Neowin.net - EA on Battlefield Weapon Pricing

EA on Battlefield Weapon Pricing

Posted by acxz via Xboxic on 26 March 2008 - 10:31 · 10 comments & 5259 views

The not-so-public beta for DICE’s latest first-person shooter Battlefield: Bad Company is up and running and as some of you may have noticed by now, the game is to feature a selection of weapons that can only be unlocked by coughing up the precious Microsoft Points via the Marketplace. Following a public hollering on the internets, Electronic Arts spokesperson has offered a clarification.

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

“Battlefield: Bad Company will release five unique weapons free of charge through five different promotional programs prior to launch. EA will again make these weapons available to players free of charge after launch, in case anyone missed the pre-launch promotions.

At launch, EA will release a Gold Edition of Battlefield: Bad Company which will feature an additional five new weapons. For players who do not purchase the Gold Edition of the game, they can still buy the five weapons at a small individualized price per item. All weapons are balanced for gameplay. More weapons offer players more choices but do not create an advantage/disadvantage for players who do not opt to buy new items.”

It’s certainly not the first time something like this has happened, as EA pulled the exact same stunt with Need for Speed: Carbon back in Fall 2006. Is it wrong of them to do this? That’s up to you to decide.

Screenshot: BF: Bad Company Weapon Screen

Hide additional information

About the Author
Full name: Unknown
Forum name: acxz
Contact: via forum PM
Submissions: Normal · Headline

Total votes: 1

Bookmark on del.icio.us

Advertisement

#1 Posted by kazuyette on 26 Mar 2008 - 12:59: meh ! Another game I won't be buyin' .

#2 Posted by +Lexcyn on 26 Mar 2008 - 13:00: Pretty soon you will just buy a game that has one map and one weapon. Everything else will have to be 'purchased'.

#3 Posted by +Dakkaroth on 26 Mar 2008 - 14:38: Good thing I don't care for Battlefield that much then.

#4 Posted by +GreyWolfSC on 26 Mar 2008 - 17:35: If they didn't charge for the game it wouldn't be a big deal to me.

(1 reply) #5 Posted by InsaneNutter on 27 Mar 2008 - 08:08: The sad thing is loads of The sad thing is loads of people will buy these "weapons" just like people buy gamer pictures and themes.

More weapons offer players more choices but do not create an advantage/disadvantage for players who do not opt to buy new items

So you can pay for a weapon to kill someone or you can use a free one that's just as good as the one you pay for... at the end of the day the other player will still be dead so what's the point? I must be missing something.

#6 Posted by Oxuyoska on 28 Mar 2008 - 12:55: How is this any different from Forza or Project Gotham Racing 4 charging for new cars?

#7 Posted by Hell-In-A-Handbasket on 31 Mar 2008 - 21:29: they did/still do this with NFS

i bought some cars on NFS Carbon, balanced isnt true, as anybody that plays it knows the Porsche tromps anything else in the game, but i bought the cars that are not able to be unlocked via beating the game ( like the porsche )

Also Forza does this like Oxuyoska said.

Purchasing ingame items/addons has been done, acceptable for a while

#8 Posted by eck0 on 03 Apr 2008 - 01:36: sounds like the bloody sims with expension pack addons. **** off EA with this useless idea.

#9 Posted by randomnut on 06 Apr 2008 - 14:04: Meh, i'm not going to be buying this game then. I don't mind DLC like the Mass Effect dlc, more levels developed later to keep you going with etc, but holding out on content like weapons and make you pay for them in addition to the game? Utter crap, shows a complete lack of respect for the consumer.

[1]

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Scroll to the Top