11 months ago

    I love how they seem to market it as some new feature- it's not, they're taking away second hand privelages and slapping a sticker on the hole it's left saying "you're welcome!"

  • VandelayIndustries #45 11 months ago

    If you wait a few months after release, prices for new games are often cheaper online than the same game used, at say Blockbusters or Game. It's been a few years since I bought a second hand game because of this.

  • Ford #46 11 months ago

    "Access to the network to play the game is free. Access to own the multiplayer portion of the game is not."

    Doublethink of an epic scale. Incredible.

  • forgoodnesssake #47 11 months ago

    Fair dues I don't mind them doing it, my only concern is if I delete a main game data file do I lose the online pass?

    As I only have a 40gb drive I need to delete games & reinstall as I play them. If I delete & feel like playing it again 6 months later will I still have access to online? If not its a slap in the face for those still running the original ps3's with smaller drives.

  • Ashcroft #48 11 months ago

    Deleting saves or game data won't affect this. Your PSN account tracks what online entitlements you have independently from the game data. You can see them under one of the Account Information options.

  • _Supra_ #49 11 months ago

    Doesn't really bother me.. I buy my games new when they drop to 29.99..

  • azic #50 11 months ago

    I reckon not to long now till we here a certain "Game" Shop chain has gone in to liquidation!
    So so sorry for the staff, but it will be Like leemans, an example will be made.
    Sony will have thought about this, digital is the only way forward now. Wether digital brings higher prices remains to be seen I doubt it will in the ling run.

    Bricks and mortar retail is a choke hold on games and they keep digital prices up by crying when they feel that they are being under cut by digital.

    This even happens with Magic The Gathering Online. Card booster packs sell for more in digital format than they do in physical format! Why because the retail get upset.

    It's a brave new world people and I'm sorry to say that shops are on their last legs.

  • geordiek #51 11 months ago

    I stopped buying pre owned a while ago. I might miss the bargains, but if a group of people work hard to provide me with hours of entertainment, the only decent thing to do is make sure they get my money. Got no problems with any company (Fuck, even Activision) doing this.

  • HyperTails #52 11 months ago

    @bad09

    "That's because pre owned has nothing to do with them in any shape or form and they are not entitled to money from it but carry on suckling at the teet of bullshit this industry feeds you."

    Gaming is a multi-million dollar business, games cost an almighty tonne of money to make. Companies are laying people off left, right, and center or outright going bust. I support Sony 100% on this as it keeps money flowing.

    I bought White Knight Chronicles 2 the other week from Game at £39.99. It comes with an online pass that costs £7.99 on the PlayStation Store, yet I was offered by the guy behind the counter a pre-owned version at £34.99, without the online pass. So I stuck with the brand new version. I'm not only contributing to the industry there, but i'm helping make sure that Level 5 can profit and Sony can continue to fund great games.

    So yeah, I support this. I'm actually glad they've done it. Shop online or wait a few weeks if you don't like the prices. And FYI, you don't have to buy every game at full price on release, esp when supermarkets offer games for £25.99 sometimes.

  • Davemanz #53 11 months ago

    Again, second-hand sales aren't going anywhere. All the shops have to do is drop the price to make up for the locked online functionality. If they won't drop the price, give them hell.

    Yeah, big companies suck and don't actually care much about little guys like us, but it's definitely the used game shops that are the greediest in the industry. Developers are closing up, the publishing world is getting WAY too consolidated for anyone's tastes, and used game stores are making record profits, even buying up digital distribution platforms to try to expand their reach. If they'd charge a reasonable amount it wouldn't be unreasonable to pay for online access. The problem is that they only take 5 pounds off the full price, after buying it from a customer for ten pounds.

  • dirtysteve #54 11 months ago

    I hear the expensive games argument, then I look at the original (pre-outage) Infamous. Where I live, the game took ages to drop even a small amount. And Infamous 2 has the highest (E49.99) price-point again.
    I wouldn't have touched wither game without second-hand. I would like to give I2 a bash, just not at the price Sony seems intent on holding us to.
    If they want a fair deal, then make it 2-sided.

  • The-Jack-Burton #55 11 months ago

    Just lower the cost of games, create a much easier point of entry, which will result in increased sales and a diminished value of used games.

    We the gamers are on one side, the console manufacturers and game publishers are on the other.

    It is an insatiable machine that we keep feeding. It needs to be changed, it needs to be tempered and tailored to our needs.

  • Ashcroft #56 11 months ago

    Supermarkets and online retailing killed indie game stores a long time ago.

    The closest I've seen to one in the last 5 years is Grainger Games, and they have so many stores they're hardly indie these days.

  • SaintDaveUK #57 11 months ago

    The massive preowned market is (in large part) thanks to the mentality of publishing corporations. Many indie and local games shops have been forced into an exclusively second-hand sales by publishers. Due to high buying prices, smaller companies can only expect to sell new games at less than £2 profit. And now the publishers are giving them even less rope? It's one thing making money, but damaging other companies who initially tried to sell their goods is just plain dirty and something should be done to stop it. This is local British businesses, British jobs and British families we are talking about here, not some ominous suit in Tokyo or LA.

  • coolbritannia #58 11 months ago

    Now watch and smile as a good percentage of those slating project 10 dollar and xbox live gold suddenly see how charging for online services is sensible....

  • thedriffter50 #59 11 months ago

    If your gonna charge for a online pass then the very least you should do is decrease the RRP of all games for the system.

    Its only fair.

  • Syrette #60 11 months ago

    Some of us rent games too. Think about us...

  • stegabba #61 11 months ago

    i buy most of my games new anyway so not a problem for me ;)

  • makeamazing #62 11 months ago

    And that's the last time I buy one of Sony's games.

    Well if you are buying second hand then with regards to Sony's sales you're not actually giving them any money, so really you aren't buying any Sony games.

    I dont know why some people find this so difficult to understand. If you buy second hand, why should you get free unlimited access to their server? This is mainly the issue of retail stores screwing over the games industry. People selling one off's on ebay, was never going to be a big problem, but you go into game and see more than 50% of their shelf space is second hand... and why people are buying second hand when in some cases its more expensive or only a few pounds cheaper, i will never know.

  • Lord_BeeJee #63 11 months ago

    Why does a publisher need extra money for a second-hand sale? I've been thinking but can't come up with another product(entertainment or other) that has functionality removed once sold on.

  • des #64 11 months ago

    Corporate shills that post here are disgusting,spin spin spin

    Please support big greedy multi-billion $$$ corporations(Sony in this case),please please...please

  • makeamazing #65 11 months ago

    Idiots like DES are shills that post here are disgusting,spin spin spin

    You really are a horrible little man arn't you... your posts range from bizarre to MS corporate salesman, such a sell out.

  • UltimateGold #66 11 months ago

    I hope this online pass is going to be linked to the console and not a PSN account. My Mrs and I buy a game so we can both play, we both play online at different times. In theory if we buy a game , we could end up being forced to buy an additional online pass to allow access....I will await the answer to this before welcoming this move.

