Electronic Arts want to dip back into your pocket a second time.
The sale of games in Australia is a relatively lucrative business, with our local market booming and sales figures remaining relatively steady even throughout the recent financial crisis.
However, Electronic Arts have noticed one area of the market that they're not receiving anything from - the second hand market.
Retailers such as JB Hi-Fi, EB and GAME all have buy-back schemes that involve the store purchasing a used game back off customers, to then resell them with no profits leading back to the developer of the game.
EA noticed this, and have put their 'Project $10' into motion; a service that requires a unique online code to unlock the full amount of content in a game, but is not transferrable when the game itself is sold.
To unlock access to the new content, such as Mass Effect 2's Cerberus Network, you'll need to pay ten dollars to receive a new code to get the same experience as if you had bought the game new.
It's an interesting way of tackling the movement towards digital sales and increasing development costs of games, but whether or not it proves successful or merely frustrating remains to be seen.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012