14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that French videogame publisher Ubisoft might be first to follow in the commercial footsteps of Electronic Arts and its Project Ten Dollars in their effort to reduce the sales of used games and entice players with exclusive content and with access to multiplayer modes to buy the new games.
Alain Martinez, who is the chief financial officer of Ubisoft, told investors in a conference call, “Regarding ... monetizing used games or downloadable content … most of the games that we will release next year will have downloadable content available from the start,” before adding, “We are looking very carefully at what is being done by EA regarding what we call the '$10 solution,' and we will probably follow that line at sometime in the future.”
Project Ten Dollar has so far been used in titles like Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, both from developer BioWare, and in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 from DICE. The idea is to deliver interesting additions to the game which make it more worthwhile to get the new game then to wait for it to drop in price at second hand retailers like GameStop. Electronic Arts has not talked about the impact the initiative has had on sales, but all the above mentioned titles are seen as commercial successes.
The publisher has recently expanded its reach, launching the Online Pass initiative for its line up of sports titles, like NBA, Madden NFL and FIFA. The idea is that online features like dynasty modes are free to play for all those who bought the new game and for the first seven days for the rest of players (probably to cover the rental market). Those who buy the used games and want online features need to pay another 10 dollars for an Online Pass. The new Tiger Woods videogame will be the first to use the system.