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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."
I bet you they think that socialized healthcare is FREE too.
No, but it does cost our UK NHS a lot less for drugs because the US consumer subsidizes us by paying way over the odds. Thanks guys!
That's very insightful for an AC post.
Our companies develop all the drugs, with part of the research subsidized by the gov't through taxes, and most of the profits coming from the prices they charge us. UK and EU get to license the drugs, sharing only a small fraction of the costs.
Yay for your healthcare system - it's way superior... except it isn't nearly as much as our newfound bolsheviks are trying to make us believe, and is also unsustainable (beyond stagnation) in a vaccuum.