Because this is what I'm talking about.
So I hear everyone bitching about online passes and publishers wasting time and used games and butthurt etc. Not to say that said butthurt isn't justified, but hear me out.
The main issue for publishers - outside of them existing in a capitalist market where they create a luxury item that people seem to think they have a right to acquire whether it be through piracy or other means - is that, for them, they claim to lose money on this thing they made whenever people don't buy them new. There's also the server cost of people playing. Okay, that sucks for them, as the very same capitalist market they are a part of means that others can sell their stuff however they see fit. You'd also think they have servers enough to handle each printed disc going online, so it shouldn't matter who possesses it blah blah blah.
Aaaand we're done.
Then how about setting up a system where everyone actually wins?
I'm in the minority in that I don't like playing online. At all. I don't have Xbox Live Gold (I watch Netflix through my HTPC), so my incentive isn't there. I don't play on PSN. So the online pass thing is pretty much a non-issue for me. But I know that when Modern Warfare 3 comes out, I'm absolutely positive that many people - nay, MOST people - will ignore the single player campaign and go directly to online multiplayer.
Good for them.
However, that leaves someone like me, who may actually want to see the setpieces and see the story resolve, stuck with a $60 bill for something I'll only play a portion of. So how do we fix this? Simple math.
Publishers are claiming that it costs $10 for someone to play the online portion of the game. So why not just go for it whole hog?
Let's say that Call of Battlefield Gears 4 is a $60 title. But of that $60, $10 of this cost is the online portion. Therefore, let's do some simple math:
$60 minus $10 for the online portion that everybody pays for = $50 new title cost.
Isn't this awesome?
It lowers the cost of entry for everyone! Therefore the main game is worth only $50, so trade values will change proportionally. There is no penalty for buying used, since buying new means you'll have to spend a further $10 anyway for the online portion, which is exactly what publishers are asking used game purchasers to do. Your trades will now go just as far, publishers get to make some money, people who don't care about online now pay a little less and can afford more new games...
Everybody wins!
Except this is too smart, which means it will never happen. Isn't that sad?
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It also affects the financial reports. They can't guarantee that they'll get the sales overall or get the sales from the DLC. Thus company A takes a hit while the already successful model company E employs boosts with the extra revenue brought in from that guaranteed $10. This doesn't even factor in the retailer question that a retailer would be losing those extra 10 smackeroos for the sale of the product. They might start under ordering or pushing a competitors product. So sales take a hit. Though Microsoft and Sony would love a deal like this. They still get their cut plus forced revenue for online.
I agree this would be a solid move for initial customers, but over the long run I don't think it's a positive one. Especially when it doesn't factor in the fact that Price Drops do push sales and that hurdle of a $10 surcharge would affect the drop or perceptions from customers on the fence. It also devalues a product when it hits retail at that price point. You'll have competitors dropping their price which cuts down on margins and it'll effect future game forecasts.
I think it makes sense, but I think it would piss off a lot of distributors to do it. However, I'm more than willing to pay $10 for Modern Warfare's single player and let you people do the $50 multiplayer.
"See the issue is that the 10 dollarinos is going to be separated in to a separate transaction that many people don't want to shell out."
But they are, and they will. They're already doing that with Online Pass. If you buy Madden 12 used, you probably are going to shell out that money. All I'm doing is levelling the playing field.
The reality is that GameStop and all those stores simply can't exist on new game sales alone. The profit margin after they get it from the distributor is at most $3-5 per title. That's why the trade-in values are so low, and used prices are so much higher. That wide margin (often north of 400%) is their bread and butter. That extra $10 being lopped off won't make a dent in their new game profits at all. It's been this way since the SNES days.
(There also was a time, not too long ago, that games were only $50 at most. This wasn't long enough to need adjusting for inflation in any major way either, four or five years ago.)
The fact of the matter is, most online games are usually in a genre that almost demands they be there: sports, fighting, FPS et al.
The online being from a different retailer is kind of the point. It's not GameStop's responsibility to pay for the online component of the game. It's the publisher (assuming dedicated servers) or platform holder, right? Why doesn't it make sense for that money to go to the people directly providing that service? After all, that's what they're all bitching and moaning about, too.
The only thing it doesn't stop is someone like me, who'll never play the online multiplayer, buying something used and giving the pub/plat holder nothing. But how many people buy used sports games? Probably enough that the publisher will still make some extra revenue from it, and not to the detriment of anyone else.
Besides, the premise of games costing less could (and likely would) equate to purchasing more titles overall means that there may be more of those $10 jobbies floating around, or at worst, means someone like me may buy that one extra game in a year. Multiply that by however many people might do the same thing, and potential revenues for everyone - both in the used and new game markets, as well as publishers and platform holders - can only go up, not down.