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EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry
An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."
Showing it's true colors, once again.
Getting "hooked" into a free game by EA is just asking for it. Without lube.
Well I guess that the 'stated objectives of the game' have changed then.
Reminds me a bit of 'Ultimate Team' in FIFA09 (and soon FIFA10) where you can earn points to pay the wages of a top team, but realistically you'd have to buy the card packs in order to fund having a top team, making a two tier system where you can only compete by spending real money.
It sucks, but it is the way it is.
I've stopped playing the Battlefield titles after BF2 came out and was such a flop. I mean, Desert Combat was such an awesome mod, but lost in translation when Dice sold out to EA.
Then they came out with that pitiful title Battlefield: 2142, which included ad-ware, and all the commercials in the world wouldn't even get me to install a cracked copy.
Now this?
As far as I'm concerned, BF died after Desert Combat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGmcVUheFa0
1:09
Pardon my good sense, but isn't the only real response to this for anyone who isn't satisfied to just stop paying them anything at all and go play something else?
As with any situation where a dev doesn't give the players what they want, the only way to send a message is to stop paying for a sub-par product and go support something that you enjoy.
Pardon my good sense, but isn't the only real response to this for anyone who isn't satisfied to just stop paying them anything at all and go play something else?
As with any situation where a dev doesn't give the players what they want, the only way to send a message is to stop paying for a sub-par product and go support something that you enjoy.
Exactly. If enough gamers reuse to buy their stuff; they will either change their model or go out of business. As a side note, I wonder what their reaction would be if players in game asked others not to spend real money and to spread the word to do the same? Their own game could be the used to spread a viral protest against the game.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You don't have to play. Ok its fun but if its not worth paying to continue that fun move on to something else. Its not like it does anything new or better than the many many other games out there. This is the one time a boycott of a game would actually make a difference, they don't have your money yet so stop playing and a more amenable pricing policy may be worked out if it isnt there are many other choices out there.
Since EA/DICE are the only makers of FPS, we have to buy this game...
'scuse me, I'll be in Team Fortress 2 if you need me. There I get weapon upgrades for free and they're more fluff and fun than necessary to be competing. Sorry, but paying to be playing competitively is something I'd expect in a F2P game with an ingame store, but not in a game that I buy at full price. No sale.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You have to admit that he's right about needing to pay wages and such...but they should have been honest from the start. "Bait and switch" comes to mind here.
I don't play this particular game and I'm very selective about what I do play for reasons such as this. I was leery about my Steam account before all the crap with Modern Warfare 2 and was annoyed that I had to register for Steam when I bought my copy of Portal off a retail shelf a while back. I had to go online, but was able to tweak the settings so that I didn't have to be logged in to play it.
The simple fact is this: online play is big time now, and game developers will need to make money off of it to stay in business.
Again, though...they need to be honest from the start and not change things suddenly.
-JJS
The problem is that some of us have already paid them money before this change. Of course I will go and play somewhere else and not ever buy anything else from EA. I feel scammed.
Exactly. If enough gamers reuse to buy their stuff; they will either change their model or go out of business.
Dont you mean kill off a once profitable and good game developer that they took over?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
It doesn't work in Hong Kong
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Oh well =(
I really enjoyed playing BF Heroes - it's light, I never felt that other players had unfair advantages, the promise of no grind, easy to pick up and get going game with fun graphics and I was happy. There was a single problem that use to keep me from giving them some paypal love - the game would disconnect me for no reason after 5 minutes or so of no-lag play.
I was patiently waiting for this to be fixed or for servers to pop up here in Brazil but alas - the fun of BF Heroes is gone.
Paying now means serious advantages to gameplay so no more for me, I don't have hours a day to play nor do I think that I should constantly pay for a game so I'll stick to CS:Source or my other free-to-play games and give money to indie game companies.
EA screwed up BF Heroes, what was fun now became unbalanced - all the best to the players that stick around but I'm having none of it.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Dont you mean kill off a once profitable and good game developer that they took over?
Why does that matter to a paying customer? The only criteria is whether or not something is worth the money you paid for it, who gives a stuff if the developer goes out of business?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
They don't solely make money from battlefunds, they also have ingame advertising, everytime the map switches you get a advert now, which is fine, I'd happily play a free game in return for being shown adverts, but to get adverts, and also be at a disadvantage compared to players who bought battlefunds for better weapons leaves a rather bitter taste.