  • Sid-Nice #67 11 months ago

    I haven’t played Fifa 11 as we have 2 PS3 consoles in our home, my son asked if I would go 50/50 to buy the game and he used the online code. The little shit still owes me £20 for the game and there is no way that I’m forking out another £7 whatever to play online.

  • des #68 11 months ago

    @makeamazing
    oh,did I hurt your feelings?

    Please Understand.

  • ballshock #69 11 months ago

    fuck off bastards

  • ballshock #70 11 months ago

    So much for Sony's USP "Free online Gaming"

  • PaulieWaulie #71 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 14:23:40 06-01-2012

  • Phredreeke #72 11 months ago

    Second hand sales (of new titles) is a bigger threat to software companies than piracy. The guy buying second hand is obviously willing to pay for it!

    Edit: one person crying over facts already. SCORE!
    Edited by Phredreeke at 06/07/11 @ 22:40

  • freethinker101 #73 11 months ago

    To be honest I don't mind this. If I want to play online i'll use the code. If I don't I won't. Most recent example Portal 2. By the time PSN was up I'd moved on. Sold the game on eBay and got almost what I paid for it.

  • coolbritannia #74 11 months ago

    The second they have to invest any kind of money into PSN....

  • Stomp224 #75 11 months ago

    People complaining about this... why? If you buy 1st hand, no difference. If you buy 2nd hand, how about putting some money back into games industry that has entertained you so much, rather than feeding the pigs who have the audacity to push Preowned over New?

    Shops like GAME and Gamestation are the reason these schemes are being introduced. You know those shops would crumble without Preowned, right? those massive profits they show are pretty much the result of people wanting to save a few pennies and wait a week for the latest game to be traded in.

  • coolbritannia #76 11 months ago

    @Stomp, how naive you are. No other industry penalises you for buying 2nd hand, and without high street stores, ebay, gumtree etc would fill the gap.

  • arcam #77 11 months ago

    pigs who have the audacity to push Preowned over New?

    people wanting to save a few pennies and wait a week

    Since when did "shops selling (specialising in?) second-hand goods", and "people buying second-hand to save money" become such disliked members of society? You talk about them like they are doing something dirty or immoral but I challenge that.

    People have always bought and sold used goods. for some people it's the only way you can get by. When you no longer have use for something, you give it a younger family member or sell it to pay for something new. If you're a shop and you are about to "crumble", are you supposed to just accept that to avoid the shame of selling something used?

    Basically, my view is that video games are not exempt from this fundamental right that's literally been around since caveman days. Wear and tear is a part of life, but this is artificially and deliberately crippling a product to get around it.

    I can accept it as a part of modern business because, shit, we all know how much that has to do with fairness these days, but I will never like it or cheer it.

  • Widge #78 11 months ago

    I think its more that game shops realised they can pocket more money circulating the pre-owned stuff than the new. Less new games sell, publishers and devs get less money, shops get it all from second hand.

    Its either this or next time some mid level studio folds we all say "ah well, its ok, we can buy games second hand".

  • HyperTails #79 11 months ago

    You know, its funny how people are saying that this is wrong and that Sony are just being greedy bastards. Far from it, actually they are doing us a favour. Let me explain:

    You buy a game brand new. The publisher and developer profit from that game. A game that has cost multiple millions to develop, and needs to make so much money to profit needs to sell. So they make money, people get paid, a sequel gets in the works. Everyones happy.

    But then you buy a game pre-owned and you buy it. The publisher that has sunk loads of money into this then isn't making any money on that. People have to be paid, and development costs must be recouped. So, the games MP gets locked into a code and they ask you for £7.99 (or whatever its Xbox Live equivalent is) to make some money back. Its entirely reasonable for Sony to want to profit from this.

    Also, lets not forget that its only some games here that have an online pass, and its only the MP part to boot. SP and the majority of MP games are unaffected.

    Let's not forget that retailers like Game have also forced publishers hands over this... like being able to pre-order pre-owned titles before the games actually released.

    So Sony are actually doing us a favour by inplementing this PSN Pass. It'll ensure that games are profitable (i'm expecting Uncharted 3 to use this as well), and retailers still get their second hand sales.

  • coolbritannia #80 11 months ago

    arcam, exactly. high 5 dude

    ^5

  • arcam #81 11 months ago

    I think its more that game shops realised they can pocket more money circulating the pre-owned stuff than the new.

    Then I guess my question is, what is actually wrong with that? The making money part or the selling used goods part?

  • Master09 #82 11 months ago

    Why can't publishers and used game sellers like Gamestop/Game etc share revenue from used game sales?

    Can't they have a fair deal of some sort?

    Can't publishers get a cut from pre-owned game sales so not having to resort to implementing online pass codes or other ways to kill second hand sells?

  • FireMonkey #83 11 months ago

    @The-Jack-Burton - "Just lower the cost of games, create a much easier point of entry, which will result in increased sales and a diminished value of used games."

    The problem is if the cost of games drops, the cost of second hand games drop and people will still buy them as they are cheaper, so all that will do is actually reduce the profit that the publishers make from the game.

    As an example take a look at this: [link url=http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Saving-a-penny----pirating-the-Humble-Indie-Bundle
    ]http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Saving-a...[/link]
    This was an indie game bundle that was made up of World of Goo, Aquaria, Lugaru HD, Gish and Penumbra: Overture and includes an option to donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play. The bundle is worth about $50 and they were offering it DRM free for whatever you wanted to pay. However 25% of people didn't even pay $0.01 for it but instead download it illegally? Worse of all some people downloading the games via their servers (which costs the developers money) and then cracking them. The only reason it made as much money as it did is that some very generous people paid thousands of dollars for the pack.

    In general people are cheap / greedy bastards and that will destroy the industry if it isn't careful.

  • thesnowman #84 11 months ago

    Not to sure how I feel about this. I dont normally play online these days so it wont really impact me, but I do buy pre-owned games now and again, especially for my son. I have bought him most of the lego games for around $10 each pre-owned and when I bought my PS3 I bought 5 pre owned games for less than $100.

    I do normally buy most of my games brand new, but I think that because some people/companies abuse the system then we all get hit with it. I would love to buy all my games brand new, but would I rather pay $10 for lego star wars or $30, especially when it is for my son.

  • Phredreeke #85 11 months ago

    Yes, when you buy the game it's your right to sell it to someone else after you're done with it.

    The problem is that these stores have made it their business to cheat publishers out of new sales.

  • arcam #86 11 months ago

    @Master09

    How about retailers give publishers a cut of second-hand sales, and publishers lower their prices of new games in return? Publishers would get a hefty chunk of cash for doing nothing and retailers could make more than a couple of pounds profit on a new game?

    I guess they've had similar discussions in the past but that retailer/publisher thing must be a bit of a weird and awkward relationship.

  • Tiberius_Gracchus #87 11 months ago

    Goodbye CEX,stick around for the wii and dvds though will ya?

