tubedogg

@darkinchworm My guess is that their margin on the collector's versions is much smaller, and in some cases they are dealing with limited supply. At least one or two CEs in recent memory had the credit (Fable III for sure and it seems like there was another one...)

@honkyjesusownsu If you don't think getting a $60 game for $20 (that you can easily resell for at least $30 to $40 at release) is worth it, you're insane.

Also they already gave everybody who preordered the credit for the original purchase of Dead Rising, plus a $10 credit for the avatar codes not being sent on time, plus now $30 off MvC3. Even if you don't want MvC3, you already got $10 back for the lack of avatar clothes, which to me is already insanely generous. (Do we remember what GameStop did the last time they had preorder swag that didn't ship? Oh, right, nothing except say "Whoops, blame the publisher.")

Sorry, I should've been more specific about what I was commenting on. I was specifically referring to Michael Pachter's remark that EA currently "does not get paid" by those that purchase used games, and therefore charging extra for access to features advertised as part of the original game makes sense.

My point is that they do get paid for the copy of the game that is purchased. If they feel that they cannot maintain their servers and render the online service for the original cost of the game, then they should raise the price or make it an additional purchase for all players, not simply those who buy the game used. Again, each used purchase is a game that was at one time new; that copy can only be in use by one person at any given time, so EA was compensated fairly for the included features at the time of the original purchase.

As far as "lost sales", that goes down a slippery slope. It's the same thing with piracy: a pirated copy (or in this case, a used purchase) does not necessarily equate to a lost sale of a new copy. Granted, a customer purchasing a used copy is probably much more likely to actually be a lost new sale, but at the same time, used purchasers do so for a reason. Whether it be to try the game out (try returning an opened, new copy of a video game *anywhere* in the US), because it is cheaper (it may be a $5 sticker price difference on a just-released used game at GameStop, but if you have their card, it's $10 cheaper. That's a lot of money these days. Not to mention the myriad other places to purchase used games where the price differential is even more significant), or because they're trading games with their friends (that's not even a used sale, would the tradee ever have bought the game? Probably not).

The bottom line is you cannot equate 1 used sale to 1 lost new sale. There's probably a percentage there that are, but it's not something that can easily be determined, if at all.

Who's to say that somebody got "their money's worth" out of the online multiplayer? So, should the guy who plays his new copy for one year solid pay $10 every 3 months because in the same time period, another copy was bought and sold four times? BS. Just because somebody got "their money's worth" out of a product, even assuming that were accurate in 100% of trade-ins, does not mean that EA should be compensated again for online play with the same copy of the game.

Another related scenario: One person buys a game. After three months, he's not really playing it anymore so he passes it to his friend. His friend passes it to a third friend, and on to a fourth friend. The fourth friend passes it back to the original purchaser. Should the original purchaser now have to buy another online pass for the game, since he obviously "got his money's worth" when he gave it away the firs time? Or is this only applicable when the game is bought and sold? Where is the line drawn?

(And before you say that, in the last scenario, the original purchaser would still have his online pass from his original purchase, I would not put it past EA to use some sort of identifier from the disc itself to automatically expire his online pass once he's given the game away.)

Sorry, I should've been more specific about what I was commenting on. I was specifically referring to Michael Pachter's remark that EA currently "does not get paid" by those that purchase used games, and therefore charging extra for access to features advertised as part of the original game makes sense.

My point is that they do get paid for the copy of the game that is purchased. If they feel that they cannot maintain their servers and render the online service for the original cost of the game, then they should raise the price or make it an additional purchase for all players, not simply those who buy the game used. Again, each used purchase is a game that was at one time new; that copy can only be in use by one person at any given time, so EA was compensated fairly for the included features at the time of the original purchase.

As far as "lost sales", that goes down a slippery slope. It's the same thing with piracy: a pirated copy (or in this case, a used purchase) does not necessarily equate to a lost sale of a new copy. Granted, a customer purchasing a used copy is probably much more likely to actually be a lost new sale, but at the same time, used purchasers do so for a reason. Whether it be to try the game out (try returning an opened, new copy of a video game *anywhere* in the US), because it is cheaper (it may be a $5 sticker price difference on a just-released used game at GameStop, but if you have their card, it's $10 cheaper. That's a lot of money these days. Not to mention the myriad other places to purchase used games where the price differential is even more significant), or because they're trading games with their friends (that's not even a used sale, would the tradee ever have bought the game? Probably not).

The bottom line is you cannot equate 1 used sale to 1 lost new sale. There's probably a percentage there that are, but it's not something that can easily be determined, if at all.

Actually if you look at GameStop's financials and their associated press releases, the majority of customers who trade games turn around and purchase new (as in not used) product with the trade credit.

It's a logical assumption, that a customer willing to trade would also likely be looking to purchase used games, but it usually doesn't happen that way.

Am I missing something here? They did get paid, the first time the game was bought. Regardless of who ultimately uses it, and how many times it is bought and sold in the meantime, it is still the same copy of the game, and therefore should still be able to use any features accessible upon initial purchase (including online multiplayer).

It's not as if the first buyer duplicated the game 1000 times and then sold those copies. (Not saying that scenario - piracy - doesn't happen, but the claimed reasoning is used game sales, not piracy.) The retailer sold one copy, EA was paid for one copy, should be end of story.

The reasoning is weak at best.

What makes you think they pay anything near retail? Even assuming they pay half of that, which I'm guessing is a generous assumption towards MS, that's still a 400% markup.

I don't see how his comments weren't intelligent. If the author of the post didn't bother to do basic research to confirm a sales pitch's assertion of "first," and in fact that assertion is not true, then it should be pointed out and the author should be chastised.

Unlike a good portion of the internet, the commenter didn't resort to namecalling, belittling, flaming, or any of about a thousand other petty, childish games that most commenters do when someone else is wrong.

http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.aspx?sku=AWV1202US

They're listed as "pre-order," though, which makes me wonder why TUAW thinks they've been selling them for about a month...

What am I missing? When you return something, you get the sales tax back. No sale = no sales tax. So they are pocketing the sales tax and giving you back a flat 15%? Somehow I smell a lawsuit, if not by the users themselves, by some government body.