I used to be a avid BFH player, but to be honest, while fun, the game is too simplistic (compared to other online team based FPS games) to be worth paying for, and as such I won't be logging in anymore.
So people have to buy stuff from you to get free content?
Run that by me again?
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
And this is why you should not waste time with "free to play" games - there is no such thing as a free lunch and once the publisher/developer finds out that their pipe dreams about microtransaction income are not happening (especially today, very limited disposable income), they will simply say "We are altering the deal, pray we don't alter it any further". The obvious way to squeeze more is to ensure that anyone serious about playing have to spend money on microtransactions, turning the whole affair into a contest of "who has most disposable income and least amount of sense?"
Microtransaction-based games are always going to be "won" by people who have most disposable income and the "total cost" of buying all the benefits and advantages is usually completely ridiculous compared to games that have just one pricetag. Only real answer is not to play them.
By earning more money of some players they will be able to release "free" content?
Battlefield was a really nice game ... but with Version 2 they have screwed up. DICE released unfinished addons for half the price of a new game (1-2 new maps, 1-2 new weapons). The addon's were bug ridden (more than the original game) and patches came in slowly.
This in combination with the usually EA stunts lead me to abandon Battlefield entirely (altough I like the game when it works).
In theory, yes. In practice, a lot of gamers aren't stubborn enough.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
I have yet to fling any coins at blizzard for WoW for this reason -- I refuse to pay
a recurring monthly fee for a full-price game I've *bought*.
But they seem to be doing okay in spite of it.
Oh, but you forgot the addiction and competitive behavior.
I've seen this countless times. Duels, OGame, Popmundo, etc., etc. Producer implements pay-for-advantage stuff, players get angry, they yell, grumble, gnash their teeth then silently go ahead and buy the stuff. It's the addiction and the fear of losing the edge that drives them to buy and buy, just like a herd.
In Ogame, hardcore players organized special alliances to hunt and destroy those who pay for advantages in game. This lasted for a couple months, then most of those angered players started buying stuff themselves. And now it's all peace and quiet.
IMO, best payment approach was done in EVE Online. They implemented a method for players to buy a special item called PLEX (30 days Pilot License Extension) and they are able to sell it for ingame currency. Nothing else. This doesn't give a large ingame advantage to players who buy PLEX for real money, because it doesn't make you advance faster. It only gives you more ingame currency, so you afford to buy a ship fast if yours is destroyed. Apart from that, you still need skills to pilot it properly, and those can not be trained faster.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
If I heard correctly, matchmaking ensures you only play against people of your own skill level. So if you don't pay for weapon upgrades, you'll either play against others who don't or people who do, but are worse players than you.
In essence, players are whining because they no longer get their 1337 epix but the actual game doesn't change at all. Their ranking / points / whatever will be lower than that of people who pay, but they will not be playing against those guys.
How long before someone launches a class action lawsuit against EA/DICE?
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
Forcing those in charge of the troops to spend massive amounts of money-- well beyond initial estimates-- in order to properly arm and care for those troops?
Sounds like they're getting the "realistic" part into the combat simulators after all.
(Except for that you can still buy armor)
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I'd be much more willing to start paying a monthly fee for game access if the company were going bankrupt than to tolerate corruption of the game by allowing externalities like paying real money for game advantage.
Losing to someone not because you play worse or you have bad luck, but rather because that guy simply outspent you, is just completely demoralizing and I'd abandon any competitive game that allowed this.
A monthly access fee seems fair and equitable, though. They're providing you a valuable entertainment service and its only fair to shoulder a portion of the cost!!!
--PeterM
With MMOs, if they didn't charge you some sort of regular fee, they'd end up losing money on the game when 5 years and so many millions of dollars of maintenance and added content later, millions of people are still playing the game.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
I play games to have fun. Part of that fun when playing with others is an even playing field. Games, unlike life, have rules to make things fair. Buying your way changes that. I do not play games that put the unfairness of life back into a game. For now, there are still plenty of other games that play within the sandbox just fine that will get my time/attention/money and I can ignore games that do this.
