More and more new games these days seem to come with scratch cards inside the box enabling users to download content from the first day of release. Gears of War 2, Dragon Age and Forza 3 all come in this category so it’s not like we’re talking about small fry here. It’s the triple A titles as much as any other that are making use of downloadable content on the first day or release.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a response by games companies to the estimated £100 million trade in second hand games in the UK alone. The problem that I have with this is that once I’ve parted with my cash all of the content I’ve paid for should be available to me to sell on if I so desire. In the case of games that rely on extra DLC that’s not the case. This content really should be on the disc so that I can do with it as I please.

The size of some of these pieces of DLC is what annoys me as much as anything. The stone prisoner quest which came as a scratch card with Dragon Age was less than half an hour of gameplay, yet rewarded the player with one of the most interesting characters for the rest of the game. To download this for people buying the game second hand will cost 1,200 Mocrosoft points. That is absolutely disgusting. It’s basically a tax on people buying the game second hand who actually want the full experience, and that I find hard to stomach.

In the long run surely this must lead to a reduction in the trade in price we all receive when selling our old games. People won’t be prepared to pay as much for second hand games when they know that in order to enjoy them to they full they will have to fork out extra cash as soon as the game is in the tray. That will mean that the shops we trade games in at just won’t be pay us as much for them any more.

I also have to ask, where will this all end? If it’s ok to force people to download content on their first day with a new game then what’s to stop companies leaving the majority of their game as DLC? That really would be a serious nail in the coffin of the second hand trade.