Hey everyone, I thought I would start off today by bringing up a topic that has gotten a lot of attention since the unveiling of the Xbox one, or as we've come to call it the Xbone. The topic I am talking about is of course the concern of the longevity that used games have. Buying used games has always been a nice alternative to people who own consoles to buy a game that they aren't sure about and play it at a discounted price. If the game isn't up to the gamer's particular standards they can trade it back in. It seems like a simple process however: the inclusion of online passes, retailer versus developer and publisher income, always online drm, day one dlc, pre-order bonuses etc. has made the process more tedious and more questionable as to what is and isn't acceptable from all ends of the business. Recently it was revealed that the Xbox one would, this rumor hasn't been confirmed or denied, put up a pay wall to actively block the ability to buy or rent used games. As a direct result many gamers have taken issue with Microsoft's new policy and currently there are petitions and tweets going toward Sony and it's employees from gamers pushing them to not go forward with their used game detection system on the PlayStation 4.
I am against the banning and blocking of used game sales but two of my favorite game journalists have directly opposing views on the matter. Totalbiscuit has recently made two videos explaining and arguing his viewpoint that used games are something that hurts publishers, their developers and need to be done away with. On the other hand Jimquisition has also put out a video recently, although he has addressed this issue many times in the past, stating how killing the used game market would ultimately carry negative repercussions to game industry and how it is wrong to block used games. I was curious what people think about this situation. Both videos are right here, Biscuit first and Jim second.
No comments:
Post a Comment