Obsidian CEO Thinks Online Pass Is A 'Gimmick'

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If you’ve stopped by this blog in… oh, say anytime in the past two weeks, you probably know that I have something of a violent hatred for online pass. You know, the kind of hatred Glenn Beck has for things like logic. Or, perhaps a better analogy for our European readers, the kind of hatred The Daily Mail has for journalistic integrity.

Essentially, I really don’t like online pass. I think publishers should absolutely reward those who buy their games new, but not at the expense of those who buy used – especially because the used market helps drive the new market in a big way. I don’t get what, precisely, publishers don’t understand about this, but I’m done trying to figure out why they’re approaching this as if they were all nine years old.

Anyway, it looks like not all publishers and developers are complete idiots when it comes to online pass. In an interview with GameSpot, Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart explained that he thinks there are better ways to get people to buy new and keep their games, without resorting to using “gimmicks,” like online pass. How does he suggest publishers do this? By making games that players will want to come back to again and again:

I think you have to go in and forget those gimmicks, and say, ‘How do I make them want to keep the game on the shelf?’ I think each genre has a way to do it. Battlefield and Call of Duty have it in multiplayer with maps, rankings, leveling up, and unlocks. There are different things, but the idea is making people feel, ‘I want to keep on playing it.’

If I play Fallout: New Vegas for 50 hours, but there are all these other quests, and there’s this whole other area I didn’t go to, and online there are people talking about all these things that you could have done all these different ways, I’ll feel like ‘Wow, I could play this game again,’ because there is all this stuff I didn’t get.

Urquhart said that by making a game that has a ton of replay value, or by offering DLC that’s worth the asking price, players will feel like there are still stones left unturned in their game, and are less likely to take it to GameStop and trade it in for a new game.

Sounds like a great idea to me! I know that a lot of gamers take pride in their game collections, and if you give them a game they’re proud to display on their shelf, they’re a lot less likely to trade it in. The fact of the matter is that, while some games are worth $60, most aren’t. The ones that aren’t are the ones that get traded in and later bought used. You want to prevent me from trading in your game? Then make it worth every single dollar I spend on it. It’s as simple as that.