The EA codes are a joke and don't get me started on the EA season ticket bullshit. They are just trying to squeeze every last penny they can from gamers. EA are single handedly destorying the second hand game market.
Do you blame them for trying? Say you run a company that sells a product to a distributor for £20 each time. If they sell 100 that's £2,000. However, if 50 of those are then sold on second hand, that's a potential extra £1,000 lost for good because they gain nothing in terms of revenue for second hand products being sold on. If you make those 50 buy it new instead of picking it up second hand, you earn £3,000 instead of £2,000. I know which amount I'd rather have if I was a businessman.
It's making gaming a two teir system, haves and have nots, I can afford to buy brand new games, but what about somebody who can't afford to buy them brand new, so he needs to go into the second hand market, which is now being destroyed as stores haven't lowered their second hand game prices. by the time someone has got the game from the store and paid for the code, may as well just of brought it brand new, and now that person is priced out of the gaming market once more, If somebody has two accounts on 1 console, it means that they must have to buy a code if they wish to play it on the second account.
Whens the time going to come when EA don't give codes away with games and you're forced to pay extra to go online to start with? Because trust me, when they see the bitches laping up the EA season ticket bullshit they will charge you for everything.
EA also fail to produce full games, which means they can sell game content which should have been in the game to start with, now an an exclusive to DLC, which means your paying £40 for a game that isn't complete.
It's making gaming a two teir system, haves and have nots, I can afford to buy brand new games, but what about somebody who can't afford to buy them brand new, so he needs to go into the second hand market, which is now being destroyed as stores haven't lowered their second hand game prices. by the time someone has got the game from the store and paid for the code, may as well just of brought it brand new, and now that person is priced out of the gaming market once more, If somebody has two accounts on 1 console, it means that they must have to buy a code if they wish to play it on the second account.
Whens the time going to come when EA don't give codes away with games and you're forced to pay extra to go online to start with? Because trust me, when they see the bitches laping up the EA season ticket bullshit they will charge you for everything.
EA also fail to produce full games, which means they can sell game content which should have been in the game to start with, now an an exclusive to DLC, which means your paying £40 for a game that isn't complete.
So you think someone that buys second hand for £15 should be entitled to the same full gaming package as someone who paid £40+ on release day? Don't agree with that for one second, sorry. If you pay less you should expect a lower quality package. If you buy a new Ferrari you get the new car smell, the shiny exterior and the super comfy interior. Oh, and you get the warranty and gaurentees etc etc.. Buy it with 75,000 miles on the clock and you don't get that. Same applies for gaming, if you buy it second hand you shouldn't get the full package.
The Fifa 11 licences grant the purchaser an online code valid on 1 system. It certainly wasn't one account for me, it worked on all of my PSN accounts. Second hand markets are bad for businesses so organisations like EA are trying to stamp it out. It makes complete sense and I agree with them on it to be honest.
With regards to the product not being complete etc, that's what happens when you release a yearly game. It has been discussed time and time again that Fifa should be every 2 years to make the game better but the buyers say no. A high amount want the game yearly so therefore EA are stuck. Developing a game, a code as complex as that on Fifa and getting it through testing within 12 months is an uphill struggle at the best of times and when the gaming community expect new and better features each and every edition you will always get bugs and parts of the game that need to be patched/added at a later date. Coding for games is one of the most complex things I have ever seen in my life, if not THE most complex. I'm not surprised that with their deadlines and sheer level of coding needed that there is the odd mistake in the code. It's human error and it will forever happen because us humans are not perfect and therefore cannot create a perfect product. I don't think there has ever been a game perfectly coded in the history of technology.
I begrudge buying games at the moment ever since i brought the last installment of Halo ands realised it was a pile of monkey spank and walked through it in two days. I subsequently traded it in for £25 and brought FIFA 11. I vowed at that point to never buy ad hoc games and hire them instead, i know get them through Lovefilm and you can keep them as long as you want/need. The onyl games i will buy are the likes of FIFA, Tiger woods, Elder scrolls etc, the ones i know i will get value out of.
If developers keep making easy games or part games (where you then have to wait for the add on) people will sell the games and move onto the next. Developers are gearing people up to play online particularly with games like FIFA and COD but are missing the average gamer who just likes to pick up and play on occasions without having to continually download shot they do not want and pay for the previlage.
Halo's been crap since the second instalment, that's way they're releasing a 'HD' version of the original, in my opinion, the only good one in the whole series. I don't know about everyone else on here but I'm really selective with my games, I buy about 6 new games a year because I know most are just not worth the money. And out of those 6, maybe one will be a release day buy, the rest will be 6-12 months later for upto £15.
Online isn't a big thing for me and this is why I have a ps3, so that I can have the odd bash online without having to pay some stupid annual subscription for the privilege.