  • -cerberus- #88 11 months ago

    You know this second hand market thing really isn't the problem. It's the games. The seller thinks the game isn't worth keeping and the buyer thinks the game isn't worth paying full price for, so the game's quality coming into question is the problem.

  • Phredreeke #89 11 months ago

    thesnowman: most of the lego games are pretty old, Traveller's Tales won't be making much from them by now. The problem is stores selling newly released games pre-owned at a marginally lower price, while raking in a massive profit on the markup (none which goes to the developer)

    Heck, you're even helping the industry, since the person you bought the games off gets more to spend on new games.

  • FireMonkey #90 11 months ago

    @Lord_BeeJee - "Why does a publisher need extra money for a second-hand sale? I've been thinking but can't come up with another product(entertainment or other) that has functionality removed once sold on."

    Think of any product that wares out over time. It isn't necessarily functionality that is removed, but other ways of getting money back after the initial sale.

    For instance:
    - Cars offering a lifetime warranty. This was for the first owner only too.
    - Also cars need replacement parts which are bought from the car manufacturer or a non-official part that has to be licenced
    - iPods batteries wear out and you have to pay Apple to get them replaced.

    I also find it interesting that everyone seems to love and has nothing bad to say about Valve and Steam even though that completely locks out any chance of second hand sales (basically you have a one use code that covers the entire game not just online), yet these online pass things get a slating even though, as far as I can see, it is a solution that the publishers have come up with to allow for the second hand market. They could easily have made it so the code covered the entire game and killed the second hand sales of the game out-right, or they could have set up their own second hand market, but that would damage the retailers. Both these ideas would have been better for the publisher and they would have thought about them, but have obviously thought about the customer and kept away from doing that.

  • Lemming81 #91 11 months ago

    The reason this is happening folks, is not because of people buying pre-owned games. It's because of retailers selling them.

  • Eraysor #92 11 months ago

    @Firemonkey

    The difference is Steam games do not cost upwards of £40 except in extreme cases such as collector's editions. You've made a saving of £10 at least most of the time over a console version, and you get the convenience of Steam's reliability and endless access to your game. Plus they have huge sales which usually result in prices far, far lower than console games.

    @Everyone...I still can't believe people support this, for multiple reasons.

    Firstly, by gating online play behind a pass you prevent second-hand purchasers from getting multiplayer DLC, which could be a big source of income (look at CoD). If you make people have to buy a pass, they might never bother with online and that's missed revenue from future DLC packs.

    Secondly, I am amazed people are so happy to devalue their £40 purchases the instant they buy one. I mean, the average online pass seems to be about 800-1200MSP. You're hacking £5-10 off the price of your otherwise brand new product for multiplayer you might not even like. I mean, I had Tiger Woods 12 and Dead Space 2, and neither had a trial long enough to demonstrate to me why I should lose a substantial chunk of resale value. Not using the codes meant I could sell the games as new eventually and recoup a lot of the costs.

    Thirdly, the end result of these passes (for me at least) is that I don't buy games with online passes for the launch £40 price, because I feel it's a bit of a rip off when I might not even like the game and I end up losing even more value with passes for multiplayer I might not even use. I only bought Homefront when it reached £15. This means neither the developer nor the shop get much money, so pretty much nobody wins.

  • FenderMaster #93 11 months ago

    The only people to blame for this are the retailers abusing the pre-owned market. They've pushed it too far, with pre-owned pre-orders, selling the used games right next to the new copies for only £5 less, and offering incentives designed to encourage trading games a week after buying them, allowing the shop to make hundreds of pounds off a single copy of the game, while the developer gets fuck all.

    There's nothing wrong with selling your own games, but when the stores start to base their business model on bleeding the developers dry and diverting the customers away from the new games, there has to be a reaction, and this is it.

    well said

  • Nithron #94 11 months ago

    Do these publishers not just end up with the money from second-hand sales anyway, or a large chunk of it?

    People sell their old games so they can buy new games, after all.

  • Sid-Nice #95 11 months ago

    The close up of the PSN Pass on the Resistance box looks like a box of Daz washing powder.

  • Drygore #96 11 months ago

    @Xardan

    What are you on about??
    Sony's saying this as a publisher.. It's not ALL Ps3 games, it's about the games Sony will publish, ie: first party exclusives. Stop fanboying when it, especially in this case, makes you look like a retard. Sony is following the path other publishers' already taken. Personally i think it's a shame, this online pass idea, but at the same time i fully understand why it exist.

  • FireMonkey #97 11 months ago

    @nithron - "Do these publishers not just end up with the money from second-hand sales anyway, or a large chunk of it?

    People sell their old games so they can buy new games, after all."

    The majority buy new second hand games. That's why game really advertise hard to try to get people to trade in recently released games. There would be nothing wrong with 2nd hand if stores like game weren't so bloody cheeky about their sales tatics and pricing. People should get pissy with the stores not the publishers. They make loads of profit of you and give next to nothing back, where as the publishers create / finance the games you play.

    Don't support the publishers and devs and eventually you will be stuck with shops peddling old games over and over again and few new games being released, non of which will be original. You'll just ave your CoDs and Fifas as why / how would any publisher take a risk in such a dangerous market. It's already going that way and people already moan about how we only ever see sequels and hardly ever get anything original.

    If you want originality and choice, support the devs and publishers not the greedy, second hand pushers.
    Edited by FireMonkey at 07/07/11 @ 00:36

  • chessboxer #98 11 months ago

    I'm still waiting for coolbritannia to explain how paying for XBL Gold somehow makes the online pass system in titles such as Homefront, Dirt 3, Mortal Kombat, Dead Space 2, FIFA 12, MOH, NFS Hot Pursuit, Bulletstorm, F.E.A.R. 3 and several others null & void for second hand purchasers on the 360.

  • zm26 #99 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 13:15:51 16-05-2012

  • FireMonkey #100 11 months ago

    @Eraysor (just seen your post) - "The difference is Steam games do not cost upwards of £40 except in extreme cases such as collector's editions. You've made a saving of £10 at least most of the time over a console version, and you get the convenience of Steam's reliability and endless access to your game. Plus they have huge sales which usually result in prices far, far lower than console games."

    So why doesn't everyone just stop bitching about online passes and buy new on Steam then that way the devs and publishers are supported properly.

    But that goes against the arguments people were throwing around about not being able to buy / sell 2nd hand or the fact the retail stores may get damaged by loss of sales / profit.

    You can't have it both ways. Steam can't be the best thing ever (as it seems to be in many peoples eyes), but online pass be the work of the devil as they are actually having very similar final outcomes.

    The only reason Steam can be cheaper is because of the lack of packaging, transport and the stores costs and profit.

  • FireMonkey #101 11 months ago

    @zm28 - "This is a great idea. I love paying for stuff I got for free before. Sony has my interests at heart."

    Buy it new then and it is still free

  • arcam #102 11 months ago

    @FireMonkey

    Steam has to tie your games to a single account, it how the whole thing works. If they didn't do that there would be no Steam.

