Many games are starting to take after a movement that the Electronic Arts started recently in it’s Project $10. Project $10 is EA’s way of passing on the cost of pre-owned sales to the company back to the gamers that decide to purchase a game second hand. Games needing activation codes to receive full access to the title. THQ most recently adapted this business practice in it’s release of UFC Undisputed 2010, making gamers purchase a code for the multiplayer component of the game if buying it pre-owned.
Treyarch, the developer in control of the Call of Duty: Black Ops title which is scheduled to be released in the Fall, recently commented on the pre-owned problems but reassured gamers that there would be no codes for the upcoming title.
We don’t plan to do anything like that for Black Ops, but it is interesting to see how that’s going to work out for EA and THQ,” says Olin. “It’s no secret that pre-owned game sales do pose problems for developers and publishers, so it’ll be interesting how well that works to mitigate that issue
They didn’t rule out something similar, so who knows what the future holds for second buyers of the game. With six months to go before launch anything can happen.