I play another EA game that has free components (BattleForge) and I'm always worried that they're going to shut it down because it's not making enough money. There are a lot of Free 2 Play people on and I sometimes wish they were spending just a bit more money since I understand about costs of keeping up servers and releasing new cards (it's a trading card RTS). So I can't blame EA too much for trying to snag a little revenue out of one of their investments. In BF there's a market for trading gold, which is earnable in maps, for BattleForge points. I think there's a good balance there but it's not perfect yet.
it's like in Farmville - a very poorly written, underperforming isometric Facebook game that is quite fun despite it's flaws - you have to pay money (and not a small amount either, especially for a game with over a million players allegedly) to do common tasks, like buy fuel for tractors.
I like the game. It sucks performance wise. I think I'll create FarmYourselfSilly for Android when I get my new phone. Might add hills and dry stone walls for that authentic Yorkshire theme. I'll cloudify it with a Produce Market for trading crops. Too many players growing wheat? Well, sucks!
This is some new definition of the term Free Content that I wasn't previously aware of.
"His name was James Damore."
Once upon a time there was a saying "May the best player win". I think we need to amend that saying to reflect the new corporate model "May the richest player win".
Too bad you can't just get a bunch of other noobs together and gang mug some player for his shiny new toys. That would be hilarious to watch play out in a real world courtroom.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.'
You know, most businesses take a step back to figure out why they had to lay people off. If EA took a moment to figure out that customers don't like it when they get screwed and pirate their games in vengeance, then maybe they'd be doing better. I don't know about you guys, but I'm still sore about the whole DRM thing.
Sorry, I guess this is a redundant comment for "EA strikes again".
Pardon my good sense, but isn't the only real response to this for anyone who isn't satisfied to just stop paying them anything at all and go play something else?
As with any situation where a dev doesn't give the players what they want, the only way to send a message is to stop paying for a sub-par product and go support something that you enjoy.
Yes, it is. But, good sense and "real" has nothing to do with a lot of complaints in this type of situation, where a largely free service goes paid. Much of it has to do with Customer Nazi Syndrome and the notion that companies are immediately evil for vulgar displays of seeking profit. After all, if one mentions revenue and such, one must be engaged in ripping someone off.
In a situation such as this, where there is very little comment necessary other than the negative, it might seem as if they are the majority - but actually it's mostly just the tossers demanding the earth. The rest of us just move on or get onboard.
If the cost of items goes up and to "stay competitive" one has to spend more money, I think it's fairly obvious that the cost of staying competitive is likely to change.
I record my sleeptalking
Electronic Arts has an internal mandate to have about 15% or more of the games revenue happen from online activities. The top management does not care too much about how this goal is acheived. For some games, this is from premium content (extra levels). Some games get more creative with it.
Multiplayer FPS games though are in a bit of a bind. The point of such games is to make sure you can play with anyone else who is online. The most popular levels will never be premium content that you had to pay to own. But powerups that anyone can use in any map? Those are something you can try to monetize.
As a player, I am not convinced that these sort of powerups are the optimal way to monetize that content. There is just too narrow a window for the power and utility of those power ups. If they are really worth paying for, then the rest of the customers become 2nd class players. If they are not very powerful, who the hell would actually buy them?
If they catch enough blowback on this, they will probably abandon this type of effort and try to come up with a better idea. But everyone knew that this particular kind of fee based content had to be tried at least once, and even 8 years ago, you would probably have guessed that EA would be the first company to actually try to do it.
I am not really annoyed that they tried this. I just hope it does not become an industry wide trend to let customers buy an advantage against the other players.
END COMMUNICATION
No games, no problems!
If enough gamers reuse to buy their stuff; they will either change their model or go out of business. As a side note, I wonder what their reaction would be if players in game asked others not to spend real money and to spread the word to do the same? Their own game could be the used to spread a viral protest against the game.
Gamers in general are stupid little kid; literally. They've got no principles, morals or values. If you can offer something shiny they'll do what ever you want them to do. Sure they are a loud-mouthed group but when it comes to actions, they are a pathic bunch.