  • Thedaus #103 11 months ago

    RE: Preowned sales.

    Dear sony,

    It is called capitalism, get over it!

    P.S: Anyone who supports moves like this or calls preowned buyers "leeches" are nothing more than enemies of the free market and are losers that try to make up for how much the suck at life by shilling for arseholes!

  • Marshall2008 #104 11 months ago

    So bye bye free online multiplayer if you buy 2nd hand games then. It's the same shit EA pull and it fucks you up if you have multiple consoles each with a different user (e.g. You and your kids have your own consoles in the same house)

    Just like EA titles which employ this crap I will no longer be buying them.
    Edited by Marshall2008 at 07/07/11 @ 01:09

  • Thedaus #105 11 months ago

    I can resell a car, a TV, a house, clothes, consoles, PCs ect.

    Games should not be any different!

  • Stomp224 #106 11 months ago

    To those who whined @ my comment: Game and gamestation, as specialist retailers focus their sales on pre-owned, if these outlets do not value the very product they specialize in, or the companies they deal with, then who does?

    I have no problem with preowned at all, merely the aggressive manner in which these retailers are chasing it for enormous profit.

  • madjim #107 11 months ago

    Once I bought a used car. It was only one year old, so I had two more years warranty. Did the car manufacturer lose money from me for not buying a new one? Yes. Did I lose the warranty and free services because it was second hand? No way. In other words, online pass is pure bullshit.

    I see that the time when even offline games will need a similar pass is very near. I call this corporate fascism, and imagine that I never buy second hand, except from two times, Siren Blood Curse and Demons Souls.

  • arcam #108 11 months ago

    @Stomp224

    Gamestation sold their entire business for $75m, less than the price of a Call of Duty marketing campaign. I think the wealth and huge profits of these retailers is being overstated. Their operations are dwarfed by the big publishers.

  • iTech #109 11 months ago

    @_Süpra_ Snap. Who cares? Pre owned games are only a couple of pounds cheaper than buying a new title. I have no problem with it as I buy my games on release or when the price drops to a reasonable price.

  • kinth #110 11 months ago

    oh well its time ot learn how to pirate games i guess.

  • IMD1_Pk #111 11 months ago

    If people think they will stop at multiplayer they are so wrong. They will remove features and content that's on disk just like EA did with Mass Effect 2 and it's Cerebus network. Just give them some time ;).

  • vmanb #112 11 months ago

    For all the people who think this is a great idea and you'll just wait a couple of months to get your games cheaper are living in dreamland. Sure it will be cheaper at first but as soon as these developers realise that most people are waiting for the price drop they'll just put expirey dates on the online pass so you will end up paying for waiting anyway, mark my words this will happen just like i remember saying a few years ago about online passes. Very slippery slope this one which i'm not going to go down, bad move sony

  • Biker_Bob_1971 #113 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:16 09-05-2012

  • Demiath #114 11 months ago

    Anything that hurts the pre-owned market is welcome, I'd say. There's no reason why brick and mortar stores should be allowed to develop an entire business model which is based on the very idea of decreasing sales of new games. There's only one word for that, and it's parasitism.

  • kenichi-san #115 11 months ago

    This is a stupid idea... and people: Why does Sony or any other company for that matter demand money from second-hand game? Did'nt Sony/company receive enough money when the first person bought the game? I see someone used a car for analogy, but i'll use a camera: If i buy a camera in a store, am i supposed to send money to Canon/Nikon if i sell it to my friend after x years?...
    Edited by kenichi-san at 07/07/11 @ 06:15

  • ATNR1 #116 11 months ago

    I don't get why people are getting so upset? No one is saying you cannot buy pre-owned games, you can still go out and buy the hell out of old games. Only thing Sony is doing is saying, if you want to play over my network on a game I didn't make a dime out of, you are going to have to pay for that right. Even simpler you payed me directly you get to play the game online, if you payed someone else, no go until you pay for your right to go online.

  • afghan_jones #117 11 months ago

    This online pass stuff is going to fuck this industry hard.

    High street retailers are basically only functional right now due to second hand sales.

    Mess that market up and specialist game stores will have to close. Eventually the only physical stores selling games will ne supermarkets. And they will only stock casual games plus the top tier guaranteed sellers. Quirkier, smaller games will sell even worse than at present as they will have zero high street presence, and turn just stop getting made altogether with the industry revolving around cheap casual dross and the handful of sure fire hits like COD.

    Goodbye originality and new IP.

  • FireMonkey #118 11 months ago

    @Thedaus - "I can resell a car, a TV, a house, clothes, consoles, PCs ect.
    Games should not be any different!"

    They are not any different. You can still resell games.
    Cars, clothing and houses all deteriorate over time and so when sold on are less of a product and so are worth less.
    Many cars are also now sold with a lifetime warranty which is only for the person who first owns the car. This is basically the same as the online pass as in it is something the buyer of the new product receives but they can not pass on after re-sell.

    Would you have preferred the publishers making you register the game with a one-off code before you could play any of it and so totally remove the second hand market (just Valve does with HalfLife)? It would have been very easy for them to do and would in many respects be better for them, but I feel they have thought about it and not gone that route to allow the customers to still be able to benefit from the second hand market.

    @madJim - What happens with your car when it starts wearing out or gets damaged? You have to either buy official replacement parts or un-official ones which the makes will have had to pay license fee to make. That brings the manufacturer in more money after the sale which is why that part of your comparison falls apart.
    /
    "I see that the time when even offline games will need a similar pass is very near." - That is Steam isn't it
    Edited by FireMonkey at 07/07/11 @ 06:45

  • Dizzy #119 11 months ago

    Maybe they should do this for movies and CDs as well... oh and Books!

    This is total bullshit.

  • Bander #120 11 months ago

    Money from second hand sales does go back to the publisher, in the form of retailers being able to buy more stock, and the original owner putting money towards new games. And if second hands sales become a pain in the arse, the price of new games won't be discounted as quickly as they are now, as they no longer have to compete with cheap used games.

    If publishers only want games to be available to those happy to spend £40 per game to keep and not resell, the market will shrink. I don't think online pass schemes will make much difference anytime soon, but it's still a step in the wrong direction.

    Having said that, it's not bad for people who rarely play online anyway, like myself. I'd be inclined to buy a game and try and sell the unused code back to the shop so I can get £8 off the price and still have a day-one game without fingerprints, scratches and pube

  • Mister_G #121 11 months ago

    I blame hackers. If they hadn't hacked/cracked PS3 then I doubt Sony would have bothered with this.

  • bad09 #122 11 months ago

    "I also find it interesting that everyone seems to love and has nothing bad to say about Valve and Steam even though that completely locks out any chance of second hand sales"

    Well as someone who has gone from consoles (where I traded in games to fund new) to PC (where I can't trade at all and not just through Steam thanks to publisher accounts etc) I can tell you my spend on video gaming sunk like the titanic as I can't trade in the crap or stuff I'm finished with. Most games now are bought for less than 20 quid and most of those maybes I would have traded games in for before are simply forgotten until they are a couple of quid in steam sales, I'm sure that wasn't the intended effect of locking PC games to one person (even in the same household in most cases).

