EA clarifies Battlefield: Bad Company weapons’ pricing
The not-so-public beta for DICE’s latest first-person shooter Battlefield: Bad Company is up and running and as some of you may have noticed by now, the game is to feature a selection of weapons that can only be unlocked by coughing up the precious Microsoft Points via the Marketplace. Following a public hollering on the internets, Electronic Arts spokesperson has offered a clarification.
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
“Battlefield: Bad Company will release five unique weapons free of charge through five different promotional programs prior to launch. EA will again make these weapons available to players free of charge after launch, in case anyone missed the pre-launch promotions.
At launch, EA will release a Gold Edition of Battlefield: Bad Company which will feature an additional five new weapons. For players who do not purchase the Gold Edition of the game, they can still buy the five weapons at a small individualized price per item. All weapons are balanced for gameplay. More weapons offer players more choices but do not create an advantage/disadvantage for players who do not opt to buy new items.”
It’s certainly not the first time something like this has happened, as EA pulled the exact same stunt with Need for Speed: Carbon back in Fall 2006. Is it wrong of them to do this? That’s up to you to decide.
Source: IGN
well im gonna give the Beta a go and see if it’s worthy of my money on release.
EA makes me sick!
very very wrong!
this game will be garbage save your money EA is shit
Hahaha oh EA you guys are so predictable. I hope EA continues to ruin more of the gaming market in the future!
Frontlines is do’in for me for now.
Think I’ll pass on this one.
Fuck this for a game of soldiers, quite literally.
badabum tsshhh
Lol EA just moved into there new offices in my town I may put a brick through several of there windows
I rather play rainbow six vegas 2 and cod 4
At least I get the Beta for a month!
WOW…. So lame. What the hell are they doing…. The Marketplace is ruining gaming.
EA can kiss my ass, I,ll stick with rsv 2 and cod 4 at least i don,t have to buy any F’in guns, map are one thing but guns you have got to be kidding….
Fanappy throw a few bricks through EA windows for me too.
I hate EA more tha STD’s
I’ve yet to play an online shooter whose weapons were “balanced for gameplay,” whether you had to pay for them or not. So that immediately right there is total bullshit. Regardless, this game has already been delayed about a hundred times due to developer incompetence, and thats enough to lose my business anyway.
Not for me. EA will lose sales of the game from this ‘penny pinching’.
EA is the cancer of gaming.
I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. Definitely not very classy but who’s ever accused EA of that.
On second thought, I agree that it’s impossible to fairly balance weapons in a shooter and I’m actually pretty pissed that a highly competitive game series like battlefield is going to be tarnished like this.
Just a matter of time now and you’ll have to purchase ammo ingame with M$ points
do we have to pay to play on EA servers too while they are at it
Despicable moneygrabbing by EA, I hope people vote with their money and stay away from this game in droves. What the hell do EA take people for? On second thoughts, best not answer that. Coming soon; 100 Gamer Points for Madden 2009; only 80 MS Points…..
I played this last night for about 30 minutes. Switched back over to COD4. I was amazed at how much more smoothly COD runs. Hopefully they will up the framerate before it ships. The demo wasn’t very much fun, aiming was hard to do, I felt like none of my bullets hit, and the guns sound fake and muffled.
i might even have to boycott the fucking beta after this. not that it would be much work, i tried getting into a game for two hours yesterday with no luck. if ea was a person, he would be a complete asshole.
Like Vin Diesel?
Vin Diesel happens to be a nice guy, tyvm.
thats the most stupid fucking thing i have ever herd in my life! why the fuck would they do this? just to make a bit more money!
prob lost out on so many punters becoz of this stunt, i was well exited bout this game
EA> u r cunts
Sorry to see this, it looks like a good game from what I’ve seen. I guess I’ll just rent it, if Blockbuster ever bothers to actually stock the games people want.
this game is horrible the beta is so bad its a waste of time
im not buying a game if a devolper is purposley witholding content.
i reckon halo and oblivion are both culprets of this.
but releasing online weapons which not evreyone can use is a disgrace, they say it won’t unbalnce it, what if i get gold and the weapons im good with are all “gold” weapons, i would have been crap if it wasn’t for those weapons, now some other guy, dosn’t get gold, he is crap, but he’s not getting all he paid for, and he could be just as good as me with these gold weapons.
not well explained maybe i grant you, but the point is fuck you EA, no battlefield for me, so just noad your head in agreement
im not buying a game if a devolper is purposley witholding content.
i reckon halo and oblivion are both culprets of this.
but releasing online weapons which not evreyone can use is a disgrace, they say it won’t unbalnce it, what if i get gold and the weapons im good with are all “gold” weapons, i would have been crap if it wasn’t for those weapons, now some other guy, dosn’t get gold, he is crap, but he’s not getting all he paid for, and he could be just as good as me with these gold weapons.
not well explained maybe i grant you, but the point is fuck you EA, no battlefield for me, so just nod your head in agreement
nope, that was pretty much spot on the mark jamzy, its gotta unbalance it abit- whats the point in having the guns if they dont give you some advantage?
Personally, anyone wasting an extra $10 on a ‘limited’ edition of the game is asking to get screwed out of their money. Effectively, EA are just using the XBLM as an extension of the retail shelf, and hoping that people who opted not to purchse the ‘limited’ gold edition will change their minds and buy the weapons after the fact.
@ Jamzy, if you’re suggesting that by Bethesda releasing other components to Oblivion (including an entirely new continent to explore tyvm) after release, and by Bungie releasing maps after release (among dozens of other game companies….) that other companies would be promted to release things later for a separate cost? That’s absurd.
Developers SHOULD always support their products after release. Whether through add-on packs a la Oblivion, or DLC maps a la *insert FPS game of choice here* its always nice to have (new) things to play with in an old game. If a game has ‘legs’ and will be played for awhile, why not give us consumers more options/toys to play with?
This is a totally different scenario, and reeks of oppurtunism. Hardly a good move, but that isn’t our call to make, is it?
Always remember guys, a ‘limited’ edition is only limited to the amount of units they can sell.
Personally, if I was spending an extra $10 on a game, I’d rather have better weapons than a shiny tin case. If the weapons WEREN’T abvailable on XBLM, would it be that big a deal? Probably not, as its expected that a “Limited” edition will get you some fancier/better stuff (see Forza2 ’special’ edition which came with other cars that my regular edition DID NOT have).
Its actually a normal thing (extra content for extra $$$), but I’d bet we would not notice if it wasn’t on the XBLM separately.
Pass on the limited, but from what I hear this game will be awesome, so I may end up getting REGULAR edition.