Moore: Gamers “Recognise” Why EA Has to Use Online Pass
EA Sports president Peter Moore has said that gamers understand why EA is using Project Ten Dollar and Online Pass to prevent used games sales. Speaking with Kotaku, he said that gamers “recognise the business model implications of new versus used.”
EA had previously announced fairly aggressive measures to nudge people away from buying generally cheaper used games. EA’s Online Pass uses a one-time code with every new copy, giving the player access to online multiplayer. Without the code, the player must spend a further sum to play the game online. Currently this has only been announced in EA’s Tiger Woods game, but more are expected to be included.
“One thing I have to do, and it’s my job, and my development team’s job, and my marketing team’s job, is make you not want to trade the game in,” said Moore. “From our perspective, [it's] conditioning you to punch a code in, to get you going, get some digital content, and conditioning you to look at digital content as a value-add to the game experience itself.”
Other companies have expressed interest in the method to prevent pre-owned sales, which are seen as a major cause of dropping revenue in videogame sales.
The question is whether gamers actually do understand why companies are locking up their content, which usually is on-disc and thus you’re only paying $10 for an unlock code. Moore seems confident that gamers will simply roll over and enjoying paying more for content they’ve traditionally had included on the disc. Gamers may understand why companies all of a sudden hate pre-owned, but that doesn’t mean they’ll like it.
News Tags: EA, online pass, Peter Moore, Project ten dollar
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I think it’s the language he uses that scares me the most here. He says that they’re “conditioning” us to like it. What the hell are we, Pavlovian dogs? EA has always been a business first, a games publisher second, but to be honest this one actually surprises me. I’ve always thought Moore thinks of gamers as data, but I’ve never expected to tell that to our faces. It gives me a sour feeling that EA thinks/knows it can get away with this time of stuff now.
I still don’t understand why people are pissed about this. EA wants to make money from their product in a situation where the only one to make that money is GameStop. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
This doesn’t bother me much anymore as I’m not really affected by it. Paying to unlock attributes in order to be competitive online sucks balls though.
@vintagenuck: That’s currently annoying the shit out of me in Tiger Woods 11.
@Naughton:
Really takes the fun out of making a created character.
Recently I had an FPS itch to scratch, wanted to check out a franchise I had no history with, so I bought Battlefield Bad Company for $9 at EB Games, whereas I might have paid $60 for BFBC2 new.
Honestly I get what EA is doing, but I don’t have to like it.
@Phil Doherty: Well one of those games is two years old, and one of them is four months old.
@Naughton: the 2 year old game is still awesome though, and I saved $50.
@Phil: Sure, but that has nothing to do with the online pass.
@vintagenuck: If I’d have known that everyone was just going to pay four bucks to max out their stats, I would have just passed on Tiger 11, it really ruins both online tournaments and the GamerNet challenges. They’re all set to 375+ yards off the tee, or 1 inch from the cup.