  • bad09 #123 11 months ago

    @HyperTails

    All you "pro killing consumer rights" people always bang on about Game but they are not the only store in this country, if you dislike their methods (and trust me even as someone who fully supports 2nd hand and despises these online passes I fully agree Game and it's big chain ilk are the ones causing this damage) don't shop there, I don't and use indies for console stuff.

    I don't get why people are happy to moan at the big culprits in this mess and support the killing of a consumers right to sell on a product in it's complete form yet still happily shop in these big stores causing the problem in the first place.
    Edited by bad09 at 07/07/11 @ 08:17

  • Machetazo #124 11 months ago

    There are less demos, and it's irregular for games with online components to have them (for Sony) so, I argue that if games makers were to do a better job of differentiating and demonstrating their titles so that people know what they're buying - take the guess work and any concern over quality and support of the online service out of the equation as a VERY necessary starting point of them deciding it warrants its own charge - then, more people might buy closer to day one.

    If people are excited about the game then they'll more likely to buy it new; if it's one of many, there are others in consideration, perhaps they buy pre-owned in lieu of a demo or they're not certain of the value of what's in the box. So, all this "better chance to increase the value and quality to players": I call publisher BS, until I see evidence that they haven't just pocketed their new-found margin - much like the pre-owned retailers, ironically! I'll wait and see.
    Edited by Machetazo at 07/07/11 @ 08:21

  • makeamazing #125 11 months ago

    Some of these analogies are pretty funny. When you buy a DVD, clothes a car second hand the ccmpany has made their money and it no longer costs them anything. With this someone could be the fourth owner of the game three years down the line, accessing bandwidth and servers for free, this costs money. This is one massive problem, especially how Game do business, by buying very few copies of games and then reselling the same second hand stock over and over.

    On the whole I don't have problem with 2nd hand stock, but if someone is getting out of business, then I fully understand it... How people think companies should give access away free,just shows how stupid this "everything free" generation has become.

  • Machetazo #126 11 months ago

    At one point there was digital distribution. Then, the publisher yesterday, realising competition was no factor on the digital console platform (digital distribution, as a concept is fantastic) elected to return to pricing their game, ala 1995! How much is second hand sales providing competition. There's got to be a better way.
    Edited by Machetazo at 07/07/11 @ 08:32

  • mrvinny000 #127 11 months ago

    Well after console , isp , software and now this Resistance 3 like EA Sports and THQ games before have just hit my half price list or will just get ignored . My household is a gaming one and we have 3 ps3's and tend to share games which like the others has bumped the cost of a single copy to nearly £60, so i will now wait till the game is £20 and we shall all each have a copy and laugh as i walk out the shop knowing that not much money has just been made from those 3 purchases .
    My suggestion is sell game for their RRP .Which is generally £50 and scrap this nonsense . That way devs get a bigger cut pre-owned can stay the same price and i know many would rather pay more and be able to play these titles on any console in the house rather than having to pay all the fees and other costs for the priviledge of having to pay more to access content thats on the disc anyway . How can this be right? if the content is on the disc but denied access to surely the is a leal implication somewhere.
    Anyhow well done Sony you may have lost my cc details and personal info then tried a marketing ploy with your welcome back package but this is just insult to injury and like the afforementioned i wish your 1st party games the worst sales figures ever. Resistance 3's 16player online was going to suck anyway and to have less than half the original players has already insulted resistance fans now this will surely kill this title before its even released.

  • bad09 #128 11 months ago

    @makeamazing

    So what if the first hand buyer still plays the game 3 years down the line? Should they pay more?

    Also that 2nd hand player is still a player for first hand buyers to play, what good is a game first hand if the online comunity is dead? If it's an online game the first question is always "is there a big online community?".

    What about gamings cancer as well? This industry has a real hard on for useless DLC especially in MP these days is there not money to be made there without cripppling the online?

    Give all the excuses you want this sort of thing is purely to get more money out each household per game and to fleece money from a market they have no part in.

  • coolbritannia #129 11 months ago

    ah Biker Bob, you may feel smug at selling your PS3, but I never bought one in the first place!

    I truly am the winner.

  • SeventhSon #130 11 months ago

    So if I pick up a 2nd hand copy of Resistance 3 I could still play the single player game, but I would be locked out of the mutiplayer?

    Any idea if the PSN Pass's will be sold on there own for a reduced price?

  • coolbritannia #131 11 months ago

    @Chessboxer, u mad bro?

    You pay for Gold because you want the superior online gaming service and would rather not have your personal data being sold to Bangkok ID scammers. What other publishers choose to do with their online passes is a seperate issue.

    At least m$ don't insist on paying extra for their first party games, Sony making that decision is an attempt to gather extra revenue from PSN while still calling their service "free". Typical Sony Decepticon politics.

  • Zomoniac #132 11 months ago

    Once I bought a used car. It was only one year old, so I had two more years warranty. Did the car manufacturer lose money from me for not buying a new one? Yes. Did I lose the warranty and free services because it was second hand? No.

    Watch any advert for a car with a lifetime/7 year/100k/whatever longer than legal minimum warranty, and observe how it says "first owner only" at the bottom.

    Also, cars are priced in such a way that the new sales offset the used sales. They keep putting prices up, with inflation, and make big money on each new one. Despite costing more than ever to make, games are, relatively speaking, cheaper than ever (that £70 SNES game in 1992 would, in current money, be £110, despite the dev cost being about 1% of some of the current releases). So Acti/EA tried to stick the price up by a fiver, what with despite high inflation game prices having been static for five years, and every fucker whined like the world had ended.

    I think the key problem here is that so many gamers are spoiled, whiny twats who think developers owe them something and they think they're entitled to have the game they want, whenever they want, with any features they want, without the developer getting any money, and then bitch like hell if the company that just spent $100m making a game that you bought without them taking a cut for might actually want some money for the upkeep of the servers, or release some premium DLC (OMG it should be in the box etc etc).

  • BOFH_UK #133 11 months ago

    The problem with saying "the stores just drop the price of second hand games" is that to do so they will drop the price they pay for those second hand games in the first place. And that, really, is my main problem with these sorts of schemes because no matter how you slice it the consumer is paying the same amount of money they did for a game without on-line pass but it's worth a lot less if they decide to sell it on. Same sort of problem with digital sales when they're priced the same as physical media - the consumer can't sell them on so they loose a chunk of potential value from the product.

    Thing is, while I do realise that games companies need to make money and second hand sales remove that profit, I can't help but think there's other things they could be trying. DLC, if it's good quality or strikes a chord with the gaming public, is one obvious path but there's got to be others. How about these big studios investing tens of millions of pounds in a single make-or-break title have a couple of small teams generating Xbox Live style games, or even mobile titles? Cheap development costs, tie them into the big franchises to work as additional marketing and bring in a bit of money. Might not be the headline figures they're used to but a profit is a profit...

