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BF3 Producer Talks Anti-Used Console Tech Rumors
One of the more persistent rumors in video games right now is the thought that next generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft will include tech to limit or altogether stop the playing of used games. Our own Lawrence “Blog-jammin’” Sonntag has weighed in on the subject, explaining why he thinks the whole thing is a load of hooey.
Over on CVG, Patrick Bach, interim CEO of DICE and executive producer of Battlefield 3, has offered his own opinion on what such an addition to consoles would mean for the industry.
“I think that can be a win and a loss,” Bach is quoted as saying. “I think it’s a loss if it only means that you will be able to get fewer games for the same money. But in theory you could see it the other way, because a lot of companies making games today are struggling based on second-hand sales.”
Bach’s opinions seem to put him firmly into the “pro-tech” camp, arguing that used game sales are curtailing innovation in the industry.
He elaborates thusly:
“…if you think that there are too few new IPs on the market, no one can take that risk if their game is at risk of being resold too many times. Therefore you see a lot of online games being the most popular. You mentioned that you feel like a lot of [online shooters] have the same formula and this is one of the reasons, which most people seem to not realize.”
What about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3? That game sold tons and tons and tons of units last year—brand new—and it was essentially the exact same game that’s come before. Companies aren’t afraid of new IPs because of used games—they’re afraid because they know that people will go out and buy what they know already. You’d think the dude who produced Battlefield 3 would recognize the reason why EA even made that thing.
“So on the positive side you could see more games being created because of this, and also more new IPs, because there’d be a bigger market for games that don’t have for instance multiplayer. There could be awesome single player-only games, which you can’t really do these days because people just pirate them, which is sad.”
This doesn’t make any sense to me. How do used games prevent good single player games from coming out? In fact, there have been some great single-player games coming out as downloadable titles on the PSN, XBLA, and Steam—Fez comes to mind as a recent example. Bastion, which was a huge success, is another. Is it that single player games are often sold back to stores once gamers finish them? Maybe the makers of these games need to offer more replay value—or cost less initially, so as to make it seem less like a rip-off when they’re finished in eight hours.
“From a gamer perspective, if you want to buy as many games as possible then this could be a problem, but if you want more diverse games then it’s a more positive thing than negative. The only thing I know is that people are not doing it to be evil and stupid, it’s about trying to create some benefits for consumers.”
I’m sorry—I don’t buy it. The idea that limiting the options a consumer has in terms of buying power wouldn’t be beneficial to consumers. I can understand why a publisher or developer would want to curb used game sales, but there’s a perfectly good platform for that, and it’s called digital distribution. It’s been almost completely accepted by consumers on just about every platform, and it even cuts out the overhead associated with manufacturing physical media and shipping it to stores. Sure, there’s digital piracy, but, to my knowledge, there’s little to no digital piracy on consoles, at least when compared to that of the PC. Let me know if I’m crazy on this point.
Frankly, I feel as though there’s more diversity in games now than there ever has been—I don’t find myself hoping and wishing for diversity in games, since every few weeks or months there’s an announcement about some crazy new puzzle game that defies genre or something–games like Portal 2 or Catherine for example. Maybe it’s just me. The only kind of repetition I tend to see in gaming these days are, uh, games like Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty. You know, the ones where you run around and shoot dudes with guns over, and over, and over…
What do you think? Did I misunderstand Bach’s argument here? Are used game sales really hurting creativity in the industry?
Via CVG
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What I want to see happening is the death of hard-copy games.We need to Have Steam, Origin and more Digital distribution services to be available on consoles and consoles need to have PC sized hard drives (Terabyte) allowing for whole game libraries to be stored.
Is this likely to occur soon; probably not.
Microsoft seems to be against putting anything up on the Xbox live store that does not directly belong or profit themselves, can’t really comment on PSN/SEN whatever it’s called as I don’t own a PS3, being a PC gamer primarily.
But as stated in this article, Used game sales would be a non-issue if Digital Distribution was used to the fullest.
Following Steams model, constant sales of a range of available products would allow those sitting on the bench for a game, or who just don’t want to pay full price (those who would wait for/purchase a used copy) to be attracted to the product.
