Events from last week point toward a future where gaming consumers pay for gaming companies’ mistakes. The Online Pass which first started out as an innocent experiment is now blossoming into an industry standard, and as announced last Friday, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will be but one more in a long list of upcoming titles to feature it. Also, a new rumor suggests that Microsoft is toying with the idea of making the next Xbox system incapable of reading used discs all together. To anyone who has been paying attention, neither of these developments is news. Both are symptoms of a single trend as video game companies continue to try and unload the costs and risks associated with their business model onto individual consumers.

Already, a tough market and struggling economy has led video game publishers to hide more of their content behind “online passes.” Publishers and developers only see revenue from those copies of a title that are purchased new. So in order to see more payoff for each investment, they lock certain features of a game, whether it’s multiplayer in Uncharted 3, or Catwoman’s story mode in Arkham City, in an effort to incentivize consumers to go ahead and buy the product new. And what started as a fringe experiment has quickly become normal practice. The new Twisted Metal will have an online pass, despite creator David Jaffe’s own misgivings, as will BioWare’s Mass Effect 3. Indeed, just late last week, 38 Studios announced that its upcoming title, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, will require an “online pass” too.

Originally, the online pass was defended by publishers like EA as a way to help pay for the costs of maintaining online services. But as some have noted, Reckoning is an entirely single player experience. And yet like Arkham City, Reckoning too will have a chunk of its content, specifically “seven additional side quests,” reserved for those who purchase the game new or pay for the pass separately. Now, the costs of the used game market are becoming the problem, rather than simply the costs of running online servers. If that isn’t the definition of a slippery slope, I don’t know what is.
Of course, when taken to its logical conclusion, the online pass results in the console, rumored by Kotaku, that won’t play used games at all. Why lock select content behind a pay wall when you can stick the entire game behind one instead? Whether such a feature would be feasible isn’t important, because it’s already the case with digital titles. When I buy Deus Ex: Human Revolution new and download it onto my PS3, it not only cost the same amount as its physical counterpart, but when I return 10 hours later after it’s finally installed, I can’t travel with it, share it, or ever resell it. Less functionality, same asking price.

And herein lies the rub. I’m a big fan of Steam. Most people are. No, I don’t care for their draconian terms of service, or the fact that if they go out of business I’ll have lost hundreds of dollars in “leased” content. But at least with Steam I’m getting something in return: the endless discounts. I don’t “own” my Steam copy of Bastion, but it was also a lot cheaper than the console version when it went on sale for $5. And this is the kind of compromise gaming consumers should come to expect from publishers and developers.



Don’t lock content behind an online pass that deprives users of their product’s functionality or try to sanction players for not buying games new. This is clearly the wrong way to go, not only for gaming consumers, but for publishers and developers as well. Because at the end of the day what gaming companies are after is more revenue. Exploding video game budgets and unsustainable overhead costs are forcing studios to close, and publishers to bleed red, even at a time when the gaming market keeps on growing. The answer isn’t to charge even more money for games, which, by the way, is what’s happening when you charge consumers the same $60 for a product that has lost functionality. First it happened with the proliferation of DLC when companies realized they could make even more money by spinning content off of a game and into discrete packages for future download. Now, it’s happening again with online passes that deprive games of even more value without altering the price.

It doesn’t take a genius in economics to realize that when supplies are fixed but price goes up, demand will go down. Especially in a luxury industry as competitive as video games. In 2012, gaming consumers have more options than ever with iOS apps often cost less than $10, PSN and XBLA downloads that often don’t go above $15, and PC titles that get discounted much faster than those on the consoles. In addition, media consumers in general have more ways to spend their time as well, with a monthly subscription to Netflix, album downloads at Amazon, and even movie box office tickets all costing several times below the standard price of a new game sitting on the shelf at GameStop. As a result, publishers and developers need to recognize and accept the current reality of the media marketplace.

Gamers aren’t acting “entitled” by relying on a thriving second-hand market, or demanding that a new game comes with all of the value and functionality its $60 price point has always implied. Rather, they are acting just like rational consumers of music and movies: putting pressure on companies to provide the best content and the best possible prices. And if the present industry model of development and distribution can’t accommodate both of those things, then maybe it’s the video game companies who need to rethink their strategy, rather than consumers. Should gamers really start paying more, for less?



But so many developers and publishers are hurting, right? Well, yes. However, that’s because of a business model that pushes big triple A titles at the expense of mid and lower tier games that would involve less risk. EA pumped over $200 million into BioWare's Old Republic. That's a huge risk! As a result of that business decision, the company is now greatly exposed and extremely vulnerable to losses if millions of players don't continue their subscriptions.

Game companies have become accustomed to a certain mode of doing business. They've oriented their entire commercial enterprise around that structure. Recent data has shown it to be a very volatile one, especially in the era of heightened competition from distribution networks like Steam and The App Store.

If developers and publishers find themselves hurting as a result, I can't be held responsible for it. I can't give them pity charity. That's not how the market works. And to do so would be irresponsible as a consumer, and as a gamer. If we want more mid-tier games and experimental indie titles, gaming consumers need to put pressure on "the industry" by NOT supporting their bloated development budgets and unsustainable overhead costs, or the over-promising, underwhelming products that too often arrive on store shelves as a result.

The used game market isn’t some accidental phenomenon. It’s in direct relation to the larger gaming market. A company like Nintendo understands this, and has a development and publishing model that accommodates it. Have you ever come across a discount bin littered with second-hand Mario Karts? Neither have I, and it’s not because Nintendo started locking certain content behind coded pay walls. A thriving used game market provides valuable price signaling. It lets publishers know whether a product’s price point matches its perceived value by consumers. A company should utilize that information, not attempt to shut it down.

Not to mention all the ways that the Gamestop model helps the sale of new games. I personally by about 1 console title per month. That’s 12 a year. If I gain back even just 20% of their value by trading them in, that’s enough credit to buy 2 more NEW games! Now companies are free to do as they wish, and deal with whatever consequences result. They are a market entity and should act on their self-interest. But anyone who defends the proliferation of online passes is being silly.

No one should ever have to settle for getting screwed. Not developers when they create a phenomenal product that fails to get the marketing push it was promised and that it deserves. Not publishers when console manufacturers fail to live up to their agreement and maintain the networks many depend on for distributing new games. And certainly not gaming consumers when companies fail to deliver quality products at competitive prices.