    I guess what I'm trying to say here is I wish everyone involved here - publishers, developers, game stores, everyone - would start thinking a bit more creatively to try and solve their problems rather than trying to enforce what's worked before...

  • jag10 #134 11 months ago

    people may not be happy companies doing this, but you can't really blame them when you've got game offering brand new games for 4.99 with trade in.

    and there so called 'sealed' games probably won't even include the codes half the time.
    Edited by jag10 at 07/07/11 @ 09:04

  • systems #135 11 months ago

    As someone who runs servers, I don't see what people are complaining about here. To run game servers means hardware costs, software costs, maintenance costs, utility costs and staff costs to keep it running. Someone has to pay for it? Are we at least agreed there?

    Some of you are saying this should be paid for by the developers and not the customers? If you buy second hand games, that's exactly what you're saying. By all means let retailers sell second hand games, but if the game includes online functionality then let THEM run the servers.

    The only little problem I have with this is that it's a teeny tiny bit cheeky of Sony to start this right now, after sacking their network security team earlier this year and then getting hacked to bits due to not keeping up with security patches. This money will go back to re-employing them no doubt.

  • Dagdriver #136 11 months ago

    I smell business here.
    As I rarely play multiplayer online, I could potentially sell off my games at a higher price :o)

  • Psiloc #137 11 months ago

    @Marshall2008
    "It's the same shit EA pull and it fucks you up if you have multiple consoles each with a different user (e.g. You and your kids have your own consoles in the same house)"

    You great donkey, just add each of your user accounts to each console (even if you never plan to log in with it) and then everyone can use the same pass :-)

  • HyperTails #138 11 months ago

    @bad09

    "All you "pro killing consumer rights" people always bang on about Game but they are not the only store in this country, if you dislike their methods (and trust me even as someone who fully supports 2nd hand and despises these online passes I fully agree Game and it's big chain ilk are the ones causing this damage) don't shop there, I don't and use indies for console stuff.

    I don't get why people are happy to moan at the big culprits in this mess and support the killing of a consumers right to sell on a product in it's complete form yet still happily shop in these big stores causing the problem in the first place."

    You seem to misunderstand me. I'm not 'pro killing consumer rights', its just that this is a neccessity with game development skyrocketing, that companies need to make as much money as possible. You're helping the industry by accepting this.

    And I don't use Game. I bought White Knight Chronicles 2 off them because its £39.99 everywhere (retail and online) and I wanted to trade in Duke Nukem Forever as fast as I could before its value dropped. I got £30 for it. I do all my games purchases online.

    @SeventhSon

    "Any idea if the PSN Pass's will be sold on there own for a reduced price?"

    Sold on their own? Yes. Reduced price? Well, White Knight Chronicles 2 has an online pass and costs £7.99, and as that's a Sony game, i'd imagine that will be the standard PSN Pass cost.
    Edited by HyperTails at 07/07/11 @ 09:19

  • Ford #139 11 months ago

    This awful "supporting the industry" garbage is making me feel sick.

    As a consumer you should really be more concerned with wanting them to make compelling content that's worth purchasing outright instead of this nauseating cheerleading.

    Save your compassion for charities, these corporations need to EARN your money.

  • bad09 #140 11 months ago

    @HyperTails

    Yeah but you are still showing disgust at a business practice of GAME yet buying products from their shop, do you not see the double standards there?


    Also hate to break it to you we are not actually here to help the industry, I know gamers are far too emotionally attached to gaming but these are just companies selling a product and we are consumers to buy those products and as consumers we have the right to sell our goods we own (spare me the "we don't own our games speech" I buy it it's mine!).

    I do find it odd how emotionally attached we are as gamers, no one says I must Star Trek at the cinema and then buy the blu to help the indsutry, you just go see or buy a movie. No one says "I must buy a new car to help the industry, how the games industry ended up with actual worshippers rather than consumers is beyond me.
    Edited by bad09 at 07/07/11 @ 09:36

  • byakuya83 #141 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 10:03:41 30-03-2012

  • homerramone #142 11 months ago

    So they effectively are making you pay for their on-line service.. whilst still being able to claim they have a free on-line service.
    Clever... (And greedy)
    I'm so sick of hearing this 'were being damaged by second hand sales' shit. (All the other media industry's can apparently cope with s/h market)
    Its nothing to do with that - someone has seen a means by why to make more money from a product that's already been sold and so their doing it. They are in the game to make money so why wouldn't they ?
    However if it was solely down to retailers 'stealing' sales with the second hand market - offer a REASONABLE PRICE for a digital download and undercut them...

  • HyperTails #143 11 months ago

    @bad09

    "Also hate to break it to you we are not actually here to help the industry, I know gamers are far too emotionally attached to gaming but these are just companies selling a product and we are consumers to buy those products and as consumers we have the right to sell our goods we own (spare me the "we don't own our games speech" I buy it it's mine!).

    I do find it odd how emotionally attached we are as gamers, no one says I must Star Trek at the cinema and then buy the blu to help the indsutry, you just go see or buy a movie. No one says "I must buy a new car to help the industry, how the games industry ended up with actual worshippers rather than consumers is beyond me."

    How are we not here to help? I buy new, i'm helping the industry out. I buy pre-owned, i'm... not.

    I bought Alice: Madness Returns on launch day. Doing that ensured three things:

    1) I'm helping EA recoup its investment in the game and adding to the sales, thereby hopefully making sure they release more unique games like this in the future.
    2) I helped Spicy Horse, a really talented yet small studio, make its money, and helped even more buy buying the Weapons of Madness and Dresses DLC. They are really talented, and I would love to see what else they can bring out for PS3/360/PC if the company saw success with Alice.
    3) I'm helping the industry. Yes, I am. For the reasons above, and the fact that devs don't see a penny from pre-owned sales is why.

    If I bought Alice pre-owned, then i'd have to buy American McGee's Alice off PSN at £7.99. But that would be my choice. If I didn't, then Spicy Horse wouldn't see my money.

    @Frod

    "This awful "supporting the industry" garbage is making me feel sick.

    As a consumer you should really be more concerned with wanting them to make compelling content that's worth purchasing outright instead of this nauseating cheerleading.

    Save your compassion for charities, these corporations need to EARN your money."

    And the games I buy tend to have this compelling content that's worth my money. I support good games by buying them new.

    And its not so much the goliaths like EA that need supporting. Its more the devs that require goliaths to fund their game (like Spicy Horse) that need to have our support.

  • Biker_Bob_1971 #144 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:16 09-05-2012

  • Goodfella #145 11 months ago

    So Coolbrit: We are both winners and we are both smug :)

    The way I see it you're both cocks, spouting the usual hyperbole in an attempt to enforce your very shallow arguments.

