EA Sports to charge $10 for playing a used game online

[Nakor]

EA doesn't want used games to take away sales from new games, and so to play any of their EA Sports titles online you will now have to pay $10 for an online activation code of sorts that will enable the online play. The new games come packaged with one such code, but it's a one-use deal.

One more reason to cease buying EA games, if you haven't already; their resale value just dropped $10. (Probably more since people will be less willing to buy them and support BS like this.)

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010 ... online.ars

[Frong]

EA is phail. On top of that, they make not-veiled-at-all bullshite excuses for gouging people, like "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." Er... right. So TOTALLY buying that steaming load of corporate crap. Not that this affects me any, mind you. I haven't played a console game in years, and don't even own any of the current-gen systems. The DS has gotten all of my gaming attention for a fairly long while now, and seeing as I never play sports games on it, EA can bite me.

[Roemello]

Their sport titles have only gotten crappier every year, so I haven't even been bothering with 'em anymore. There are a few non-sport titles EA's put out that I've had to get, but the sports ones are junk. Never bothered with online multiplayer on them anyway, so they can keep it

[TStodden]

Just one MORE reason why I don't play traditional sport games... I just never seen the draw for such games as each new release just devalues the previous year's edition.

Just looking at the fair market value (according to VGPC.com) for PS2 games in the Madden line (used)...

2010: $18.87
2009: $5.99
2008: $1.21
2007 & Older: $0.75

The 360 prices follow a similar curve, with an exception for 2006 (going for $1.72 instead of $0.75)

Pretty much as soon as the game gets released, the fair market value gradually drops until the end of that year before tanking into the bargain bins. EA charging $10 on top of any other fees (like MS's $5 / month or $50 / yr. for Live) is going to cause bargain players to revolt their brand & go to other sport game makers.

[Frong]

The better question to ask here is not whether or not this will end up coming back to bite EA in the arse (it almost certainly will to some degree), but rather whether or not other game makers will learn from this example and not follow suit. Taking anti-piracy measures to try and increase profits is one thing, but foisting your greed directly upon the legitimate consumer base is another entirely.

[Masamune]

When I worked a Gamestop, we had so many EA Sports titles to file, I wanted to take them all and toss them in the dumpster. They took up half the drawers.

I'm not even going to get started on how I feel about EA already.

[Frong]

Sports titles probably have the absolute least resale value of any genre in existence. I mean seriously, who in the crap wants to buy a three-year-old Madden game or whatever with both pathetically outdated rosters AND inferior graphics and game features?