Personally I think whoever plays an EA game deservers every bit of abuse EA can come up with ;)
If people find value and want to spend the money, they're going to spend it. Furthermore if nobody else buys the stuff, then it becomes even more attractive for people to buy it. This happens until equilibrium.
You can't fight markets.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
This doesn't give a large ingame advantage to players who buy PLEX for real money, because it doesn't make you advance faster. It only gives you more ingame currency, so you afford to buy a ship fast if yours is destroyed. Apart from that, you still need skills to pilot it properly, and those can not be trained faster.
No. No advantage at all. None whatsoever. Unless you're oh say a Russian aluminum tycoon who can blow tens of thousands of dollars on PLEX.
Not that any Russian aluminum tycoons play EVE Online...
Oh wait...
Well there is one Russian aluminum tycoon who plays EVE.
I think most of the problem is the best foot forward approach. They rushed the game out the door giving it away free. The paid content was very minimal, and by the time I was bored of the game still had the 3 basic maps for what seemed a very long time. The paid content was stupid stuff like costumes and gestures. If they would have had DLC maps, types of gameplay DeathMatch?, or vehicles to extend the overall game then I could see paying money for it. But they want you to pay for something that was free and be happy about it? I think they were just expecting money to fall from the heavens for minimal work. I also tried their poorly implemented game BattleForge. I even bought the store version for 50$ before they dropped the price on it. The price to own the whole game is completly insane
Yeah those bastards. getting to work on something as fun as writing games AND expecting to get paid for it too!!!
Seriously.
They made a mistake. I'll give the game designers the benefit of the doubt. They tried a business model, saw that it cannot sustain their company, and are trying to change the strategy, for better or worse.
I bet the same people who want to get all the content for free, are the same people who whine about prescription drug prices. "Why charge me $20 for a pill that costs $0.0002 to make?". They don't care how much money and effort went into making the product, or about all the people who have mortgages to pay and children to feed who worked on it... they just want everything to be delivered to them for FREE, because they're the only people in the world who matter.
I bet you they think that socialized healthcare is FREE too.
(1) Attract users with free content and paid content.
(2) Develop a game culture/ecosystem.
(3) Dump the freeloaders.
(4) Profit?
From TFA, you only rent assets? What binds you to the game then? Stupid rank is no big deal once you've already made the max.
After purchasing two EA PC games in 2008, I have refused to purchase a title from them ever since.
In 2008 I purchased NHL '08 and NBA '08 for the PC at 30-40$ each. While the consoles enjoyed brand new features, effects, and continuous roster updates, the PC versions were left with NO support. The '08 versions of the two EASports games I purchased were basically 4 or 5 year old versions of the game, with updated uniforms and rosters (though they did not keep up with the changing rosters). The PC Forums are filled with requests from players for to update the rosters, fix bugs, and include the "new features" that the console users were enjoying, and the only response from an EA Representative was "I'll let the developers know". The multiplayer did not even work on x64 bit versions of windows, which I happened to be using.
Since then I have refused to purchase another EA game, and after reading posts like this I am very glad I made that decision.
I downloaded and played this game a bit when I was on the road a couple months ago. The game was so buggy and full of connection issues I didn't play it again. Next we'll hear about them shutting the game down.
Users or potential customers who now will not buy the game? EA doesn't care; they already sold all their copies to game stores; they just want to kill the title as fast as possible to shift the Heroes team to other products.
^^^^^ PROBLEM SOLVED ^^^^^. Let's start the revolution!! haha
It's still a cleaner system than anything else I've seen, because it keeps it all within the game's normal economy. Cheap players can keep playing for essentially free, and rich dudes can get the stuff that they would have paid someone to gold farm anyway. It at least *feels* like much less of a money grab.
I dumped $30 into this game getting outfits for my characters as my way of saying thanks to DICE. I just recently given up on the game. The made changes to the matchmaking service that usually puts you in a near empty server. The number of cheaters has gone up ruining the fun. Now this crap. It was fun while it lasted. They should look a Valve and TF2.
I'm a big fan of Battlefield Heroes and I'm afraid that this decision will be the last I play of the game. Like any player out there, I have a finite amount of funds that can be used towards the purchase of games. For my money, I could go out and purchase Left4Dead2, Counterstrike, or even Fat Princess and have unlimited play. For less than $50. The only thing that BFH added was the ability to customize your character -- which isn't worth $10 per month. New maps don't count -- Counterstrike modders produced new maps all the time.
