fascinating new stunt for dlc implementation: project ten dollar

Downloading the Future | Editorial: "Downloadable content is, beyond a doubt, the burning issue of the year so far. On every major gaming news site, a story about DLC is bound to attract hundreds of comments, many of them brimming with outrage from consumers with strongly held views. Within the industry, conversations are (usually) more civil, but the question of what it's appropriate to release as DLC and how to integrate it into a business model is hotly debated.

This week, another log has been thrown on the fire, with EA boss John Riccitiello telling BusinessWeek that the company's inclusion of premium DLC codes in new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins were no coincidences. This is the vanguard of something EA calls 'Project Ten Dollar', it seems - an attempt both to limit the appeal of the second hand market, and to claw back some revenue from those consumers who continue to buy used games."

I've been expecting this for the past two or three years. The idea of tying a game to a downloaded patch which will allow you to finish it may seem reprehensible, but the used market is such a shut-out of the publishers and developers that this isn't particularly surprising.