It all depends on how you look at the Pre Owned Industry. Here in the UK the 2 big shops Game and Gamestation both do trade ins and new games. But they offer you good intensives to buy new games over pre owned games. For example when I bought Crysis 2 they had a offer of trade in 2 game and get an extra £5 off Crysis 2 so I got £15 off the game and I walked out wit the new game. So that was a + for the company's and a +1 sale too.

But then you have people who see a game for under £20 that they have heard is good but were abit unsure about it lets say for example UC. So they pick this game up and really enjoy it so they will pre Order UC2 and the other ones after it as most people cant afford £40 a game every week or so and most people buy a pre owned game months after the game has been out so I don't see how this will affect prophets too much as 99% of games that come out have high sales in the first 4 weeks at the most then the sales drop off.

The argument against Online Passes:
- Does not benefit the consumer in any way
- Buying pre-owned can creates a fan of a series, so they may buy a sequel full price. They may also create word of mouth advertising, telling their friends about a great game they played, and they in turn may buy the game new, budget or pre-owned (and the cycle continues)
- A pre-owned sale DOES NOT equal a lost full price or budget sale. Publishers don't seem to get this!
- Publishers are only doing this because they can (the car industry for example, could never get away with something similar)
- The problem exists between the retailers and the publishers, not the consumer and the publisher. If the publishers want a piece of the pie trade-in market pie they should negotiate with the retailers
- Stops game sharing with friends and family

The argument for Online Passes:
- Game development is high. Any extra revenue a publisher can make can be reinvested (we've seen a lot of developers go under this/last year)
- Why should bricks and mortar stores profit from a publishers/developers hard work (profit margins are highest on trade-ins)
- Maintaining the servers (where used) and other online services for games costs the publisher/developer an ongoing cost. The online pass could be seen as payment for a 'service'. (Would you prefer the EA option of closing servers every 2-3 years if an online pass could guarantee 5years uptime and give more services)
- If a publisher said to gamers 'What would you prefer... 7 games a year, and 3 of them will be new IP if we use Online pass; or 5 games a year and only sequels to successful IP if we don't use online pass?' I know my answer!
- For many gamers this won't be a problem. They buy full price or budget anyway.
- If a gamer waits a few months they can often get the game new or budget for a very low price
- In some cases trade-in prices, especially on AAA games, are not substantially lower than new/budget (in the UK anyway - I've even seen offers where the new game was cheaper than the trade-in!!)

I'm sure there's lots more arguments, but these are the main ones. Online Pass is here to stay. If people don't like it, then vote with your wallets and send the publishers a message. Anyone here going to boycott Uncharted 3 because of the Sony Online Pass? No? Thought as much!

Ultimately the Online Pass issue is only a problem for physical media sales. As soon as the various publishers/manufacturers go 100% digital download (probably two generations of console away) - this won't be an issue, because we will all be restricted by far harsher DRM!!

of course publishers are going to go with it. Why? let me think............"MONEY&q uot;.

sony #1 - how can we get more consumers money without losing any that we get now.
sony #2 - how about PSN Pass for online gameplay

3 days later.....

Publisher - we love you sony. hell yeah, now we don't have worry about used games anymore. we can keep putting out shitty games w online and not worrying about losing profit. want to get together on friday and discuss what else we can do to FUCK THE CONSUMER.