Games and movies and music are not the same as physical products. When you sell a car you no longer have access to it. When you buy a used car it is not as good as a new car for many reasons and will not last as long. There is absolutely no difference what-so-ever between playing a "new" game and playing a "used" game... same exact experience. The only difference is that person A paid the developers and investors for it while person B paid Gamestop.

I accept that crap though because of my distaste for DRM and such, I don't want singleplayer games being blocked. Online features though? Block the hell out of them I say, I don't care. If that gets more people to buy new then good on the company. Online gameplay is inherently limited and protected anyway, so there is no DRM argument to be made. It comes down to the simple fact that you should only get out what you put in, you should only get to play if you contribute to the funding of the game through payment to the creators.

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The entire car analogy sucks. Every analogy is going to suck because there isn't anything else out there quite like software in general and games with an online component in particular. I'm only using the analogy someone else started. Whether or not the whole "one slot and one source for servers" thing sucks (it does), it's the company's choice to do it that way and the consumer's choice whether or not to buy into it.

With regard to the comment about one user over 5 years or two users over 5 years, it's entirely skipping the point that the original buyer is likely selling the game because he or she no longer plays it. When he doesn't play it any more, then that person's burden on the servers goes away. So hint: they do not necessarily cost the same since the original copy on my hard drive might be collecting digital dust after 18 months.
If it's in the EULA, then that's the promise they made to the original buyer. Going back to the flawed auto analogy, automakers do the same thing with warranty coverage. You bought it new or someone bought it used, but if you make a claim to repair something that was neglected or abused, the OEM is under no obligation to fix it for free. In other words, "they've engineered a system where they can arbitrarily take away a feature [the warranty coverage] people generally like from selected folks that do something with their purchase that they don't like [beat on the car]"

Tell you what, there's an easy fix for this that you're not going to like, either. Ubi or whomever can simply change the labeling and / or EULA without changing the content of the bits and bytes:

"This software comes with an optional online gameplay and support component, free to use by the original purchaser of a new copy of the software. Users with a legally-purchased second-hand copy are able to access this optional content for a small fee."

Tada, problem solved. Like it or not, that's how they're doing it and you and I and everyone else can decide whether or not to accept it. As you say, that's the bed they made. The market will determine if that bed is comfy, or if it's lumpy and covered with bedbugs. Within a year it'll probably go away or morph into something that works better for both publisher and consumer. I suppose, similar to automotive safety standards, we could ask to have the FCC and FTC involved in setting video game design and use standards...

Ubi has made no promises to the used market. It is not their responsibility to ensure that used games retain a certain market value. The online content is there, it can be accessed by a relatively small fee, and the second-hand buyer can take it or leave it. If that brings down the prevailing price of used Ubi games, then that's how it goes. Chrysler Corp doesn't have a responsibility to used car sellers because the residual value absolutely blows from perpetually crappy product. If you think the market won't adjust to the manipulation of used product values, take a good look at the long-term results of Cash for Clunkers.

Those buyers who continually purchase games knowing that they will recoup some portion of the cost 2-12 months down the road through reselling will now take into consideration the possibility of reduced used-market prices for Ubi titles and will change their buying habits accordingly. Or not - it's up to them. For the casual reseller, it's not going to matter a whole lot. I know there are a lot of people who don't resell at all and for whom this policy doesn't have an obvious effect.

RE: your edit.

Another incorrect analogy since Ubi isn't preventing the game from running. Fixing your analogy, suppose the car comes with out-of-date nav data. You'll have to pay the OEM to get a new data disk. http://www.toyota.com/help/faqs/vehicle-where_can_i_get_updates_for_navigation_system_maps.html.

Because the book and CD publisher doesn't have support costs related to continued use (reading or listening) of those products. The used market extends the life of video games beyond the original sale (isn't that the point of our beloved GOG?), and thus extends the online support costs for those products, to include gameplay servers. Of course, most of that goes away if they would allow anyone to create gameplay servers; that's not exactly the main point of this matter, but it certainly contributes. Either way, the PC game market has evolved to the point where the consumers' interaction with the publisher extends well beyond the retail sale and is an expected "value-add". When the second-hand market expands the cost of value-add by second-hand consumers who didn't buy the product through the publisher, someone in accounting is going to notice the higher costs and will suggest that something be done about it. For Ubi, this is that 'something'.

Sorry but that probably the silliest thing I ever read.

