If you keep up at all with the video game industry, you’ll have heard something about EA’s “Project Ten Dollar” (ironically named, since it actually costs $15). I was curious and had to do some reading up and was immediately put off by the vague description of the project as a way to get more money from used sales.

Project Ten Dollar works something like this: When someone buy a new game, they also get a code that gives them access to more content for free. If you don’t have this code, you have to pay $15 to get the same content. This is ridiculous. Last week, I bought an entire game for less than what EA plans on charging for part of one.

Kotaku reader doubtful puts it best:

I can’t wait for car companies to try this business model.

Buy it new, and you can use the radio and the air conditioner. But if you sell it to someone, they’ll have to spend extra to unlock those features.

It blows my mind because in no other industry would you have a legion of zombies actually supporting dick moves like this.

The advantage of buying used is obvious; it’s cheaper. Sure, you have to wait a while, but for games with no online multiplayer, that’s no big deal. I simply can’t spare the $60 for a new game, and there’s nothing to stop this price from rising. What’s an awesome way to get a few extra bucks toward a newer game? Sell your old ones, of course. I generally avoid selling to GameStop because they only offer something like $0.0352 per game, but the local game store in Boulder is very reasonably priced. Unless I win the lotto soon or my long-lost crazy aunt Harriet dies, I’m probably going to stick to used games for a while, and I sure won’t be paying more for extra content.