EA should have just charged $40 for the game outright.
What this means is that if you plan to play for free is that you will need to stick to the all around weapon you are given to start with. Each class has a choice of three primary weapons, one that you are given that is general purpose, and then one each for long range and close range. There are some specialty weapons, like as Gunner class, I will have to stick to using dynamite and powder kegs rather than my trusty bazooka. That much hurts, but it's still going to be a free and fun game I can play when the WoW servers are down.
This is a fun little game and I even tossed them a few bucks due to enjoying it that much.
Without players (paying and free alike), there won't be enough people in game. Sell the initial game, allow players to set up their own servers and mod content. It worked for Valve.
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Why don't they just make the items look really cool but give no real advantage? You say people won't buy them, but there are plenty of business models that do exactly that and are quite successful. I think it just is against American culture to do something like this. We like to believe that hard work, time, and effort should be rewarded. Letting only the wealthy compete makes the game undesirable to us (even if that is how it really works in the real world anyways, we like to delude ourselves in to believing the happy version).
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
I think it makes a lot of sense to say that in a game like that, there are going to be people who exchange real money for in game money. There's obviously a huge demand for it, because there's a big industry that's sprung up to fill that demand. Once you accept that it's going to happen whether you like it or not, it makes a lot of sense to provide a somewhat controlled system for it, that allows you to monitor it as well as maybe even make a little extra money off of it.
Not to mention that it makes your "moral standing" against RMT stronger. Similar to how around ten years ago the record labels were complaining that people were downloading songs without paying for them, but at the same time not offering much in the way of convenient paid downloads. It made their argument weaker. Once a "legitimate" alternative is available, your case against those side markets is more reasonable.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
They did this model and people were buying. Lots of people actually.
This was a profitable venture. The engine was developed years ago. The paid staff for this game is less than 10 people. Possible closer to half a dozen full time people. So the question isn't about being profitable, but about being MORE profitable.
Yes that's correct. However gamers tend to fall into the bitch but play it anyways crowd.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Didn't a bunch of folks buy a game, with a stated pricing and gameplay model?
And then later, EA changed the pricing and gameplay model to something that makes more money?
Sounds like classic bait and switch to me.
They probably need to be sued for this one...
EA just does not get it. If you make the games fun then people will play them and you will make money. When you constantly piss off your Customers they see EA on the box and don't even bother to look if they might want to play the game. I have not bought an EA game in years and instantly move on to the next one if I see EA was anywhere involved with it.
Charge for a Client or a Subscription, NEVER BOTH, and not for anything else. One or the other. The occasional expansion is OK.
i don't play any games that allow player trade or have currency. When i have, i found it to a be dick in the eye when someone would buy what i spent hours earning. i quit WoW the day i had my credit card in hand about to buy gold.
Howabout this, let's allow football teams to field as many players as they can afford. The teams that try to play honestly will find themselves outnumbered 3 to 1 or worse.
Ugh.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
HuahuehuahueHUAHUEHUAHUEHUA
Game developers are getting away with this because the consumers let them. For every gamer outraged there are two others pouncing on him with criticism. Those others are perfectly comfortable and more than happy to part with their money. They're the sort of people who value entertainment more highly than principles.
If there were solidarity amongst the gaming public where everyone stood up against this these practices would end overnight. But what do you expect from a segment of the consumer population that is willing to stand in line at midnight to pick up a game the split second it's released.
The changes are unfair on several levels:
- People have spent Battlefunds to get weapons permanently which are now obsolete.
- Based on Valor Points, prices have increased by a factor of 10-20.
- Changes were not announced, so nobody had a chance to spend there now worthless Valor Points.
- They have promised not to this. They even mocked games that did this before them.
I have spent more money on Battlefunds than for a full price game, but i never felt forced. Now i feel forced and my natural reaction is "quit". I feel cheated and not because they want money. I have enough of it to afford Battlefunds. But i dislike changing a deal after i has been made.