  • Psiloc #146 11 months ago

    "Plus, there is the possibility of more than one customer per household or Playstation - siblings who pay 50/50 for a new game will be punished."

    No they won't. It's not difficult, you only need one user account with a pass for anyone on that PS3 to play the game online. If you have more than one PS3 in the house, simply add each of your accounts to each PS3, even if you never actually plan to use it.

    That's how they've worked until now anyway. I suppose we don't know the specifics about the Sony-published version but I'd bet good money they work the same.

    [EDIT: Might have been obvious but this advice might not apply to the 360, I've no idea if that lets you share passes across user accounts but I imagine it does]

    Anyway, just to post my thoughts on the issue as a whole, I do think this is a step in the wrong direction but like others I totally blame the retailers for forcing publishers hands. To be honest, while I understand this hurts gamers too, I'm still a bit happy retailers are getting their just desserts.
    Edited by Psiloc at 07/07/11 @ 10:27

  • bad09 #147 11 months ago

    @ HyperTails

    "How are we not here to help?"

    Because they are a company you are a consumer, the is no "helping" unless you have an emotional attachment to a comany that sees you as nothing but money. They sell products you buy them or you don't. By buying a game 2nd hand you are doing nothing wrong, you are not killing anything you are merely choosing to buy a product off someone who alreadys owns/owned it.

    I understand consumers wanting to give money to the companies that provide a great products and customer service, I do it myself but that's as far as it should go. People who think they are "helping" a capitalist industry are a little odd IMO. Like I said their is nothing like that in any other industry.
    Edited by bad09 at 07/07/11 @ 10:16

  • Psiloc #148 11 months ago

    +1 to Goodfella for speaking the hive mind.

  • HyperTails #149 11 months ago

    @Goodfella

    lol Well said.

    The fact Biker Bob said 'Sony fanz' says it all really. He can be coolbritannia's bum buddy all he wants, but it throws up a question.

    Who is the biggest wanker?

    /adds Biker Bob to ignore.

  • HyperTails #150 11 months ago

    @bad09

    "Because they are a company you are a consumer, the is no "helping" unless you have an emotional attachment to a comany that sees you as nothing but money. They sell products you buy them or you don't. By buying a game 2nd hand you are doing nothing wrong, you are not killing anything you are merely choosing to buy a product off someone who alreadys owns/owned it.

    I understand consumers wanting to give money to the companies that provide a great products and customer service, I do it myself but that's as far as it should go. People who think they are "helping" a capitalist industry are a little odd IMO. Like I said their is nothing like that in any other industry."

    Except you aren't helping the industry by buying pre-owned. Smaller devs like Spicy Horse and Ninja Theory deserve to see success, but they couldn't possibly make a game without some other publisher waltzing in with a truck full of money to fund it. We're supporting companies like that by buying new.

    There is actually the model (plastic, not fashion) industry where people like to buy new instead of using eBay and such as people like to support model companies. Warhammer gamers are a prime example.

  • bad09 #151 11 months ago

    @HyperTails

    Again you are using your own emotional attachment to capitalist companies like Ninja theory to say they "deserve" success and using that as an argument against 2nd hand. It's a capitalist free market and it's up to the individual where they spend their money, they can choose to buy from the company or buy it from someone selling their own copy.

    I've bought all kinds of models 2nd hand on ebay, I honestly don't think there is any kind of "we must help this industry" mentalitly there. I guess the closet thing to it would people who only buy products or produce from their own country to help jobs in their country but that it not tied to any one industry and more about patriotism than helping an industry.

  • HyperTails #152 11 months ago

    @bad09

    Yes, I agree its up the the individual, I absolutely agree 100% with that. I just think that companies like Ninja Theory and Spicy Horse (the former of which doesn't get nearly as much recognition as it should) deserve to see success. They are one of the few that take care in crafting their games, like Heavenly Sword, and they deserve to see sales from it. They deserve to make money as the more they get the more they can pump into new and innovative games. Charlie Chump buying Enslaved off Game's pre-owned section isn't helping them one iota.

  • FireMonkey #153 11 months ago

    I'm not going to comment on the rights or wrongs of this any more as it is obvious there are people on both sides with strong feelings and so it is a discussion (argument?) that is going nowhere.

    Instead I have a proper question about the online pass systems. I rarely have time to play online games any more (and don't have XBox Live Gold subscription so I can't play online anyway) and so seeing the pass gives me online access and costs £10 (or whatever), should there be a new version sold without the pass for £10 less?

    This would help drop the price of original games down so that they are easier to afford for many people and would mean people could (if they like the game) purchase the online pass for it at a later date.
    Edited by FireMonkey at 07/07/11 @ 10:53

  • geeza2020 #154 11 months ago

    I'm with bad09 here, there is a worrying trend within the games industry for fans to just throw money at the big publishers and manufacturers out of some deluded sense of comaradery i.e. "supporting the industry". *Newsflash* In the last three months of last year (admittedly before all the PSN hacks) Sony had reported net income of $886,000,000. That was actually an increase on what they had projected a year earlier. So obviously, they arent exactly tightening their belts are they? So I'm not sure why they so desperatley need to put this in place. I expect MS's figures are even more eye-wateringly ridiculous than Sony's when it comes to profits/net income. So please stop with this "I need to help the industry" shit, they're doing just fine thanks, and they couldnt give two shits about you, thats for sure. This is just more greed from big corporations wanting a piece of someone elses pie because thats what corporate scum do. Its all about growth, no matter the cost.

  • bad09 #155 11 months ago

    @HyperTails

    Like I said, whether you personally think a company "deserves" success is completely irrelevant, there are companies I wish all the success in the world (hello CD Projekt!) but I understand the free market and people have the right to buy/sell what they want. Calling people who use the 2nd hand market "Charlie Chump" is silly it may not be helping this capitalist company earn more money but it's a harsh reality of the free market.

    Personally I would say the rather poorly recieved Heavenly Sword, a lack of any kind of marketing for this utterly uninteresting looking new IP and the that fact Namco (a company way past it's former glory days) had it's name on the box was a bigger dent in their money making on Enslaved than 2nd hand could ever be, but again that's just my opinion.
    Edited by bad09 at 07/07/11 @ 11:04

  • FireMonkey #156 11 months ago

    @geeza2020 - "Sony had reported net income of $886,000,000"

    Sony is a fricken huge company. That covers Films, TV shows, music, games, hardware, etc.
    Actually take a look at Sony Computer Entertainment and it won't be so good.
    Edited by FireMonkey at 07/07/11 @ 11:06

  • Psiloc #157 11 months ago

    @geeza
    It's not all about the publisher (or the platform holder as you seem to have confused this with). I'm sure people who talk about supporting the industry are mostly talking about developers who nine times out of ten are small and struggling.

  • HyperTails #158 11 months ago

    @bad09

    I'm not saying that the pre-owned market should be abolished or anything like that. What I am saying is that its about supporting the industry. Sony need to make money from pre-owned sales and I fully support this idea, as it'll help Insomniac make a profit and then Sony can fund more games.

