So Batman: Arkham City has been out for a short while now, and if any of you reading this are Gamefly customers, or rented the game from Blockbuster or Redbox, or got the game by any means other than purchasing a brand new copy, you may notice these Red Riddler trophies. You may also be wondering why, when you try to pick up these trophies, you get zapped.
Well, as it turns out, Rocksteady included these in the game in order to introduce a new element in Arkham City. These red riddler trophies can only be picked up while playing as Catwoman, and if you did not purchase a brand new copy of the game you are unable to play as Catwoman. Keep in mind that this is NOT additional content that can be downloaded to add to the game’s already amazing content. No my fellow gamers, this content already exists on the disc, and the developers actually expect us to pay either 800 MS points or $10 for a “VIP Pass” in order to gain access to this pre-existing content.
Now I do understand the argument that this was a business decision to help combat the loss of revenue from used game sales. That makes sense because we should all be supporting the developers over the retailers, and not the other way around. When a retailer sells a used copy of a game, the developer sees no return from these sales. In an interview with DualShockers Dax Ginn, Marketing Game Manager at Rocksteady Studios, even stated that content such as the VIP Pass is “critical to the entire industry.” The VIP Pass is mentioned at 2:42 of the following video interview, in case you don’t want to listen to the entire interview.
http://youtu.be/CiULOnoDuCQ
Now, at the time I was in complete agreement with the fact that the used video game market is indeed hurting the industry. Developers should see a some sort of profit when these brick and mortar retail stores sell used games, especially when used copies of Batman: Arkham City are selling for $54.99 but if you trade in a copy of this game you only get $26 in-store credit. I was all for this VIP Pass, that is, until I saw this internal document that was supposedly distributed to Gamestop stores.
What the crap!?!? I mean, how hypocritical can you be? To announce a “VIP Pass” to help combat used game sales, only to turn around and allow Gamestop to provide Catwoman codes to anyone who buys a used copy simply adds insult to injury. This kind of consumer treatment is simply unacceptable. It’s one thing to block lock away 10% of a video game’s content to push an agenda that is “critical to the entire industry”, but to turn around and encourage the exact behavior that this agenda is supposed to be fighting against is telling us that the industry can be bought provided the retailer can flash the right kind of dough.
On the other hand, perhaps GameStop took it upon themselves, bought a certain amount of codes, and gave them to specific stores to run this promotion for a limited time. When I reached out to all the local GameStops here in Central Florida, no one seemed to know anything about Catwoman codes being available for used copies. Unfortunately, until Rocksteady themselves respond to these outrageous reports, we will never know the truth behind why GameStop even had these Catwoman codes, if it was an agreement between Rocksteady and Gamestop, or if Gamestop acted on their own.
This isn’t the first time this happened. For a little while they did the same with Mortal Kombat.
catwoman wasn’t on the ps3 disc. you had to download it after putting in the code. also it ads nothing and is pointless. really not worth any money.
Well you could argue that every game has a few pointless levels. Have fun playing 3 hour games in the future.
A couple points of clarification here. First, as it’s been said, the Catwoman content either wasn’t on the retail disc, or PSN servers are uploading over 200MB of gibberish data on PS3s when the extra content is being installed.
Common sense would suggest the content is not on the disc but on the PSN servers as data unlock keys are almost always less than 1MB, certainly nowhere near 200MB.
Second, common sense also dictates that the codes GameStop is printing on receipts for used copies of Arkham City were purchased directly from WB Games in one of the rare instances in which GameStop gives any funds to publishers (and by extension, the game developers themselves) for the sale of used copies of software.
It’s highly unlikely that GameStop has some sort of magic voucher key generator to sell to their customers to allow them to download the extra content.
Lastly, when you buy a used copy of Arkham City from GameStop, Ebay, or wherever, you’re not a customer of either the publisher (WB Games) or the developer (Rocksteady), so any sort of outrage over consumer rights should be directed at the party that sold the consumer the used item if there’s anything missing. WB Games and Rocksteady probably don’t care, and frankly, shouldn’t. Anyone who picked up a used copy whether they got it for free or paid $54.99 has the option to buy the extra content or not, which incidentally, isn’t anywhere near “10% of a game’s content” in the case of Arkham City.
Suck it up & buy it new! Unless of course you don’t want Rocksteady making any new games.