Battlefield 3 second hand will require multiplayer online pass

So what they're saying is they lose money from second hand game purchases or just make no money?
Kind of a big difference.

Its a shame to think BFBC2 was a massive failure and actually lost them so much money:rolleyes:
 
Realistically second hand is costing the developers money. It's a sale lost and might be just as good as pirating the game. However looking at the other side of the coin, without second hand one could have a lot less first buyers the next round due to being not introduced to the IP at cheaper pricing.

Though that can disputed as to making use of sales to get it first hand at cheap rate.

Maybe if we had less kak pushed our way at more reasonable price with all the content available at release and not disguised at dlc, we would see more favourable first hand buying market.
 
Pr⊕phet said:
Realistically second hand is costing the developers money. It's a sale lost and might be just as good as pirating the game. However looking at the other side of the coin, without second hand one could have a lot less first buyers the next round due to being not introduced to the IP at cheaper pricing.

Though that can disputed as to making use of sales to get it first hand at cheap rate.

Maybe if we had less kak pushed our way at more reasonable price with all the content available at release and not disguised at dlc, we would see more favourable first hand buying market.
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Agreed. It is a hard business decision in a bad climate.

The plus side is that BF3 will be R320 or less which is around what games cost quite a few years ago brand new. Unfortunately I can't say the same for MW3. So i will only buy that when it comes on special.
 
DarthSWNT said:
Agreed. It is a hard business decision in a bad climate.

The plus side is that BF3 will be R320 or less which is around what games cost quite a few years ago brand new. Unfortunately I can't say the same for MW3. So i will only buy that when it comes on special.
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Which will not be the case for a long long time. Don't often see COD games on special, or at least on Steam that is.
 
Maybe Respawn Entertainment will fix this imbalance. With the chaps not part of IWard any more it might end up with a decline in COD.
 
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Of course this means nothing if you're purchasing the PC version of Battlefield since the key it attached to your Origin account and thus making discussion about second hand sales moot.

Always makes me laugh that whenever you impede a console games ability to become second hand fodder you get this huge outcry. A PC game locks a key to your account, it's business as usual.
 
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They are fully within their rghts to do this as you never really own the Media on the Game disk you are buying, but they are the first Developer to openly take this course, will see how it works out in the long run, the main goal here is to kill off the second hand market which will hurt a lot of gamers long term

There is also a lot of background stuff that no one is aware of at this stage that makes this decision for those of us in the industry fairly interesting
 
but they are the first Developer to openly take this course
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First to do what, online passes? Not by a long shot, this has been going around for a while now, plenty of games have them these days.
 
No, First to steadfastly monetize online components of gaming to this degree, there were talks by Activision in going the same route with the original roollout concept of Infinity Net, this is now present in a much smaller scale with COD Elite
 
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Both of them are different system to capitalize off of online gameplay, one uses a subscription model and the other an online pass resale for Second Hand games?
The Reason why Elite is mentioned is because that was the first planned large scale deployment of a system that would prevent reselling of copies on all platforms and effectively charging for online gameplay, is this honestly the first time you've heard a reference to this?
 
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Yeah, the thing about copyrighted material is that it is licensing the use of it to you and then providing a medium for you to obtain it. The problem is that copyright holders have never had a way to stop second hand goods from being sold, like books or tapes, etc. and so it has never been a problem.

What they are selling is the use of something to a person, if that person has no more use for it, it shouldn't be transferable.

That is the theory behind it, but the truth is that it could be harmful to companies if they stop second-hand good sales as the first time buyers might think twice about purchasing it.

So what i think is happening is that they're trying to allow second-hand purchases by charging the subsequent holder. Which is fair as that person is getting the same benefit as the first (as opposed to a car losing value).

It will be interesting to see how much these online passes are, if they are not too much it will actually benefit the second hand market as you can use your second-hand game online. but lets see :)
 
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