Online Passes Starting To Scare Resellers?

Online passes have become extremely common. Ever since EA first tried the idea of an online pass, effectively sidestepping at least some of the money lost to used reselling of their games, nearly every company has hopped on the bandwagon. It is rather rare to find a game without some form of pass needed to access the online content nowadays.

I'm sure that Gamestop was a little pissed when this trend started to catch on. Smart gamers will now buy a new copy of a game even if the used copy is slightly cheaper because having to buy the online pass would make it more expensive in the long run ($55 used "new" game + $10 for the pass or just $60 for the game new). When those customers buy new copies of games, game resellers can't make the huge markup profit they make on resold games. We have no idea how much this is actually cutting into Gamestop's profits, due to dumb consumers who buy the used copies anyway, but I can imagine it isn't a small number.

Destructoid reported today (from a story by MCV) that some U.K. resellers are apparently having a huge problem with online passes. So much of a problem, in fact, that they are willing to cut publishers in on used sale profits if publishers are willing to scrap online passes. Multiple retailers have stated that they would be willing to agree to such a deal if one was proposed.

Jim Sterling argues that maybe the publishers, the ones with all the money, shouldn't be so harsh on these game resellers. Maybe in other countries, where the resellers are smaller companies, this is a fair point. I can see why those companies would hate losing control of their biggest money maker. Now, if Gamestop starts to complain (not that I think they will) in the same way, I wouldn't feel sorry for them at all. They are a MASSIVE company at this point and some of their business practices are quite disgusting. Reselling a used game at 90%+ of the price, especially games where passes or extra content has been used, is a shitty thing to do, no matter how profitable.

Kudos to the publishers finally finding a way to slow game resellers cash cow to a grinding halt. Let's just hope they don't let the win go to their heads and try to shut down used sales completely. That wouldn't be good for any of us.