Electronic Arts is the king of the sports game market with hot upcoming titles including NCAA Football 11, NHL 11, Madden NFL 11, NBA 11, FIFA 11, and EA Sports MMA. Ea has now made a controversial decision concerning all of those titles, the decision will lock players who buy used copies out of online multiplayer, reports Daily Tech. When it comes to sports games, a multiplayer mode is one of the chief draws. And now that the internet allows playing with fans all over the world, online multiplayer provides massive amounts of fun. Purchasers of a used game get locked out of that goodness. "Online services, features and bonus content" will all be covered by a one time code, that won't work for the new purchaser. EA describes, "You will be unable to play multiplayer online game modes or use your downloaded content in online game modes." Used purchasers do gain access to a 7 day trial, but they will have to purchase a $10 pass if they want to continue to play online. EA claims its all about offering its customers more, "This is an important inflection point in our business because it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhance premium online services to the entire robust EA SPORTS online community." Ultimately, the slick move is likely designed to help it rake in bigger profits, though. Many purchasers will likely pay the $10 fee to renew their online access. Retailer GameStop is partnering with EA to implement the plan. States GameStop Corp. Chief Executive Officer, Dan DeMatteo, "GameStop is excited to partner with such a forward-thinking publisher as Electronic Arts. This relationship allows us to capitalize on our investments to market and sell downloadable content online, as well as through our network of stores worldwide." Do you think it's right that EA can bock people who buy used copies of games from using all of the games features?
I think EA is going to bury themselves with this idea. I'm sure there are enough people that will renew and purchase the online passes but for the rest of us, this is one of the stupidest ideas I've seen in a while. I imagine that this will have an effect on used EA Sports game sales tremendously. You not only pay for the used game, but then have to pay another $10 to play online? Bad idea. For that matter you may as well purchase the game new, which I know is EA's intention here. Some people may not want to purchase the game new and don't like the idea of having to pay extra money to play a game online that they have already bought. I just wouldn't bother buying the game altogether at that point. I was thinking about getting the next FIFA game but I think that this little trick of EA's has left me with second thoughts about contributing to their desired increase in profit for their sports games.
Overall it doesn't really matter, as so called "gamers get what they payed for" Gamers will have to "deal" with it, as like with the DRM business with Ubisoft or whatever. They got pissed tried to hammer them to take them down, didn't work they got over it, now its just old news. The same thing will happen, everyone who plays wretched sports games (as they aren't even worth $10 in my opinion) will get pissed off but in the end they will "deal" with it because overall what can the gamer do? Not to much from what it looks like, as even taking it to illegal moves didn't work not much is going to.
Yeah, they need to replace the strategic thinkers at EA, because everything they come out with now is worse than the previous travesty. How do they even plan to enforce this? Some kind of crackable serial code thats registered when the game is bought new? Theyre just going to lose even more customers. And yes, the gamer can make a difference by not purchasing. You might not think a single person can make a difference, but there are tens of millions thinking the same thing. It wont be an easy fight, especially since the gaming industry has damn near run out of ideas for decent games. They want to milk every penny, but they'll crumble in the end if they keep alienating their target buying demographic.
Of course I know the majority can make a change but the majority will break down. It was almost like the petition against L4D2, people bitched saying it was too soon people wanted discounts, people refused to buy it, but in the long run, what happened? The majority who "didn't give a damn and wanted the game badly" got it anyways, then everyone else soon realized it didn't matter because they were going to make their profit, so they caved in and bought it. So, by all means I do realize that the majority of people could make them change it but the majority will never happen because all the typical "greedy/whiny kids and massive sport junkies" want it and they don't care what it effects. Honestly it doesn't effect me because I don't care for sports nor sport games, big waste of $50+ of a limited game where you run down a field. That makes the end of my abnormally long annoying useless rant...
Thats true, everyone moans about this excessive DRM then go out and buy games full of it regardless. Command and Conquer 4, Assassins Creed 2 been great examples of this (on the PC) Also EA games usually close servers down for sports games after 18 months or so, one of many examples of this here: EA Closing Multiplayer Servers for 20 Games - Shacknews - PC Games, PlayStation, Xbox 360 and Wii video game news, previews and downloads Not that i'm a fan of sports games but if I was that would make me even less inclined to consider buying the game or paying extra to play a second hand copy of the game online. Once up on a time you could go to a shop, buy a game and know you can play it 10+ years later regardless. Now theres DRM, serial numbers, online accounts, an internet connection required just to play, carnt borrow the game as its tied to your friends account. Yet look at Unreal Tournament, launched in 1999 with no DRM or CD key, and a server list hosted by Epic... 10+ years later its still been sold, has more people playing it online than a lot of games released today and Epic feel no need to kill the server list off for it.
Thing is that most people buy the new game a year after the old one, so for EA there's not really any point keeping servers open for older games for a small minority, it's not worth the cost. I know I'll be buying FIFA11, I'm not fussed about DRM etc. etc. because I buy the game new each year, and I know a lot of other people who do as well. I don't think this will affect too many people to be fair, as I said earlier, I've found the online experience in FIFA games very unsatisfactory.
Fair point actually, I wouldn't know how many people play the older sports games. I guess the second hand market might not be that big for games like Fifa with a new game been released every year. If it was a game like Need For Speed then maybe it would be a bigger problem as i still see people playing the old games from the series released a couple of years ago.
I do know people who play lots of FIFA 09 and FIFA 10 online, but they won't be paying extra for it, that's for sure. I also wonder why EA needs dedicated servers when there is Xbox Live. Their servers won't fix lag anyway, and if they need a 'player system' updater, small servers will do for that. And even then, they're already updating the game each year with a fresh new release, so why would they actually start updating even more with DLC and player systems like that? I'm no fan of EA anyway, I even hated them for a while when they ''treatened' to buy a huge part of Ubisoft, back when EA was going very very well.
I believe back in the Xbox 1 days EA would only add online features to games for the Xbox if Microsoft let EA host the servers themselves, no idea why... I guess EA been EA wanted more control. Apart from EA games any other game on the 360 uses Microsoft's servers, so your guaranteed to be able to play online, no matter how old the game is.
I've never brought a brand new fifa game I always get the older ones like fifa 09 got that for a Fiver and probably do the same with 10 but if there going to start doing all this I might come out of gaming all together.