Blaming Piracy for an inability to produce High Quality single-player experiences is ridiculous, Consumers respect hard-working game companies and will often decide to purchase the game because of the name attached or because they know it will be high quality.
My own experience is that it is the sub-par single player games, that people know they won’t spend hours on, rather they have low expectations and do not want to pay full price for a product they believe to be bad, and so pirate the game.
This being my own experience cannot be generalized to the larger population, but Piracy is not a good enough reason to not create high quality single player experiences.
“Maybe the makers of these games need to offer more replay value—or cost less initially, so as to make it seem less like a rip-off when they’re finished in eight hours”. This goes back to my experience with Piracy, If a person feels they won’t receive a game which they will play for ‘their moneys worth’ then they just won’t pay the money.
Hopefully games do not stagnate into a dull repetition of the same games being made, because pushing the boundaries appear to be to large of a business risk.
@Brian
The guy is a moron. And I feel the same. We already have a well-rounded definition of gaming. All That I ask for is a good story to compliment the game mechanics. I love the AC series, but every spin off as had very little interest for me. Even AC3 doesn’t seem that great. Resident Evil has been consistently exciting for me, even 5. This is despite the fact that 5 suffered from “tank” controls. Devs need to stop blaming lack of imagination on sales. If they need help, they can go to Peter Molyneux for advice. That guy has a light bulb flashing over his head 24/7.
@Ralmidaz
You’re being too optimistic about the future. An all digital frontier for console quality games is still a way off. Although games like CoD are made available via digital distribution, people prefer physical copies. Why? Because they like the idea of being able to play that game ten years down the line. Onlive only supports purchases for three years or so and then isn’t liable for letting gamers play those games after that point. Steam allows us to download the games directly to the computer for offline play, but they may not have the download for the game available in the future in case the user wants to install it on a different computer. As for piracy affecting creativity… That’s a load of bull. It’s just dev’s not having enough funding for their projects or too many retards who are incompetent.
@Soulprovider
Exactly. They sold it once and got the green for the game, and shouldn’t be allowed to get any more money from the same game. However, THAT used game stops a person from buying another new copy. See the issue? That’s why so much content from a finished product is being set aside for DLC and why retail games are becoming less and less of what we expect. ME3 was the biggest victim of this issue. Online passes are norms because it almost guarantees more sales for games like CoD. And forcing multiplayer in single player games is just a measure to ensure new copies of a game are purchased. A pirated multiplayer game would be weeded out by security. We don’t like it, but EA is just trying to protect itself. Used games ARE hurting the industry.
@Mark
Piracy is just another word for cheating. There is no excuse for it. If someone doesn’t have the money for it, they shouldn’t steal it. If they have the money for it and still pirate it, they are even worse.
don’t trust anything that someone who works for EA says, its all pr talk and lies. Personally if a game is used that means that someone bought the game already at one point meaning that EA already made their money, they should not be entitled to a second go around but that is precisely what is going to happen. I firmly beleive that we are looking as a horrible future of gaming as it stand when you looks at how videogames have been exploited both monetarily and quality wise its been a downward trend for a long time all the new consoles would do is solidify the practices that have been in the market for the last ten years. As EA’s own ceo said very soon we will be paying a dollar for ammo because we will be too immersed in the game that we won’t see the ripoff coming. OK ranting over, all i’m going to say is watch very closely as to what is going to happen in the next few years,
BTW one final rant, forcing consumers to buy new games is further solidifying that price fixing is occurring, anyone smart enough could see that all the major publishers have set a precedent in everything that has happening. I’d go as far as to even say that they are driving people to either boycott them or pirate them, I don’t condone the piracy mind you but boycotting on the other hand is all we can really do thanks to sonys TOS agreement, oh I meant EA’s, keep forgetting that they follow each other almost perfectly.
Thing is, bound to account on consoles can’t really work because it’s preposterous to make a console that constantly requires internet connection, sure, a lot of people have high speed internet, but consoles aren’t made just for the US or just for some parts of the EU.
But in all honesty, if they do make something like that, they are just giving another excuse for people to pirate games, because if you break piracy down, people only pirate games because they can’t afford it or because they are not certain if it’s worth the price.
D3 would like to have a word with you, and so would AC 2 and prince of persia.