CU, Martin
Another is my own game, Twilight Heroes (http://www.twilightheroes.com). I keep the servers running based on donations and sales of items of the month, but a large portion of my players don't donate, and they can still get pretty close to the full experience.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
BFH had been going downhill for some time due to rampant hacking that EA/DICE were doing nothing to stop. It had already lost a lot of players due to this, and about 3 weeks ago a new free aimbot hit the scene which increased the problem (unlike TF2, the game is fairly unfinished and there's no in-game tools for players or admins - vote kick, spectator mode, etc, so you're pretty much hosed).
In typical EA fashion ... this move kinda makes sense. Rather than fix the problem, make people pay for things they need, and in addition to the game actually making money hopefully the script kiddies will stop playing. ::shrug:: I was part of the closed beta and it really was a fun little game. Was totally hooked for a while. When the hacking epidemic started a few weeks ago... I gave up and moved on. You literally couldn't find a game without multiple cheaters in it.
I enjoy this sandwhich made at the deli down the street. I've enjoyed it for a while. I have a reasonable expectation that future sandwhiches will be of similar quality. I don't want them to go out of business.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
Are they so stupid they can't understand the user part of the equation? They will destroy their game like this because nobody will want to play.
It's like that Mafia Wars game on facebook - right now you can play it free and keep advancing and having fun, but you can also pay money for points that enable to you take shortcuts and jack your player up faster. This is accceptable to free players, because they can continue to play for free without having to pay for anything - however, when this sort of model is changed to the point that players HAVE to purchase something in order to continue to progress in the game, I'd say that 8 or 9 out of 10 people are going to quit playing because they don't want to start paying for something that has always been free to have the same experience, and on top of that many would quit out of anger and feeling betrayed by being sucked in by a freebie then baited and switched.
Bad move all of the way around.
When I see things like this, I know its a game I won't be playing. I will NOT spend additionally money on a game after I purchase it. World of Warcraft is slightly different in its subscription fees. But, everyone who pays the $13 a month gets the same game. Not different tiers of things depending on how much you spend.
EA is going to be in some serious trouble if they think this will work well as a long term business plan. As it is, I generally don't buy EA games anymore because most of the games they produce are cloned out versions of the same game over and over. Not to mention the quality of the games is piss poor. Command and Conquer vs Warcraft or Starcraft ? EA can't touch Blizzard with a 10' pole here. I will always buy a Blizzard game over EA because they are quality.
EA is going to be in serious shit if they continue down this road.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
A very valid point; I apologize for not clarifying that I was referring to MMOs that require a full staff to maintain them.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
What EA tried to do here is make money off their starved PC users. The last Battlefield franchise game we got was BF:2142, which IMO wasn't very good and I know a lot of others feel the same way. So then really the last real BF PC game was BF2, which most of us have grown tired of. 1943 has been out for the consoles for months and the projected release date iirc is March 2010.
So I did try Heroes. Its a total gimmick. Don't waste your time. There are far less players per map than any PC version ever. Even the original 1942. There are far less vehicles. Each side has like a tank, jeep, and plane. You don't get to choose which server or map you want to play. You are just thrown in a queue and off you go. For the experience you get its about 20% of a real Battlefield PC release game. Maybe if they priced it at $10 it would be worth it.
Even the content you pay for isn't really worth it. The guns you buy aren't yours permanently. They expire and you have to buy them again. You can also buy bonus experience points but again, this lasts a day or two and expires.
Just pretty much everything of Heroes reeks of EA upper management trying to squeeze everything they can even out of the cheapest of bastards.
I completely agree with those that are saying EA tried a business model and it isn't working so they needed to change it. But what they seem to have not considered is that they have built up a loyal BF Heroes community around the game. By changing things up the way they did with no prior notice they basically told the community that EA does not value them. In 2009 dissing your loyal customers is just not a smart move. I remember one of my all time favorite games was Virgin's Subspace. They had a free beta for months/years getting it ready. When it finally shipped and they turned off free access the community was up in arms that they would now have to 'pay' for what had been free. A hack was issued almost immediately that let people play for free. I bought my copy to support the company but many had grown to feel entitled. I believe that Virgin games went under within a year of that. So we have evidence that people don't like to pay for what was once free and we have the knowledge that people don't like their loyalty being treated lightly or with disdain. A recipe for battlefield heroes to be gutted by players leaving, cheating, hacking and making things worse for the game. With all the cheaters on FPS games the one thing that is needed above all else is a good community to police the game-even if it is just peer pressure rather than kick votes. I don't think Heroes will have that any more, if they had it in the first place. i'd guess this was slammed down the throats of the team running the game by someone at a VP level. Up there they don't care if it works or not-there are always other projects to assign the engineers to. Too bad they didn't get the time to make some more thoughtful changes, with community input that would let them grow loyalty, player base as well as revenue.