    Though the lack of marketing for Enslaved didn't help, it was a brilliant game. Games like that which tank and 'bang bang shooty shooty FPS 56' which top charts don't help the industry either. They make it stale, but that's a discussion for another day.

  • HyperTails #159 11 months ago

    "I'm sure people who talk about supporting the industry are mostly talking about developers who nine times out of ten are small and struggling."

    *Ding ding ding ding* We have a winner!

    That's why I keep mentioning Spicy Horse and Ninja Theory. Both small, both independant, both totally reliant on a massive publishers cash to make a game. I'd support talent like these anyday.

  • kosigan #160 11 months ago

    "Will other upcoming PS3 exclusives, such as Uncharted 3, use PSN Pass?"

    I'd put money on it that they will.

  • Dogzilla #161 11 months ago

    The end is nigh

  • coolbritannia #162 11 months ago

    lol, goodfella you see cocks everywhere you big gay.

    honestly i can't imagine ever putting someone on ignore for having an opinion different from mine. how insecure someone must be to do such a thing.

    why can't you just say "this is a bit of a crappy move from Sony" and move on?

  • coolbritannia #163 11 months ago

    "+1 to Goodfella for speaking the hive mind. "

    WE ARE THE BORG DEFENCE FORCE, YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED, YOUR TECHNOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS WILL-

    /BSN is currently offline for maintenance

    FUCK U LULZSEC

  • coolbritannia #164 11 months ago

    delicious. i'm being abusive, ha.

    i was calling people cocks and wankers, oh wait, that was coming from the other side.

  • Cronan #165 11 months ago

    What online passes do is they lower the cost of second hand games, by some percentage of the pass price. For games where the online features were phoned-in and basically shit, it will have very little impact, for a game like COD it will have a higher impact, maybe 75% of the pass price.

    The publisher gains whatever this percentage is. The retailer will simply pass this cost onto the market, by reducing the amount they pay when they buy second-hand games. ;-)

    It's not all upside, even for the publishers. For consumers who currently use the secondary market, they will see a decrease in the amount they get for selling games, and an increase in the cost of second-hand games, basically a squeeze from both directions. For price-sensitive consumers, this means they will buy fewer games, and sales of new games should dip slightly.

    This will somewhat offset the extra revenue the publishers plan to get from selling online passes, but they will probably still come out better off.

    Other than this, it's business as usual.

  • coolbritannia #166 11 months ago

    very sad. especially coming in Sony's "thank you for not abandoning us" period after the PSN debacle.

    i've always argued that Sony treat their customers particularly poorly, of course the usual crowd will neg away, but it's very hard to defend this move, surely?

    how much will a new pass cost anyway?

  • Psiloc #167 11 months ago

    Do you actually believe this is some kind of platform-wide policy rather than just Sony acting as a publisher? Or are you pretending that's the case to make your posts look oh so poignant?

    I'm fairly sure online passes exist on the 360.

  • Goodfella #168 11 months ago

    honestly i can't imagine ever putting someone on ignore for having an opinion different from mine. how insecure someone must be to do such a thing.

    I haven't put you on ignore, what made you think that?

  • Lamb #169 11 months ago

    What I hate the most is having to input a code for what essentially is a console game.

  • coolbritannia #170 11 months ago

    Goodfella, I wasn't referring to you. Or me, I was referring to the guy who ignored Bob, ah Bob, you truly are a star.

    Psiloc, you talking to me? You're very riled dude, chill out a bit. If you actually read all my posts in this story, you'll see that my problem is Sony using this as a way to generate extra revenue, while somewhat misleadingly still claiming PSN is free.

    I am well aware it's not a platform wide policy, but thank you for assuming I must have missed the point. Do you believe Sony as the first party publisher aren't setting an example here?

  • Biker_Bob_1971 #171 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:16 09-05-2012

  • TopKatt #172 11 months ago

    @Bob.

    Of course you are entitled to your opinion. And people who prefer the PS3 are entitled to theirs without you implying that they have been dragged along by Sony's marketing and PR. Maybe they actually prefer the PS3 in the same way that you prefer the 360?

    As I've said before both consoles have their ups and downs, for me the PS3 is the better of the two consoles but the 360 is still an excellent machine.

  • HyperTails #173 11 months ago

    Why doesn't the ignore button work properly? coolbritannia randomly reappears when he should be ignored.

    Might as well reply now i've seen his messages. I ignored you, which your tone seems to indicate you're not too happy about, because you're a retarded little shit who just goes around this entire website trolling anything that isn't Microsoft.

    You're a little shit, I don't like you, I don't think may other people on this site like you either. And i'm going to assume that you're a loner in real life too. So leave the house once in a while and get a life.

    /clicks ignore. Again.

  • DoctorFraud #174 11 months ago

    Bob wins with the power of truth

  • 8-bit #175 11 months ago

    I chose ps3 because it felt sony had more exclusive games id be interested in, bluray and free online, the aspects you describe are of minor importance to me though indeed may not be a slick as on 360, so id say i prefer ps3 for different reasons.

  • Biker_Bob_1971 #176 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:16 09-05-2012

  • TopKatt #177 11 months ago

    @djronz

    Exactly, and it's the people who claim that someone's preferences are "wrong" who are the real fanboys on here.

  • monkeywithnoeyes #178 11 months ago

    not so great if you're renting games. Hopefully more games that have a multiplayer focus will offer multiplayer demo's

  • tokenwebster #179 11 months ago

    I dno why is this such an issue for ppl, they are a company, companies are out there to make money. Ok, u like a 1/3 to 1/4 of the price of the game just to play online, but its not a massive amount of money. And they use money to run servers maintenance ect. I really dont see how this should be a massive issue.

  • Lamb #180 11 months ago

    Dudes you enjoy a system and when it starts showing its age you move on. Its just a system, its not a human being, its not family. Sure you are allowed nostalgia but the present takes precedence.

    The PS3s heel is overheating on epic games. The 360s heel is the grinding disc and extremely small hd, plus weak textures on some games.

    Even a brand spanking new top of the line gaming pc is obsolete in 5 yrs or less.

    Gaming is about enjoying what you got and taking it a step further where you appreciate it as well.

  • betrayerofhope #181 11 months ago

    what did anyone here expect? for publishers to sit and watch as retailers burn their buisness model through preowned games?

    sony will extend this to all games on their platform pretty soon. Not just first party games. Sound buisness decision in my opinion

  • man.the.king #182 11 months ago

    @HyperTails

    "Who is the biggest wanker? "

    Indeed! :) I say we hold a poll for this - the most pathetic troll on EG.

    I vote for coolbritannia.
    Edited by man.the.king at 07/07/11 @ 20:09

  • Biker_Bob_1971 #183 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:16 09-05-2012

  • max- #184 10 months ago

    PSN Pass
    PNS Pass
    PENIS PASS

    It's obvious, Sony are blatantly selective cockblockers!