Uneducated Opinion
EA Sports, It’s in the game but it costs extra
By Alan - August 9, 2010
A short while ago Electronic Arts released Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11. Playing a golf video game sounds about as fun as cramming my dink into a light socket, but somehow EA found a way to make this experience even less enjoyable. In fact, the way they’ve packaged this game with ‘new features’ makes me prostitute-stranglingly-angry.
Starting with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, which released June 8th, EA is including access codes for online play. Basically, it’s a game-specific, single-use registration code included in new copies only. Sounds simple enough but this little ‘feature’ has a potentially big implication. Basically, you may no longer be purchasing just a game. What you’ll be buying is one access code to the game’s full content. The disc, now only includes limited features.
This means used EA games will have about as much value as Magic Johnson at a blood bank. Since access codes are only good for one person then you won’t be able to lend your game to a family member, trade it to a friend, or bribe the neighborhood kid on your block. It’s not like a transferable CD key that can go along with the rest of the game.
I guess the idea is that used games do nothing for EA, so now they can sell an additional product to people who purchase their used games, or it will simply force those people to buy the game new. Will it work? Maybe. Will this further discourage people from playing EA sports games? Maybe. Will this create more animosity between the gamer and EA? Maybe. The only person who really knows is the angry, introverted data analyst at my office who’s wife suspiciously walks into a lot of doors, but I’m too afraid to talk to him. So we’ll put these questions in the unknowable category.
Really, when it comes to justifying this as a business decision I’m about as bad at making financial predictions as Patrick Swayze is at beating pancreatic cancer. However, judging by EA’s stock market trend (which would be visually represented by playing footage of burning people jumping from the North Tower on September 11th) I’d be willing to bet it’s another poor decision made by people who are epically distanced from the world of purchasing games in a retail store that smells like rancid Doritos farts.
I think this is another scummy money making trick because it hacks away at the core value of the games we purchase, and offers nothing in return.
My first complaint is that gamers already pay to play online. That’s why we sign up for internet and purchase Xbox Live accounts (PS3 gamers, you’ll know what this is like soon enough so don’t exclude yourself). The idea of purchasing the game and then being required to pay an additional sum to unlock all of the content or online play is insulting. Especially, when you’re paying $69.99 for a programmer to cut and paste code, update a few roster sheets and add some totally insignificant changes to the game play (ala every other game EA has published since 1992). I don’t care if the ball has 20 more polygons. Include a feature in NHL where I get to beat Don Cherry to death with a hockey puck and maybe I’ll be impressed.
This is a big change because it sets a precedent. This opens the flood gates for other companies to start making everything about your game a Download Content Only Feature. Want all the costumes? DLC. Want all the maps? DLC. Want all the missions? DLC.
In this age games are built incomplete so you have to purchase extras to unlock the whole thing. Street Fighter comes preloaded with costumes that you have to pay to unlock. Call Of Duty comes with a tiny amount of multiplayer maps forcing you to buy mapacks. You used to be able to bring a game home and do whatever you want with them, like a woman who was rufied at the bar. What happened to the good old days?
EA is on a fast track to becoming less welcome than hugs from your uncle who always has something hard in his pocket. I’ve played more than my fair share of their NHL, SSX and FIFA franchises but the buck stops here. I will no longer support EA Sports games.
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