I call out Nintendo for a number of reasons, but mainly because they are a shining example of how to treat a fanbase. They certainly have a tainted history, and no company can be considered "perfect", but Nintendo has come the closest to meeting customer expectations and this stance has reflected well in their game sales. Sony put out a mammoth, overpriced machine that was low on fun and high on maintenance. By maintenance, I mean ego. They were the gold digging company that wanted to charge you a high price just for the privilege of having a ride, and sure it looked nice, but Sony wasn't able to perform when it needed to. On top of that, they started asking more and more from you until things just started to go missing as if you never actually owned them to begin with. Let's face it, Sony has already broken up with you, they just won't tell you yet.
Nintendo, by contrast, put out a comparatively cheap product that inspired fun, at least for a little while. Their online service is going to be free for the forseeable future, everything costs less, and they haven't treated their customers like criminals. They also have had a decent track record in giving customers opportunities to open their wallet for a decent reason instead of greed. Sure, the games on the Virtual Console are intangible and sometimes overpriced, but a few companies have had IP's revived do to retro interest, and the costs involved aren't all that much. Would we have received a sequel to Final Fantasy IV without the VC? Debatable, but at least I'm not being charged what amounts to a $10 toll that assumes I'm a pirate or need to pay for the developer wasting their money when developing products.
Which brings us back to the point. What is the purpose of the $10 charge? The companies will tell you, and have told you, that they are doing this to combat the GameStop's of the world that they neither do business with (they do) or care about (they should).
Let's debunk that myth here and now. There is a basic economic principle that's called "supply and demand". The majority of people who have at least made it to high school have heard about it, and even the ones that don't understand this principle by practical application. If you print a million games, but no one wants them, then your demand is low while your supply is high. Instead, you print a lesser amount of games, much like Atlus does, charging only for games that you know will sell and reprinting when necessary. Those games move off the shelves, and maybe not all the way, but at least you know that you're meeting your demand and only spending the necessary amount of money to make that happen.
Now, what the companies are telling you is that used game sales enter into this problem. In a way, they could, but not as much as you would think. I'll side for the companies for one moment. Let's say that a million copies of Fallout: New Vegas were printed. A half a million fly off the shelves during the first week, but 200,000 of those people beat the game within a week, don't like it, or decide that they like the game enough but are more interested in making the switch to PlayStaion Move and need all the trade-in credit they can get. So, even though the expectation was that a million people were buying the game, only 800,000 copies were actually moved. Thus, sales are are culled by GameStop simply existing.
So what if GameStop didn't exist? What if those 200,000 people simply couldn't trade in their games for an obscenely tiny amount? Hell, GameStop is making money off of this without programming one line of code...why not the company who made the damn game? Fair point It's feasible that companies could meet their expected demand, and what's more, maybe those 200,000 people who bought the game second-hand turn into retail buyers, boosting the million mark to 1,200,000. It makes sense...
...until you start to get into what's really going on behind the scenes. Call of Duty: MW2 didn't originally force people into extra charges for their game, nor did they punish the second-hand buyer. In fact, people who had outlived their use of the game were able to trade it back for credit towards something else, providing a market for people who weren't there on day one to get into the MW2 scene. By having that used game market, you effectively bolster your own online community while giving gamers the choice of liking your game or not. If they don't like it, sales across the board will plummet. Look at Bionic Commando. I don't hear Capcom bitching that we need to be charged an extra $10 for the "opportunity" to play that game. The game sucked, and the $9.95 price WITHIN A YEAR OF RELEASE reflected that. Nobody wanted the game. MW2, however, still costs nearly full price. Hell, the original MW demands some big money for an old game. People still talk about playing MW, so a thriving online community is created who have positive word of mouth about it. If MW wasn't so cult-popular, then MW2 would not have had the explosive release than it did. Would you rather have a $60 customer that hates your company and your game and is stuck with a copy of that game? Wouldn't it make sense to have a fan who appreciates your game owning that copy, even if it is used, buying your DLC and hyping up Black Ops? I, for one, take the latter.
Also, take any EA sports franchise. EA truly treats their games like crap. The only way to justify $60 every year is if it is a truly different game each year. I understand that they have the license, and they do insane amounts of research in developing and maintaining their games. However, that's not the point. Imagine what they could do if Madden or FIFA was released every two years with a $25 update in the off years. Suddenly, you see that retail sales are huge. Second hand sales, and values, rise. That $25 update? It's now mandatory for any fan of the game to update their rosters and maintain themselves on the newest updates. Sure, a million people sold the game back because they didn't like it, but a million others take their place, you still sold the original copies, and the second-hand buyers will buy the DLC at a rate comparable or even HIGHER than the retail counterparts.
The supply and demand argument also helps when it comes to the quality of games. Sure, Bionic Commando retailed at $60. So did Uncharted 2. Which company spent it's money better? Do you ever hear Nintendo complaining about development costs? Yet, when Final Fantasy XIII came out, we were expected to pay $10 more for a game that literally wasted millions upon millions to end up with a sub-par attempt at a Final Fantasy game. They aren't even a company asking for the $10 "toll", either.
This is a topic I could write a thesis about. The "toll" doesn't work, and only serves to insult the customer and treat the best fans of a game like dirt. Some people just want to save a buck here and there, and if the developer can't be bothered to make their game that worth it, then why should good customers pay more? If Modern Warfare 2 costs $55 used and the game is that damned good, I'll just buy the retail game for $5 more. but I've bought FIFA a year late before. If it wasn't for EA telling me that they are going to punish people like me for discovering that their series is worth buying, then I won't buy FIFA 11 no matter how worth it the game may be. I've been shafted, I've been insulted, and the game's value will rest in EA's hands instead of my own. It's no different from owning a cartridge of Super Mario 3 or Super Tecmo Bowl. Imagine if you were told that, "Oh yeah, the game costs $15, but if you want to play the last level, you gotta call Nintendo and spoon out $10."
Sure, it would make money, but I don't think many people would view those series as having any future value ever again. Sony, you have to put a stop to this. Why are you always the one I'm preaching customer service to? Why are you the last one to listen to the fans? Why are you the first in line to steal things from people? How the hell are you still in business? Save face, and bail out of this NOW. Otherwise, you're just one more formerly valuable brand that we can simply forget about.
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