14 DAY TRIAL // Naughty Dog's Justin Richmond, the director of the upcoming Uncharted 3 game, has talked about the online pass used by the title and how second hand buyers should definitely purchase it because it allows access to the online experiences that are a integral of the new game in the Uncharted series.
Sony is implementing with its upcoming Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, a mandatory online PSN Pass system, which forces gamers who buy the title used to pay for a $10 DLC that allows them access to the online components of the game.
While this strategy is already used by other companies, like EA, THQ or Ubisoft, Sony's decision with Uncharted 3 raise some eyebrows.
Richmond defends this system and says that the multiplayer mode is more than worth it, not just the competitive but also the cooperative one.
"I think we’re offering a huge package, we’re offering a ton of content," Richmond told The Sixth Axis. "It’s not just some throw away death-match mode, we spent a ton of time developing this stuff. I think we’re offering something that’s completely different from anything else that’s in the industry; our gameplay is really different and really deep and it takes a long time to master."
"We give literally thousands of hours of content in our online stuff and on top of that we give you not just competitive, but an entire co-op experience as well. There’s basically a whole alternate history, alternate version story in our co-op, and in this game they’re actually all tied together. All the co-op missions, of which there are even more, are all actually one continuous story, if you play them in the right order."
Richmond admits that, in order to support these experiences, both the offline and online ones, Uncharted 3 needs to make money, and if the PSN Pass helps it achieve this, then it's a good tool for Naughty Dog and Sony.
"It’s all that stuff, and so in general, we’re giving out a huge amount of content, and part of the reason for the online pass is that when that stuff goes online, it isn’t free. We have to pay for servers and all this different stuff to maintain it, and so at some point, you know, games have to make money. It is a business, and we just wanna be able to continue to provide that kind of content. If Sony ever comes to us and says “You’re not making enough money on this, you need to cut it” or whatever, that’s not something that we want. We want to be able to maintain the level of quality of the product that we’re giving out."
Going forward, Sony confirmed that all new games published by it with a multiplayer mode will have a PSN Pass system.
Uncharted 3 is out on November 1, exclusively for the PlayStation 3.