Sony Threatens Game Collectors?

[Crabmaster2000]

I personally think it would be a foolish move unless their competitors follow suit. If Sony was the only one to do this I would think used game resellers like Game Stop would respond by relegating their games to the back of the store and having their sales associates push the system and games from their competitors that they could profit from. Sony is already in poor financial shape and this wouldn't help them in the next gen race.

As a collector, I fully understand that there will be a point when something like this happens, or we have all digital consoles. I've already decided that that will probably be the exit point for me. Far too many older games out there to still play and collect. I'm certainly the minority here.

I'd join Duke's minority too

I doubt this would happen this next gen though.

[Fleach]

I can live without current generation games should this happen.

[Razor Knuckles]

I'm more into classic games than modern games. I'm on the same boat, if this were real I'd say goodbye to modern games. Classic games always have a charm to me.

[Crabmaster2000]

I actually wouldnt be to sad if something were to drive me away from modern consoles. While there are some games I absolutely love on modern systems, it seems like there are less and less games made that appeal to me with each new generation. There are still so many games for older consoles that I have yet to experience that I'd be set for years to come, probably decades.

[techwizard]

I actually wouldnt be to sad if something were to drive me away from modern consoles. While there are some games I absolutely love on modern systems, it seems like there are less and less games made that appeal to me with each new generation. There are still so many games for older consoles that I have yet to experience that I'd be set for years to come, probably decades.

i feel exactly the same, as much as i love some modern series and specific games, there are so many thousands and tens of thousands of old games to play that it would take more than one lifetime to get to them all. it's hardly limiting yourself to not jump into the newest generation.

[slackur]

I've come to similar conclusions for my own gaming.  I just don't get into many modern video game conventions (i.e. F2P, P2P, MMO, mobile, DLC, digital only, always online, etc.)

There have certainly been exceptions to these and will be in the future, but most of the time these types of games are not my preference for a variety of personal reasons.  I will say that I find it silly to become so resistant and jaded as to never play anything outside of my preference scope, and I'll always try something different or even try something I didn't like again.  But modern gaming trends have often made me very glad to have our collection, where the majority of games I can play without concern of patches, downloads, achievements, trophies, disconnected multiplayer, monthly service payments, DRM, online passes, and the list goes on.

I assume we'll always have at least something in the modern era to play and keep up with the industry, but collecting?  This post/current generation of 360, PS3, and Wii is probably the dividing line on what we collect.  Outside of a few (alright, quite a few) collector's editions and rarities, as of last year we're just picking up some nifty new stuff here and there, and focusing on the holes in our retro shelves.  

One of the turning points came when my beloved and I just did some fun math off the top of our heads, and roughly calculated how long it would take to get through only the RPGs in our current collection.  If we only averaged about 25 hours per game, and did not get any more games, and played them forty hours a week starting last year, we would not finish them all before our average life expectancy.  Just the RPGs.

Getting more realistic about what we expect to play, how much weekly time we give the hobby, and how we want the collection to serve our purposes as opposed to the other way around, made me far less frustrated with the direction of modern gaming, and able to more easily treat it as a fun blessing alongside other things in our lives.

Just what my thought about it has been lately.

*Goes back to the Dust 514 Beta* 

[Addicted]

You're saying that, should something like this happen, you'll start playing and collecting only "retro" games? As I read the original post I figured I'd do the same.

Yes sir.

Same here, but I doubt that any company would implement any anti-used game policy stateside.

[slackur]

You're saying that, should something like this happen, you'll start playing and collecting only "retro" games? As I read the original post I figured I'd do the same.

Yes sir.

Same here, but I doubt that any company would implement any anti-used game policy stateside.

Originally I'd have thought the same, until the online pass system and always-on DRM were implemented on some games.  While there has been a vocal backlash in the gamer community, we have to be realistic in how few voices we are next to the overall sales figures in question.  Online passes have been considered a successful measure, and more games and companies are adopting them even for single player.  And despite the near comical 'told you so' problems with the 'always online' necessity for Diablo III (not to mention its other problems) it has also been very commercially successful.  As these two features are more fully embraced by publishers, and I really don't see the industry moving away from them soon, our restricted-use used game market is pretty much arriving.  We do get the occasional backlash such as Ubisoft's PC nonsense, but it seems more and more we'll see 'always online' and/or online passes become the norm.

Sheesh, I already cannot play my XBLA titles without being online because they get swapped across LAN systems so much, and MS locks them into trial only mode if I'm not online, just to make sure they are legitimately purchased.  The 'future' is here already, it just sneaks in a few components at a time.

