...This is essentially what Capcom is saying with one of its latest releases for the new Nintendo 3DS, Resident Evil Mercenaries. In these tough economic times, coupled with games seemingly getting shorter in an effort to put more emphasis on horsepower, naturally the consumer is shifting more towards the used game market.
Several developers have gone on record in speaking out against the used game industry, much like the music industry who shuns its customers for buying used music or file sharing. But Capcom has taken this bitterness to a whole new level..
Now tell me, what is wrong with this picture? In a desperate effort to shore up this growing trend of used game sales and get people to buy your game new, you implement a feature that only allows for one save file. But that’s not all… You cannot delete this one save, so if God forbid you wished to actually play the game over from the beginning (what a terrible thing!), you are shit out of luck my friend. So you are essentially BUYING a one play only rental.
This is precisely what Capcom did with Resident Evil Mercenaries on the 3DS. Now, maybe I’m missing something here, but instead of angering your customers by cheaply rendering used copies of this game useless, why not create more incentive for the people to buy new?? For example, oh I don’t know… MAKING THE GAME BETTER? Perhaps make it longer than 5 hours, add unlockables, online multiplayer, replayability. Make the consumer not WANT to sell it back, rather than forcing their hand in the matter. You do this by adding replayabiliy. If your game has little or no replayability, they will be left with useless cartridge or disk, and chances are they will sell it back. Capcom certainly got this right with Resident Evil 4, with its plethora of unlockable weapons, new levels, and extra game modes like the insanely addictive mercenaries mode.
Here’s some advice, Capcom, if so many people are selling your game back that you resort to desperate measures like this in a last-ditch attempt to prevent this, you might want to take a look in the mirror and ask what is it about our games that is causing so many to play through it only once, and then send it on its way to the next gamer? No, instead, create a very short game, in which you can ONLY play through it once.. Smart move, Capcom. Now, even you never had intention of selling the game back, you are stuck with a game that you basically can do nothing more with after you’ve spent your whopping 5 hours beating the game.
I smiled joyfully when I saw this game’s user reviews on amazon, which currently has the vast majority of its reviews at 1 star out of 5:
http://www.amazon.com/Resident-Evil-Mercenaries-Nintendo-3DS/dp/B002I0GKA4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311440786&sr=8-1
Now anyone looking at a new game to buy for 3DS will see this, and immediately run for the hills, at least one can hope. Most will look at these reviews and won’t touch the game with a ten foot pole, and rightfully so. Seriously, this just boggles my mind. Capcom couldn’t have POSSIBLY believed that this would be a good business decision. Did they really think gamers would be stupid enough to bend over and get screwed with this overpriced junk? Did they not see the inevitable backlash coming? “Well, at least gamers can’t buy our game used! HA!” Yeah, and now they won’t buy your game AT ALL! Brilliant!
I will at least give them this, Capcom has gone on record saying they will not implement this one save feature again, probably just damage control after seeing all the negative press about the game and sick of sifting through angry letters. But of course, they couldn’t man up completely and admit the true motives behind this feature, claiming that:
“There was no intention of lessening the experience of the game. Essentially, RE: Mercs was treated like an arcade fighting game. You unlock characters, levels, etc., and they just stay unlocked as they would in an arcade machine. There was no hidden motive to prevent buying used copies. It’s not some secret form of DRM. It’s simply the way we designed the save system to work with the arcade type of gameplay.”
Oh I get it, so you wanted to make an authentic arcade experience! Just like the arcade machines, it’s as if we don’t even own our game, and have no control over it! How nice of you, Capcom!
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