What’s Your Opinion: Electronic Arts and Bioware Raising the Stakes on Used Games

About a month or two ago, I decided to start catching up on all my gaming. Being out of it for a while, I had not been paying attention to some of the great storylines and games I had been missing out on. I had an old copy of Mass Effect collecting dust, decided to give it a whirl. It took me about a month to beat it, but I was hooked on the epic of Commander Shepard. The game was incredible, and the downloadable content was reasonably priced and a lot of fun.

I waltzed into my local GameStop and asked for the newly released Mass Effect 2. As per the usual long list of questions that every GameStop consultant must ask you (seriously, you can’t even cut them off—say “no” before they’re done, and they talk right over you until they’re done asking you to reserve a game), I was asked if I wanted to save five bucks on a used copy of the game. Throw in my discount membership, and that’s another five bucks off the used copy. A sixty dollar game for fifty bucks? Duh!

I returned home, viciously removed all of the packaging, and popped the game into the system.

Hmm. Says there’s a code in the packaging to unlock the downloadable content.

However, upon reviewing the packaging, there was no such code to be found. Did the previous owner not leave it in the case? Then, I came to a mind-shattering, earth-moving, playing-field-changing conclusion.

Whoever had this game before me used the code already!

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