EA: Second-Hand Games a "Critical Situation" [Aug 28, 2008, 3:46 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Electronic Arts considers second-hand game sales a "critical situation" reports
GamesIndustry.biz in a bit of from an interview with EA's Jens Uwe Intat
that will published in its entirety tomorrow. According to Intat, senior VP and
general manager for European publishing at EA, the publisher is experimenting
with a number of different business models to combat the problem of the same
game being sold and resold to different users. He points out that games have a
unique problem compared to most other goods sold on secondary markets because
they do not degrade with use. To address this, he says: "What we're trying to do
is build business models that are more and more online-supported with additional
services and additional content that you get online. So people will see the
value in not just getting that physical disc to play at home alone, but actually
playing those games online and paying for them."
This seems to be a common misconception on this thread - that a business or cartel of businesses can set or dictate legal policy, i.e., the "Je suis le roi, je suis le droit" theory.
If I may quote my own post - let me clarify something that I don't think I've done a job of explaining, as it at the heart of my arguments:
Trade, competition, and contract law isn't some new invention. Western law is based on the constructs or rules laid down and codified thousands of years ago. American law is centered around the concept of open markets for goods and services.
There are quite literarly thousands of decisions that reinforce this concept. Very few corporations get to have a closed market. One might even say it takes an act of Congress to avoid anti-trust issues (ie, Major League Baseball).
This concept is so hardened and entrenched into the core of American law that you have large extensions of law that deal with specific anti-trust situations, even down to mergers and acquisitions of different companies (Google + Yahoo for example).
Therefore, EA, and every other corporation in America has a large, and well defined framework that defines what they can and cannot do. They cannot as a company, or as a cartel of companies simply discard this framework. This is my primary argument here: They must obey the law, whether they like it or not.
Thus, while they can come up with ways to COMPETE with both other companies and the resale market, then cannot legally lock out those competitors with anti-competitive practices*.
* I'm not saying they won't try. The software application and O/S industry has a long history of trying this, and getting smacked down in the courts. One such company has been under direct Federal monitoring for the better part of a decade for its anti-competitive practices.
This comment was edited on Aug 30, 17:04.
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