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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.
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.
"... nor do I think that I should constantly pay for a game..."
They provide a continual, ongoing service, and you think that you're entitled to it forever?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
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)
Again, though...they need to be honest from the start and not change things suddenly.
I don't think it's dishonesty so much as, "we thought this model would make money and we were wrong". Find me a business that continues to keep its promises even when it means pouring money down the drain and I'll show you a business with shitty management. It sucks for the players, but if they weren't generating enough revenue, EA sort of has no choice here.
One other note: I'm seeing a lot of people here and on the forums saying things like, "This is a terrible decision! They'll drive the players away and lose money!", which is kind of silly logic. They were already losing money. They could either stick with the plan that is unprofitable, or they can go with a new plan that might be unprofitable. Sort of a no-brainer.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
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.
It sucks for the players, but if they weren't generating enough revenue, EA sort of has no choice here.
Thank you for using common sense. So many people are getting irritated about a business no longer giving freeloaders the same priority as paying customers. This is ridiculous. You know how Valve keeps all their customers on the same level? Everyone pays to get in. A company that works for free won't be working for very long.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
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".
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
That's why a lot of other games let the players set up dedicated servers. That way the publisher does not have to worry about providing this ongoing service--the community takes care of it. This is why I refuse to pay for any game that does not allow dedicated servers. The game is worthless when the publisher decides to pull the plug on the servers.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
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.
The problem here is that they continue to insist nothing has changed - while it is quite clear that the new business model is completely different. Thats what is so infuriating - the refusal to admit that anything has changed, while the core philosophy of the game is completely different.
Previously you could only buy "fluff" (emotes, costumes, skins for your weapons) - and they asked you to spend your $$$ to "help the game".
Now the in-game currency you could earn from play is worthless, no one can afford to purchase weapons with these earned credits. But... no problem. Now you can buy weapons for REAL money (which you previously could not) - even better, you can get "super" versions of the same weapon for MORE real money.
So now there is a two tier system - players who pay and players who don't. The players who pay, win. That simple.
If thats what they want to do, fine. But don't tell me that free players are not at a disadvantage in all your advertising - thats blatantly false.
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.