Pes 2013 online pass

frugal_mike

Have Konami pulled the pes 2013 online pass from sale? My friend bought a copy cheap hoping to get lucky and have a useable code in the box, but expecting to be able to buy one if he was unlucky. The marketplace page it takes you to from the in-game prompt is completely blank though.

Strangely I couldn't see anyone else talking about this online, only a multitude of dodgy looking sites offering information on how to get online for free.

It seems a strange business model by konami: annoy a potential customer and stop them wanting to buy the game brand new since it is completely devalued almost as soon as you buy it.

bluenoseam

It's not actually all that bad business sense from Konami, the product has been replaced with a new product so the crazy business idea would be to keep supporting old products. The sales figures for PES 2013 would be such that retaining the ability to purchase the online pass wouldn't be worthwhile given the lack of people playing it online.

From my perspective I hated the companies who insisted in using this online pass system anyway, it was them getting greedy & demanding a slice of the pre-owned action. Fortunately a number of companies have stopped this practice these days, but it's something that from a consumer standpoint was annoying. I get that pre-owned cuts them out of the process, but to react this way was blatant profiteering - especially in the case of substandard product (as PES 2013 was in my opinion).

For the sake of the future, EA like I said cut out the online pass element (they replaced it with another cash cow in FIFA points) so any pre-owned FIFA from 14 onwards should be good for purchase preowned.

frugal_mike

Well the 2013 servers are still running and my friend was willing to pay for the pass but is now so annoyed with konami that he's contemplating buying FIFA instead despite disliking the game. That's money they could have had now going elsewhere. He only really plays online against me so the lack of other players wouldn't be a problem.

I certainly agree that the online pass is annoying (although I understand why they do it). What annoys me more is that there is no way to play pes games online between friends peer-to-peer. They switch the servers off after 2 years forcing you to buy the replacement, which often isn't as good as the one you were playing.