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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."
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.
The problem with EA/DICE right now is the dishonesty they have shown. They made this change without a warning. They did a BattleFunds sale and bundles offers in other equipment in the weeks prior to this change. Many people who spent BFs this weekend on these items have found now that they have to unexpectedly spend more money to use them.
And they completely continue to miss the point of all the complaining users. They say that the game is still free, and that you can still have fun without paying a penny. The point is that they destroyed the very core claim of not giving combat advantage to paying customers, and backstabbed the whole user community in the process. Still, no one in the dev/mods team has actually acknowledged it.
This is actually fairly common style with Korean MMO's and multiplayer games. It seems to work good there and players like it, so it's not a surprise companies want to try it on western markets too.
I agree. It is a game model I don't like, so I stay away from those kind of games.
When I started playing BFH, this was the main selling point for me. It was a very bold claim, but they said it everywhere. It is on the official trailer. It is on the official FAQ (now updated). They said it in several interviews. Now, I feel cheated.
Sure, but the problems is the flip-flop, not the model they chose.
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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.
"Since the player with the most money wins anyway, it would be too boring for me."
Maybe too boring for you but the Yankees have proven time and again that such a model does work in professional sports.
Actually that's the perfect demo, just not one that is conducive to EA/DICE making alot of money and building a player base.
To be honest though, I d/led the game over the holiday and gave up trying to play it after about two hours of trying to find a server I could play on.
Oh, I could get connected to any number of servers, but each one I'd hit had one or two other players and thus was permanently in 'pre-play' phase and would reboot the map every 30-45 seconds when one of the other players would leave and drop us back below the required player limit.
I understand how people feel, it's like getting invested in a Joss Whedon/FOX project (or really any Sci-Fi FOX show since X-Files). Do you really want to invest your time and emotion towards something that is doomed to be canceled in a year?
Similarly, people got invested into BF:H thinking it'd live up to it's promises. Now no one 'owes' them anything in the contractual sense, but a good deal of the effort and interest of the player base was only put forward into this game under the understanding that the game would not be changed to a 'pay to play' model. And without that investment, BF:H would never have gotten enough of a player base to even last this long. So pulling a switchero is a betrayal in a real sense, regardless of what's owed to whom.
However, on the other hand, EA has a similar reputation as FOX does, and anyone who went into this wide-eyed and dreaming of a bold new world where the game was never going to slide this direction either wasn't paying attention or is new enough to the gaming scene that they legitimately own the title n00b. You don't put your faith in EA. They aren't your friends.
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.
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.
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