/Rant V1.0

Hello all and welcome to the first edition of what i hope will be a weekly article. /Rant (pronounced End Rant) will be here every Sunday and the basic idea is that i take a current issue or piece of news from the gaming world, take a look at it from a neutral standpoint, offering up all the good and bad things about it... Then destroy my own neutrality by stating my opinions on the subject and hopefully get you guys talking and commenting because i'd love to hear others perspectives on the issue. So without further ado, Click 'Read More' to read the first /Rant... The EA Method.

The EA Method (AKA The Ten Dollar Program) is a new concept in games marketing created by EA Games to combat the used game market which costs developers a great deal of money every year. The basic idea is that purchasing a game new also grants you access to specific features or content, Whereas buying a game pre-owned can leave you locked out of said content until you pay an additional fee ($10). EA is already using the system and probably its most well known usage is the Cerberus Network on Mass Effect 2, Which has provided quite a bit of free content for it's players but access is only granted with purchase of a NEW copy of the game or by buying access from the Xbox LIVE marketplace. This method doesn't seem too bad when you first look at it, I mean what's an extra few bucks for some free content, right. However, the question soon becomes, well, exactly what can be locked off from pre-owned players. The answer came not too long ago when it was revealed that virtually any of the online features could be locked off, including the online multiplayer. In fact, THQ are now jumping on the band wagon and have locked off the online multiplayer on UFC Undisputed 2010 unless you purchase the game new or pay a fee. Ubisoft have also said that they would consider using the system for future releases. The reason that companies are starting to get into this is because it allows them to take on two of their biggest enemies in one move... The pre-owned games market and piracy. When you purchase a game new, the games creators obviously get their share of the pie but when you trade it back in, the retailer stands to make any further profits off the sale of the title. This allows the retailer to make more money off each game and also offer them to you for a lower price. Having worked in a gaming retailer i know that the major franchises will be making a substantial amount of money of pre-owned games sales and none of this is making its way back to the people who made the game. As for piracy, well anyone pirating the game is obviously not going to be getting any of the free DLC or extras that so often come bundled with games now, but more importantly, if they want access to these features they will still end up having to pay an amount to the games creators, even if it is substantially less than the cost of the game itself. So clearly this system will help ensure that money keeps flowing back to the creators and i don't think this is a bad thing... What i DO think is bad is how far they can go with disabling access. Xbox players already pay for their online games service and Playstation owners are so proud that they don't have to pay for theirs. Well soon, people who purchase pre-owned games may have to pay extra for every game they want to play online and this is where the trouble begins. In most cases i'm happy to buy my games brand new but sometimes i'm not sure on whether i'll enjoy a game, so i'll buy it pre-owned, or i can't afford it so i'll head to the local Blockbuster and hire it out. More and more as of late, Online multiplayer has been a major part of games (just ask anyone still trying to use the 'oh you have to play Bad Company 2 online to see how good it is' argument) so if i'm hiring a game then i want to be able to play online because that's going to help me decide if i really want to buy the game. EA have stated that they plan to lock the multiplayer on most of their new sports games (Fifa, Tiger Woods, Etc.) and this annoys me even more. Unless you're playing Halo, CoD or Battlefield, Chances are you'll have trouble finding a decent online match. Between lack of players and poor connections some games have even become unplayable online. I don't see how cutting people out of the multiplayer is going to help the situation at all. I'm hoping that EA, Ubisoft, THQ and any other companies that decide to jump in on this manage to figure out that balance between giving players enough benefits to make them want to buy the game brand new, and locking off so much that it affects the game itself.

I guess that's it for now... if you have any questions, thoughts or comments, or if you have anything you'd like me to rant on then please drop them into a comment below (you don't need an account). =).

-Scoot338-