For what reason ? So following this twisted logic if tomorrow somebody sell his house then the original architect and builders should also get their cuts ? Or when somebody sell a dish in his restaurant they he should give some "royalties" to the original peasant who grows the vegetables he is using in it, that's just silly.

They made a "product", be it a game a book a car or anything, they sold it to somebody... end of story. There is no magical rule that say that once you sell something you are entitled to receive more money every time this thing is resold.

Land is obviously a different matter, as there is no original owner. Food isn't being resold as a "used product" either, as it's merely being used as a raw material in the creation of another product.

Name me one reason that it would be wrong for the original producer of an entertainment product to obtain some cut every time their product is resold.

I don't see how this is bad. I see it as an intelligent business decision.

Well you answer you own question, because is REsold.

When you sell something you lose property of it, and it doesn't matter if it's a book, car or a license, when you sold it it's no longer yours and there is no reason at all why you should continue receiving money for it in case the new owner decide to resell it.

Your inability to see or admit that maybe a media entertainment experience is different from a physical item is absurd.

The obvious answer is to not buy $60 games if you're reliant on trade-ins.

The used market does not provably extend the online use of games. There is no difference between someone playing their favourite game online every day right up until the servers go offline (Halo 2 was in the news for this recently) and multiple subsequent owners of a single copy doing the same thing one after the other. That first purchase already entitles the owner to online multiplayer use without any limitations; they can play as much as they want indefinitely, and that's a situation the publisher has already budgeted for.

Don't go thinking server costs are so woefully significant either; most console games use peer-to-peer multiplayer, which means the publisher only pays for matchmaking and other external functionality rather than the bandwidth and server space of the matches themselves.

This has nothing to do with making multiplayer financially viable and everything to do with collecting money they haven't worked for.

Just for info the post I was answering to concerned everything not just media stuff

But going back to media, I don't see that much of a difference just because you buy a license instead of a physical object doesn't makes it magically totally different.

The only difference was that before the license and the physical object (in book, CD, etc...) were indiscernible from each other which is no longer the case today but apart from it's still pretty much the same :

- Buy a license you have to right to listen/play/watch the product you bought.
- Sell the license to somebody else you lose those rights and transfer them to the new owner.

If he want then to sell them again to somebody else then he can and transfer the license ownership again to a new buyer. Not really different than selling and re-selling a shovel.

Not so long ago peoples would have found pretty stupid if a book's author (or a singer doing to same for CD) would have asked to get paid every time you resell one of his book you bought, what I personally find absurd is that peoples starts believing that media companies are somewhat entitled to received money from second/third/fourth sales just because of their constant winning of how uber evil the second hand market it.

If really they want to limit second hand sales maybe they should first try to wonder why peoples don't want to keep their products rather than trying impair second hand market.

You aren't answering my question, you're dodging it. Name a reason why it is wrong for the original producer of an entertainment product to obtain some cut every time their product is resold. An argument to history is not an argument at all.

I honestly cannot believe that so many people on a site that generally has a pro consumer anti greed/drm stance would agree with this anti-consumer nonsense.

This crap flies in the face of literally thousands of years of resale law. Why is software, or for those using the more broad term 'entertainment', so special that they don't have the rules apply to them that every other industry has? Why are you people defending something that takes your rights away? It's just madness.

I really can't believe that developers and publishers have successfully brainwashed so many people with their whining and crying in a time that video games are making more money than any time in history despite the general recession. I'm really having a hard time believing that there are people out there who are so stupid as to think that no person has a right to resale his entertainment product without sending a portion to the designer/publisher/author/director/whatever. A HUGE portion of the worldwide economy works on resale. Every major city has numerous small business (and some big ones!) dedicated to resale. Huge companies like amazon and Ebay make their living off of resale (Amazon makes a considerable sum from used sales)

The people that this is primarily affecting is not the consumers of their products. They have no obligation to give them a good experience. They could, in fact, completely lock down the play of this game with a CD key or login method (like, say Steam, or GOG). If you're calling this anti-consumer, GOG is leagues worse.

And until recently, homosexual sex flew in the face of hundreds of years of criminal law.

Why shouldn't every industry have this protection for goods that aren't perishable?

I wouldn't fight to keep the right to keep slaves either...

First of all, even if a cut of the proceeds went to the original producer, used sales would not "die". However, if they did, and used products could not be sold, it would merely mean that the sales would transfer from the used retailers to the retailers of new products. It's not like PC gaming has died since people lost the ability to resell their games.