In a move that's bound to upset a lot of consumers, EA today announced that they're going to be locking the multiplayer modes for all of their upcoming sports titles - if the game isn't purchased brand new - in an effort to combat the growing second hand market.
Launching next month with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011, the scheme will require anyone who wants to play an EA Sports title online to have a game specific "Online Pass" - which will come bundled with all new copies of the game. If you buy second hand, you'll have access to a 7 day "trial" of the online experience, before you're made to make the decision about whether you want to buy the pass from the Xbox Live marketplace, for "$10" (although if past experience is anything to go by, that will probably be converted to 1200 Microsoft Points - roughly £10), or miss out altogether.
On EA Sports' website, EA senior VP of worldwide development, Andrew Wilson said "In order to continue to enhance the online experiences that are attracting nearly five million connected game sessions a day [..] we think it's fair to get paid for the services we provide and to reserve these online services for people who pay EA to access them."
Of course, while it may be fair for EA to get paid when people play their games online, the customer already pays Microsoft £40 a year for Xbox Live. And, as far as we're aware, EA chooses to not use Microsoft's servers for hosting its online service - which is why they can regularly discontinue the online play for games two, three of four years after their launch - a practice we sincerely hope will be stopped, now that customers are going to be paying specifically to access those multiplayer modes.
And while it's usually games that have been succeeded by other yearly instalments, such as the FIFA titles, that have their online play discontinued, both the Simpsons game, and Facebreaker have also seen their online services cut - despite neither game having been superseded. In fact, Facebreaker hasn't even been out for two years yet.
It's not all bad news, however, as EA have promised that "bonus content" will be included with the online pass. In Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011, for your money, you'll get access to a brand new golf club, in addition to the online mode.
The pre-owned market has long been a sore point of the industry, and the various attempts to combat it have caused numerous headaches for everyone involved. With developers and publishers losing out on potentially millions of pounds in sales, thanks to retailers selling pre-owned copies next to brand new games for at least £5, and up to around £20 cheaper, whilst keeping the new games at a price that's strangely close to their RRP, it's little wonder the industry has been looking to combat pre-owned sales - although quite how well this decision will go down with the public remains to be seen.
We reported a few weeks ago that UK retailer Game have had to change their labelling of pre-owned software, which, incidentally, arose from an argument around one of EAs other games, Dragon Age: Origins, when a customer bought the game pre-owned, and was upset that the advertised downloadable extras were not included in the pre-owned copy.
The inclusion of some free downloadable content was EAs first attempt at something known as "Project Ten Dollars" - a way of ensuring that every game that gets sold, no matter whether it's new, or second hand, generates at least ten dollars of revenue. By including a use-once code for $10 worth of free downloadables with brand new games, and including the option for people who buy pre-owned to "complete the package" and buy the extras their missing out on, the scheme went down a lot better than we're expecting this one will, as it could more easily be viewed as giving people who buy brand new something extra - rather than simply punishing people for buying pre-owned.
It's a controversial decision, in an area that's been hotly debated amongst all sectors of the industry. Just a few days ago, Charles Cecil, a top UK developer was quoted as saying that piracy is a "natural reaction" to high video game prices. And while it would be nice to see the RRP for future EA sports games lowered, to allow more people to buy first hand (even £35 would be an attractive pricing point - as the supermarkets proved last year), we aren't expecting anything like that to happen.At the end of the day, in the battle between the retailers and the development industry, it looks like it's the consumer that's going to be losing out.
