14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts, one of the leading videogame publishers, is already pushing back hard against the used games market, with initiatives like Project Ten Dollars and Online Passes, and it seems that videogame developers are seeing their moves as being positive ones, with one of the men working on the new Lara Croft title commenting, “Having the used market is not beneficial to any of us.”
Karl Stewart, who is the global brand director at Crystal Dynamics, added for CVG that, “Some of the plays that have been made more recently about having DLC available when you buy the game and then adding a charge to the consumer who buys it second hand, I think that's just naturally the way it's going to have to go to deal with these kinds of situations.”
His own company seems to be ready to bypass the used games market by making the upcoming Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light a game that will only be delivered through digital distribution, initially using the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store as sales channels. This solution allows developers to reduce the price of the game they use and also make sure that all those who get it pay full price for it, with the developers and publishers getting all of the revenue linked to a title.
Electronic Arts is already moving to limit the appeal of the used videogames market and Ubisoft has recently said that it is watching how the EA initiatives are playing out and plans something similar for its own titles. Some customers are saying that taking out significant parts of a videogame, like Electronic Arts plans to do with multiplayer features when the Online Passes are introduced, limits the enjoyment of the game and will not lead to a reduction of second hand sales.