[Izret101]

Actually when i was playing Deadliest Warrior i managed to get 1 license to work on 3 consoles(while online). Not sure if it was game specific coding error or if i could potentially do it with other games. Haven't tried since i haven't had reason to. Nor have i had all 3 systems hooked up at once since...

[RetroRage]

I can live without current generation games should this happen.

This. 

But, i feel for future gamers who might not get the same opportunity to collect as we do.

[blcklblskt]

Most of the current generation games I buy are usually new (and cheap), so this won't affect me too much.  But I (want to) seriously doubt that this will be implemented in the next generation of consoles.

[slackur]

I can live without current generation games should this happen.

This. 

But, i feel for future gamers who might not get the same opportunity to collect as we do.

While this does sadden me, gamers who are also collectors are very much the minority.  A very vocal and important minority, but not one that will have the money or power to change the digital tide. 

As much as I don't like to admit it, we are also likely a shrinking minority; your average collector born after the 90's nowadays is more likely to collect PS2 or Gamecube rather than Atari and Coleco, and as that subset ages, we are getting further removed from 8/16 bit nostalgia and tolerance for Intellivision controllers.  There is a new wave of retro appreciation, to be sure, but now it is more about retro art styles and simplified game design and less about the old games themselves.  We will always be introducing more people to 'our' classics, but there will be fewer and fewer teenagers for whom Frogger has as much staying power as Call of Halo Fantasy 7.

And that's if they don't all get run over by Google RoboCars as they're VR texting.

Now get off my lawn. 

[Fleach]

You bring up a good point Slakur. The 8/16 bit collector will likely fade into obscurity eventually as younger people discover the hobby and seek out consoles and games from their childhood. This will probably the point in time when the Nintendo bubble pops and a collecting focus will shift towards PS1, definitely PS2, and Xbox. It's a matter of people wanting to go down memory lane and re-experiencing those games from they were kids; and as the average collector becomes younger those nostalgic games will come from more recent generations.

I can already seen that "retro" has now become a term to describe the aesthetics of the game. I also see a good number of people in their late teens and early twenties scouring the flea markets for games because it's the "cool trend." But these people are usually hipsters and will drop vintage gaming once the next fad comes along. Even though I am talking about people from my age group I'm a bit of an outlier. My reason for collecting is because there are so many great games out there waiting to be enjoyed, I could care less for the cool factor or being trendy.

To get the discussion more in-line with the original post I think this move by Sony will hurt these younger collectors.

[Addicted]

You bring up a good point Slakur. The 8/16 bit collector will likely fade into obscurity eventually as younger people discover the hobby and seek out consoles and games from their childhood. This will probably the point in time when the Nintendo bubble pops and a collecting focus will shift towards PS1, definitely PS2, and Xbox. It's a matter of people wanting to go down memory lane and re-experiencing those games from they were kids; and as the average collector becomes younger those nostalgic games will come from more recent generations.

I can already seen that "retro" has now become a term to describe the aesthetics of the game. I also see a good number of people in their late teens and early twenties scouring the flea markets for games because it's the "cool trend." But these people are usually hipsters and will drop vintage gaming once the next fad comes along. Even though I am talking about people from my age group I'm a bit of an outlier. My reason for collecting is because there are so many great games out there waiting to be enjoyed, I could care less for the cool factor or being trendy.

To get the discussion more in-line with the original post I think this move by Sony will hurt these younger collectors.

You can also add in the Arcade/Pinball boom of the early 2000s to that.  Everybody had to have an arcade or Pinball machine in their house.

[wildbil52]

This would have bothered me more if it were a system that I buy more games for.  I don't play very much on the PS3 and I usually buy new.

I don't need to be playing "the latest hotness" the day if comes out for $50-60.  Anything that I am interested in playing can be bought new for less than $20 less than a year from when the game comes out.

I understand that this is an issue for a bunch of people who purchase or trade for pre played games on a regular basis and I feel for them.  

At the end of the day, you don't own the software that you buy, you are purchasing a license to use the software.  It's just that there has been no real way to enforce that so companies have introduced things like online passes and additional "one time use" code content to discourage used purchases.  The best way that you can let a company know how you feel about something like this is to simply not spend your money on their products.

Companies look at user feedback, forums, customer service conversations, but at the end of the day, it's about dollars.  If Sony hears a LOT of complaining about this practice and they keep selling as many games as they had previously, this will become the status quo instead of a failed attempt to limit the software license that they have sold you.