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EA Selling Tutorials Via Xbox Live
So, not only is EA selling in-game money for the Godfather via Xbox Live, but now they're actually trying to wring money from consumers so they can know how to play the games they bought. Joystiq has some commentary on EA's newest practice: charging for tutorials. From the article: "We decided to try one of the videos out, purchasing a Passing strategy guide for Madden NFL 07. The 246.34 MB downloaded provided little that would help our game. The video depicts a series of in-game passes with the occasional overhead view; once or twice arrows and yellow circles were used to highlight a player but it did not complement the announcer. To understand the voice-over commentary, it is assumed that you have a good grasp on formation and position terminology. If 'using the safety to cover the back' goes over your head, this video is not for you -- then again, if you are well-versed in football slang, you will likely learn nothing new anyways." I know Microsoft has kept a hands-off policy on this so far, but this stuff has to stop before companies like EA and Q! drag their product through the mud.
Wow, welcome to about a month ago. EA has done like 10 more attrocious things since then even. I can understand it is hard to keep up, since they are constantly innovating new and improved ways to stick it to the gaming community.
Why? I'd like nothing better then to see the money hungry EA go up in flames. I stopped buying their games because
- They release limited feature games, then SELL you an expansion later that the game was supposed to be from the start (C&C Generals, BF2, etc)
- Almost all of the games I have from them contain critical gameplay bugs that keep you from completing the game. Tech support ignores you and tells you to reinstall and try again. (Look for Attack Troll in BFM2)(
- On-line games such as BF2 have server issues that again, their tech support deny and blame on other things. Tell you to re-install a patch. But if you wait a few days and do nothing they start working with no comments from EA (search for BF2 Auth server was down for days)
- Lastly their new money hungry angle to add spyware to games to make even more money off of consumers. (BF2142)
I vote with my money, and they will not be getting any of it. Let them burn. Maybe after the dust settles they might get a clue what they've done to their customers.they will try to get GameFaqs and others shut down to "protect their IP" or some other stupid shit.
The next version of Doom IDKFA won't give you keys and ammo, it will open up the menu where you can pay 5$ to have keys and ammo (on a per level per session basis of course).
This is what companies do when they're given access to brand new markets or distribution options - they're going to throw a bunch of new ideas/concepts at us and they'll see what we'll buy.
This shouldn't be very shocking to anyone. For the first time, these developers can reach the console audience sans middle-man, which means that they can develop and offer products that distribution costs alone once prohibited. It never would have been worth developing bite-size tutorials that would ship on CDs to retail outlets and then to the consumer - retail markup, distribution costs, and physical materials would have been far too prohibitive. Now they can create material and just upload it.
The problem now is sorting out what gamers are willing to pay for, and at what price. If they don't try a whole bunch of new ideas and offer diverse products, then we'll never see anything REALLY cool come out of this. And of course many ideas will flop - this one looks like a prime candidate - but we've still got to cut these guys some slack as they determine what's realistic to sell online.
-TheBaron2