News EA drops weapon charges for Bad Company

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/04..._bad_company/1

In response to community pressure, EA has abandoned the idea of charging players for premium weapons in Bad Company.

[DougEdey]

I'm going to take Kotakus line on this, it's a temporary plan, they'll recoup the money via advertising and/or premium DLC when this furore has died down.

[CardJoe]

True, but they are a company and I don't see anything wrong with that. DLC itself isn't inherently bad and it is something EVERYONE does. EA is always singled out as the worst offender but, as far as I can see if they are providing a basic functionality and level playing ground to start with then they are perfectly reasonable to open up more later at a price.

More maps, more weapons, more classes at a reasonable price is fine and something which everyone does. Nobody bitched at BioWare when they added new quests to Mass Effect or Activision for adding song packs to GH3.

It seems to me that EA is never able to do anything right and, despite the fact they do have a number of unique and good games now, people still see them as the big bully. Big isn't always bad though IMO.

[Ninja_182]

Isnt that just going from a "give us more money or we will put you at a disadvantage" to "give us more money or we will put you at a disadvantage but you can work your way out of it"

I dont believe in Gold/Special edition games that only include extra content, it costs the developer nothing to put the content in once they have it, the only ones I have ever bought are ones that include expansion packs (which do take some effort to program), the Xbox metal case ones because I do like the metal cases (they cost more to make too) and ones with extra physical bits in the box, like Halo 3's little black book thing. Other than those I feel its just publishers scrounging more money from people who want the complete game.

I agree with allowing weapons for people who achieve a rank, its like a status symbol and is great in Vegas but I think its a little unfair to charge extra for players to start with them.

[Ninja_182]

Just a quick reply to Joe's 2nd point. I see where you are coming from with the extra quests in Mass Effect and song packs in GH3 but a quest in Mass Effect takes a reasonable amount of work to make one and the GH packs have to deal with song licensing, a gun model is well... an image wrapped round a model. Its nothing near as complex as the other two and barely deserves charging for. It wont extend playability of the game or provide anything new, its just a model that looks different to the others in the game but it works on the same mechanics.

[LeMaltor]

Yeah time was when you would get stuff for free, maps, guns, game fixes etc

[CardJoe]

Originally Posted by Ninja_182

Just a quick reply to Joe's 2nd point. I see where you are coming from with the extra quests in Mass Effect and song packs in GH3 but a quest in Mass Effect takes a reasonable amount of work to make one and the GH packs have to deal with song licensing, a gun model is well... an image wrapped round a model. Its nothing near as complex as the other two and barely deserves charging for. It wont extend playability of the game or provide anything new, its just a model that looks different to the others in the game but it works on the same mechanics.

Thats an incredibly simplistic way to look at it. For a multiplayer shooter making a new gun is a huge undertaking as you need to design the model, set the damages etc and then test the crap out of it. Balancing takes a hell of a long time and your POV is essentially simplfying it to the level of "Well, to make a map you just need to put some trees in a room and stuff".

I realise it may be hard to understand, but take a look at Valve for proof. The next Team Fortress 2 update will only be adding in new achievements and a new weapon for the medic - yet they've been working on balancing that since before new year and have gone through three seperate ideas for the weapon itself.

As for free content, well that's why the PC is better - because of the mod scene. A console is a closed and proprietary system and thats why they do things like this and how they get away with it - they know that nobody else can do it, so they can charge for their services. It's that model which governs how practically all business works.

[UncertainGod]

Wait a second, EA listened to people.......

....I think I need to lie down.

[shigllgetcha]

i dnt see making a gun being a huge undertaking. Make a 3d image and imput the relevant statistics into the engine.
DLC is a gud thing if it adds something to the game, but these guns had no advantage over the standard guns

[[USRF]Obiwan]

Originally Posted by UncertainGod

Wait a second, EA listened to people.......

....I think I need to lie down.

I was thinking the exact same thing. It wont surprise me at all if EA have their hands in illegal weapon deals IRL also!

[p3n]

Yes sure i'll buy the game only for you to bring out overpowered DLC later, oh and shove your overpriced instrument kit - EA!

[Jordan Wise]

10 points to the community for achieving this! And EA aint all that bad, i'll always thank them for crysis as being a big business they probably wanted a game that was playable on more modest computers so they could sell more but they let crytek carry on playing god and so they created the slowest running, but most visually stunning game yet

[Drexial]

They Still haven't listened to us wanting it on the PC yet....

[Ninja_182]

Touché Joe, I was looking at it from the point of view of someone who had only modeled in CAD and 3DS Max, never tried to put it in a game. Consequently missed all the balancing of weapons etc. Its still not as major a task as map building.

I see it from the same point as shigllgetcha, it doesn't really add anything to the game, its just more of what's already there, I find it especially stingy that they are offering a version with the extra models when they could just include them anyway. If they are usable by gold edition players against non gold edition players, surely all the models and stats are in both games so the non gold players can see the gold players guns, just disabled so the players cant use them. Reminds me of another company who had hardware capable of something but chose to disable it for a number of users unless they upgraded their hardware. That got a fair bit of hate on these forums.

[SeBbY_007]

I can't believe nobody has responded questioning if this whole saga was an elaborate marketing ploy. If Bit's reporting is accurate, because I haven't personally been on the EA Forums, then it seems strange the community have got their own way. Did anybody actually like the idea of Booster Packs for Battlefield 2?

I'm not one for 'conspiracy theories', but it all just seems too good to be true based on the handling of patches for Battlefield 2.

[LeMaltor]

Originally Posted by CardJoe

I realise it may be hard to understand, but take a look at Valve for proof. The next Team Fortress 2 update will only be adding in new achievements and a new weapon for the medic - yet they've been working on balancing that since before new year and have gone through three seperate ideas for the weapon itself.

Why does the medic need another weapon, after 8 years of making it it wasn't perfect already?

[Nix]

Uhhhh, has anyone noticed that it says:

"People that don't buy the Gold Edition can get the five additional weapons by getting to the final rank in the game."

Anyone that has played BF2 and BF2142 will realise that you will have to play for years to get to the final rank, or have they changed the ranking system?