Didn't a bunch of folks buy a game, with a stated pricing and gameplay model?
The game is free, so nobody bought anything as far as a gameplay or pricing model. The only thing they could have bought into was an in-game item that does a specific thing and still does that same thing as promised today.
And then later, EA changed the pricing and gameplay model to something that makes more money?
Sounds like classic bait and switch to me. They probably need to be sued for this one...
I don't see what you would sue them for, changing the prices of some unnecessary in-game items after you agreed in the EULA that they could change things in their game, which they are allowing you to play for free, whenever they wanted? Go ahead and try that.
...but most people don't realize it. Well, there's gold farmers, etc, but I'm talking legit. For ~$55, you can get 300% experience for 3 months if you don't mind playing with a friend (see linked accounts on the WoW page). When the new expansion comes out, you'll simply be able to pay money to have your old character with one of the new races without a second of grinding.
So Blizzard's moving there too. Their CEO is leading the charge...he plans to "exploit" all of their IP to the fullest.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Start a movement. Get everybody to always gang up on the guy with expensive equipment. Their blood is worth more on the end of your bayonet....
Give them uber elite looking weapons and models that offer no gameplay advantages. Mounts in WoW work like this and people still pay a premium for an "awesome looking" mount.
The approach they were using wasn't even a bad one...it's worked for Guild Wars (see their PvP versions), it just didn't work for them.
Maybe the game just wasn't any good?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
But equilibrium for this sales model may be LESS profit for the publisher than equilibrium under the old model... in fact, there may not be an equilibrium point that even makes enough money to keep the game alive.
Are you aware that you can buy other characters using ingame money? So you buy a bunch of PLEXs with real money, sell them for ingame money, then use that to buy yourself a 60mil skillpoint character. Yeah, sounds really fair. /eyeroll.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
It's a stupid game design. Good games are about skill, not how much you spent on them as the player. This sort of thing should never be in games.. but as business is generally lawful evil, it's what you're going to get increasingly.
These guys aren't about making awesome games, they are just a business... so it's no surprise that they make business decisions in order to boost short term cash gains. EA is a game mill; why would you expect them to do anything but?
They aren't trying to compete for the hardcore gamer market with discriminating tastes and high expectations that they will be able to enjoy the game for years to come, or that the game is fair... they are going for the oo shiny consumer market who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
Same bullshit as Hollywood...pump and dump whatever they think the masses want on the surface rather than backing genuinely interesting material.
The "Items bought with real money will not provide a combat advantage" is the same thing they said when they first allowed buying items in Ultima Online, and they started selling collectibles and items to lock down in your home. That lasted about 6 months before they started selling ($10-$15 a piece) armor and weapons that are pretty much top tier, equal to items people spent 7+ years getting. Result will probably be the same too, everyone who actually enjoys the game for what it is, and likes competitive gameplay will leave for a different game. Thankfully the game was already completely ruined by EA already at that time thanks to the "new expansion pack is pretty much required to stay competitive" game they'd already played a few times, so no huge loss.
The only thing they charged real money for before in BF Heroes was just the costumes. I don't know how many people would spend real money to dress up their virtual character, but I can tell you that I was not one of them. There really must not have been that many people that wanted to pay for clothing for their character.
The pricing for the weapons and bandages and such were so cheap. It took 15 to 20 minutes of playing to be able to buy the upgraded weapon for your character that was good for 7 days and a package of band-aids. It looks like the prices have shot up 10x. So now you'd have to play 150 to 200 minutes to be able to buy that upgraded weapon. That's a level of time where it feels like you've actually earned something. Why do so many people complain on the internet?
