The Problem With Online Passes

            This past week Ubisoft announced their Uplay pass which makes them yet another game studio that has decided to use online passes to restrict content to their customers and fans.  I am appalled by this sort of “trend” that big out of touch studio heads seem to be flocking to so quickly.  It is an idiotic and misinformed business decision that we as gamers must express our outrage towards.  First EA, than Sony and now Ubisoft are all saying that if you don’t buy their games new you don’t have the right to access all of its features.  If I want to buy a game used because it’s cheaper or rent it to see if I want to buy it I should be allowed to access online multiplayer and features.  They don’t seem to realize that they will kill game rentals for their games which will mean that rental stores will pack less copies of their products, which hurts sales, than since people who rent won’t play their games there will be less word of mouth which is huge for game sales.  All of my friends play games to some extent but only one of them follows gaming news and so when most of my friends want games they find out through either myself or another friend what it is that they should play and I know that is the case for the majority of people who purchase games.  So by preventing people who buy used or rent from trying online multiplayer unless they pay another ten bucks which is usually more than just buying new and more than the entire rental all together you are giving them less to recommend on and hurting your sales and your image by looking like cheap jerks.  There attempt to gain sales by driving people away from used games will just drive them and their friends away all together.  Here is another example that really ticks me off if you lend a game to your friend or let your sibling play on his/her file they cannot play online.  So if you lend an EA Sports game to your friend he can’t play online multiplayer which is huge for those games, unless he wants to pay 10 bucks to play your game online for a little while.  Also if you live with a sibling who plays games, every time you buy a game from EA, Sony or Ubisoft you will have to decide which of you will be allowed access to online multiplayer, co-op with friends and access to bonus content, which could depend on who likes the game more which you won’t know when you start and input the code, either that or pay an additional $10/file to use a game that you own.  Ubisoft will start this terrible plan with the release of Driver: San Francisco this August which means that if you want to play the improved Assassin’s Creed multiplayer this November you will have to buy it new and flip a coin with your brother or sister.  I really think that this is just an awful road these studios are heading down and hopefully their competitors will capitalize by not charging people to access online and show these companies that their plan will cost them money instead of making them money.  However in the mean time we must let these studios know that they are making the wrong choice and that when we buy a game new or used we deserve full access to its content, you can’t lock it up and charge us more just to make a quick buck.   




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