Anti-Used Gaming Tech in Next Consoles Would Be Great, Crysis 3 Dev Says

Crytek, the studio behind the very successful Crysis series of first-person shooters, has shared its thoughts on recent rumors that next-generation consoles will prevent used gaming, saying that such a feature would be “awesome,” at least from a business perspective.

Second-hand gaming is a pretty big problem when it comes to consoles, just like piracy affects the PC platform.

As such, quite a few rumors are saying that next-generation devices, including the PlayStation 4 or Xbox 720, will prevent used copies of a game to be played on them.

While neither Sony nor Microsoft has commented on these reports, certain developers have gone on the record approving or disapproving of such a feature.

Crytek, the studio behind the Crysis series, believes that fighting used gaming is a great thing and such a feature would be most welcome in new consoles.

"From a business perspective that would be absolutely awesome,” Crytek’s Director of Creative Development, Rasmus Hojengaard, told CVG. “It's weird that [second-hand] is still allowed because it doesn't work like that in any other software industries, so it would be great if they could somehow fix that issue as well."

Crysis 2 sold over 3 million copies last year on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, but it also became a victim of rampant piracy on the PC, where it was crowned the most pirated game of 2011.

"It's very flattering and upsetting at the same time," Hojengaard said of the PC problem. "Obviously you miss so much revenue, it's so clear that a lot of people want to play your game but they don't really want to pay for it, which is unfortunately really disappointing.”

"It's also a little flattering because people are willing to bother download these 10GB files or whatever the game takes because they think it looks great. We obviously want to avoid that this time, but even if we can convert 25 percent of those gamers into paying customers [you have an extra million sales]."

Do you agree with Crytek’s support for anti-used gaming technology or do you think the studio is wrong?