Anyways the game kind of sucks and so I don't care much what is happening with it now.
If they wanted to increase revenue for an FPS the answer is simple:
Costuming gear.
Doesn't affect gameplay and guarantees a significant revenue stream.
Cmon, who wouldn't pay a coupla bucks to look like their favorite movie star.
just wait and see how they bend gamers over for bad company 2.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I played it a few months ago and didn't find the game appealing at all. Its half TF2 and half Battlefield 1942. Its not even that fun.
Buying other characters in EVE for money is forbidden by CCP (game publisher), therefore not "legal" according to their rules and regulations. We're talking about what's legit in the game here, not what can be done with shady techniques. Shady techniques exist in virtually every MMO, but if you're caught your account is shot on sight, for good. It's 100% against EULA. :) But then again, we're not talking about that here. Some other time, perhaps :)
I have been a game operator in OGame, and went far and wide to kill shady accounts. Was pretty successful too
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
The games you mention are very specifically not FPS games. They are games with RPG elements where you create a character and improve that character over time.
World of Warcraft has gameplay built around a player spending hundreds of hours developing their own personal character. You create that character from the ground up, from how it looks, the character class, the class powers, the face, and the gear. You always play the same character (disregarding alt accounts), so a player is pretty heavily invested in his character. Generally, no two characters are going to be exactly alike in capabilities. Outside of PVP (which is not how most people end up playing), you do not really care so much if the next guy is paying 'real money' for better gear. You might think the buyer is a dillweed, but you know you still have a shot at getting good crap yourself. And it is a big world, so your not obligated to play with that person in anyway. If your willing to buy gear in WoW, your probably just impatient and do not want to play for 150 hours to get leet gear and a high level.
In an FPS (generally speaking), the only difference between your character and the next guy's character is what weapons you have selected. And if your character is ineffective, its a trivial bit of effort to change your weapons. Your success depends on your skill at shooting the other players while not getting shot yourself. The game is all competitive all the time, and if one player can obtain a clear advantage over you, it will affect your enjoyment of the game. I suppose this also applies to RTS games. As long as all players in the game are roughly equal, you can enjoy the game. But if you give one player who is already your equal access to weapons (or units) that you do not have, then your going to probably get stomped. If your willing to buy weapons / units in an FPS or RTS, your only doing it to win.
The designers might get around some of that by having it so that when you buy, everyone in your current game gets access to what you paid for. But that makes the item less attractive to those most likely to want to buy in the first place.
END COMMUNICATION
That's the problem with big (game publishing) companies. They are never content with a decent profit. There always has to be more profit.
Pretty much the point why I ignore games from huge companies like EA. I prefer games from small/medium companies that create games for the fun aspect, not to maximise profit in every way possible.
The reason people are upset about about CEO compensation is because they have no idea what a CEO is being compensated for. The fact is, there are a very small number of people who are capable of running a very large organization successfully. It's the same reason most small businesses stay small businesses - the owners reach the limit of their management potential and can go no further.
Nah. It's because CEO compensation is set by... Boards of Directors that happen to be made up of other CEOs with a vested interest in promoting their pay over the interests of the shareholders. For example, GM's board of directors is 75% former/current executives.
CEOs and Boards of Directors are currently a nearly closed cartel, responsible for setting their own compensation despite the complete absence of any meaningful performance metrics.
Did I mention that in most cases the boards set their own compensation? It's all a big racket, and it's completely unrelated to performance-- CEOs are being compensated for being part of the club, not for performance.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Eh, this story is probably archived but here goes;)
Valve gave everyone who prepurchased left 4 dead 2 a special hat in team fortress. It's a cool looking beret, but does nothing.
The PvP version of Guild Wars is actually pretty close to it. In GW, you can create a character at level cap, but that can only do PvP. He/she can have any skill/armor mods you found in the PvE game, or buy new skills that are available account wide if you get enough PvP points (which are account wide). So when I played, I'd delete and create new characters on the fly, play them for 20 minutes, and dump them. I don't see that being all the different with Team Fortress 2's weapon system...or the system in use in this game.
Except, in GW, you could buy with real $, access to all the skills (PvP only granted) in the game.
No one complained. As far as I'm aware.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.