The PC gets a bad rap for piracy (and deservedly so), but one issue that is spoken about less vehemently is the secondhand games market, which many developers are trying to put a stop to. Many gamers feel like once they have purchased a game they are free to do with it as they wish, but the fact is the secondhand market is draining capital from the publishers.
We’ve seen a lot of games make use of “online passes”, a means of barring access to online play to persons purchasing a game secondhand. Players must first acquire a special pass from the publisher in order to play it.
Talking to Gamespot, CEO Feargus Urquhart of Obsidian, the developer of Fallout: New Vegas, has described these practices as “gimmicky”, and looks to take more proactive action – make gamers not want to sell their games in the first place.
“I think you have to go in and forget those gimmicks, and say, ‘How do I make them want to keep the game on the shelf?'” he said.
“I think each genre has a way to do it. Battlefield and Call of Duty have it in multiplayer with maps, rankings, leveling up, and unlocks. There are different things, but the idea is making people feel, ‘I want to keep on playing it.’ “
FPS shooters such as this also have the advantage in that players are bound by a single CD-key, which can not be used by more than one player, which can cause complications when selling games secondhand, as for many players the multiplayer component is the primary appeal.
“With a role-playing game, it is the same thing. We come up with things to make players want to keep on playing it,” he continued.
“By having a good and evil track, like Knights of the Old Republic II, I can play as a light or dark Jedi. I may play through as a light Jedi, but I know that I could play through as a dark Jedi. So I think, ‘I’m gonna do that someday.’ So I put it back on my shelf and I don’t take it back to GameStop.”
Another effective tool he says can be used (and has been with quite a measure of success), is that of DLC.
“If I play Fallout: New Vegas for 50 hours, but there are all these other quests, and there’s this whole other area I didn’t go to, and online there are people talking about all these things that you could have done all these different ways, I’ll feel like ‘Wow, I could play this game again,’ because there is all this stuff I didn’t get.
“And knowing that, publishers announce DLC plans the day the game comes out. And now, as a player who hasn’t experienced everything yet, I know there are these new stories, and I’m going to be able to level up my character and get better stuff, be more of a hero. The game is going to go back on my shelf, not back to GameStop.”
Obisidian CEO: Online passes are “gimmicky” << Comments and views
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