Comments on: Why an Uncharted 3 Online Pass is a bad idea

By: famousbill

famousbill — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 06:02:59 +0000

A Majority of gamers out there now adays are either trophy or achivement hunter “not saying we dont enjoy the games”. this is proven by the fact that every game coming out now has them now, what i dont understand is that if they knew they were going to put this online pass on it why did they put online trophies in it?????. this is why i believe that they are just after money. I LOVED uncharted 1 and 2 platinum-ed both of them, but i am NOT going to spend $5.00 for a bronze trophy….. srry UC1 and UC2 looks like there wont be a family reunion

By: wolfkin

wolfkin — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:28:42 +0000

well that’s the first time I’ve seen Jim Sterling he’s chubbier than I imagined and is he really not American? never imagined.

I made it thru the first video and I actually don’t like some of his arguments.

I think rather than “think of the trade in credit” argument we need to as an industry reevaluate a release and pricing schedule that forces the average consumer to pawn their old games to get new games. I could write a 3 page paper on the many problems caused by there simply being way too many games nowadays and the prices being so insanely high but the whole idea of “but they have to use TIC to buy new games” just stinks of more “the industry has to support GameStop” and I’ve already stated how much I disagree with that policy. It’s like gamestop is the FinancialGiants and the games Industry is the US Govt refusing to let it suffer no matter the cost to itself.

Also a weak (albeit heartfelt) argument is his used games are rentals argument. The idea being that gamers “Rent” (i.e. buy used then trade in) games which helps build awareness. As if the only way to try out a game you’re unsure of is to buy it used then trade it in. The root of that argument is that if in a month 10 games come out. A gamer can only afford to buy three of them. But the current model allows them to played 7 via the BuyUsed-TradeIn cycle. That’s putting on a band-aid and not fixing the internal bleeding, and again promoting GS. If games weren’t $60-70 a pop at launch this wouldn’t be an issue.

I do respect his “it’s annoying” argument. It would be nice if games didn’t take up time from booting up. to loading the menu screen, publisher splash screens, developer splash screens, online developer splash screens. It was a nicer experience when you powered on a game and the first thing you saw was: Push Start. InFamous did a very very nice job of this.

One of my big issue with vouchers and online passes and pre-order DLC codes is that codes expire. I may not play Viewtiful Joe 2 for another 2 years but I know that when I do my pre-order guide book will still be good and the game is all still there.

By: MAINEiac4434

MAINEiac4434 — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:16:49 +0000

Online passes are the epitome of anti-consumer behavior. I mean, does Sony not have enough money?

Anyway, if you support this, I highly recommend these three videos from Jim Sterling from Destructoid and the Escapist. Even if you don’t like Sterling (like me), they are the best argument against online passes I’ve heard.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4568-Online-Passes-Are-Bad-For-Everybody

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4720-Used-Games-Have-A-Right-To-Exist

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4745-Fighting-The-Problem-Of-Used-Games

By: wolfkin

wolfkin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:24:26 +0000

for me it’s not even about being competitive with the price anymore. I got backlogs son.. I can afford to wait for most games to hit $20 and even then I got oodles of games to play I’ll get Saint’s Row 2, The Conduit and Batman AA when I got time or when they’re leaving stores.

By: Isli

Isli — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:59:26 +0000

@Eddie, @Pedro: I largely feel the uncharted mp is one of these multiplayers that is tacked on at the end. The mp in UC2 (and the beta for 3 so far) to me has just felt like it has no polish whatsoever. I bought the first game for the story, and if they kept it just single player, I would have still bought the second game as well. Honestly, I just do not enjoy it very much unless I’m playing with a group of people I know.

I expect later down the line, if online passes become popular, we will see all mainstream games using the passes. Lesser known titles will probably ignore the online pass in order to give their game more of a chance in a saturated market.

I am curious how many people actually buy used games still. Recently when I went to gamestop (just an example, it’s a coincidence it happens to be gamestop, but that doesn’t matter) I saw that they had 3D Dot Game Heroes used for around 15 dollars. That’s a pretty good deal-but Amazon had it new for 12 dollars. There aren’t many places where used prices are competitive enough to justify buying them around here.