Spore wasn't sold via Consoles.  PC DRM systems are now expanding past the PC - Avatar's Blu-Ray release was all but destroyed by the inclusion of DRM on the disc.  Imagine if Assassin's Creed III requried your Xbox or PS3 to be connected to the internet at all times.

The problem with that logic is that most people actually use their trade-in money on old games to buy new releases.  Then there's another big issue: a lot of the people who buy used games do so precisely because they don't want to spend any more money.  Seems to me that trying to sell stuff to someone who doesn't want to spend more money is a complete waste of time and effort.

Honestly, I don't know their precise margins, but that seems a bit high.  They have to pay to repurchase the game from the former owner, and they have to mark down for being used.  Then they have overhead at the store on top of that.

The main people hurt in this type of model is Gamestop.

If EA wanted to *kill* used sales, there wouldn't be an option to buy a code. You buy a new copy or you don't get multiplayer, period.

What they're doing instead is adding a fee. So instead of Gamestop being able to sell a used copy for $5 less then a new copy (where they keep half of that $55 and the publisher gets nothing), Gamestop instead sells it for $45 and also sells the $10 code. Gamestop still makes money, and the publisher makes $10 (or some fraction thereof, if they're using Microsoft points for the code system then MS would take a cut).

And the argument that used game money goes to buy new games doesn't matter a lot to the publisher. User 1 pays $60 for a new game, then sells it to Gamestop. Gamestop pays $25 for that game, and resells it to user 2 for $55.

Gamestop makes $30. User 1 gets back $25 towards another game, but user 2 spent $55 and the publisher didn't see a dime. This isn't a winning proposition for them. They're much better off if user 1 doesn't sell the game and user 2 pays $5 more for a new copy.

Isn't this anti-trust?  Creating a market where you can only buy and sell from the corporation certainly says that.

Well, at least it will work. I thought all used games were moving towards not selling used at all, let alone playing online. 

If the used price with the new key price is reasonable, it works for me.

I tend to agree this is more of a continuation of their campaign against the secondary market than a shot at customers.  They already took steps in this direction with 'bonus' DLC.  It must obviously not have had the impact they wanted, so now they're going to try crippling features instead of holding back bonuses.

For once I actually support EA on this one.  Gamestop is pretty damn arrogant, often selling used games for $5 less than new while giving the person who traded it in maybe 1/3 of that price.  The publishers don't see a dime of this, while Gamestop is essentially printing money.  There were articles about how publishers were unhappy about this situation years ago, but Gamestop executives clearly didn't care.  All they had to do was offer a cut of the resale to the publisher, and it wouldn't have come to this.  Now console gamers can probably expect this to occur more and more, until the entire game is tied to an account like PC games and can never be resold.  Gamestop and similar companies' days are numbered at this point, and it's their own fault.  Like Blockbuster video and traditional movie rental outlets, they refused to acknowledge that technology has advanced to the point where their business model can and will be replaced.

As PC gamer who has not been able to trade in or sell old games for years, I can't shed a tear for the console gamers over this.

That's true.  Another thing brought from the PC model; you can't rent games on PC.  You have to buy, or when the publisher feels like releasing one, try one-level demos.  Publishers like that, and probably want to eventually cut the rental companies out of the picture too.  Considering games are getting shorter and shorter on content these days, and day 1 DLC offerings getting more and more common, it's not really a surprise if they want to eliminate rentals too.  Can't have kids renting the game for a week and beating it for $10, saving $50-60.

That I don't agree with at all; but I'd bet good money it's going to happen within the next 10 years.

Seriously, people will pay $55 for used when they can get new for $5 more?  I'm surprised people actually go for used at those prices.

The entire point behind copyright and patent law is to intentionally, artificially create a monopoly for that product. The only time anti-trust action can reasonably be pursued is when someone ties multiple items together, leveraging their market share for one product into forced sales of another. That's the issue MS ran into with their browser, not that they were the only ones that could sell it. They were effectively forcing people to buy it as part of Windows, when it should have been a separate product.

Where this becomes a problem for EA, is all the people out there who are like me.  We purchase games, but don't accept restrictions on their use.  I have a desktop and a laptop, but if I can only install the game on three machines, what then?  Therefore I absolutely refuse to purchase anymore games from EA, or any other company which restricts the number of times I can install the game or requires an internet connection for its use.

Piracy isn't going to kill EA's PC division... it is overprotecting against it.

I'm amazed at some of you saying Gamestop should be giving publishers a cut of their used game sales. Once you sell a product, you no longer have the right to make demands regarding its use. The new owner doesn't magically owe you money if he in turn sells the product to someone else, regardless of how much he may profit from doing so. Claiming otherwise is to go against thousands of years of economic reality.

I haven't heard of any used bookstores making payments to book publishers every time they sell something, so why are we expecting Gamestop to do it?