No More Battlefield 2 Expansions

1up reports that (at the moment) there are no further plans for any Battlefield 2 expansions. Instead, EA and DICE will be releasing 'Booster Packs' with smaller amounts of additional content. Each pack will retail for $9.99 and be downloadable from EA's site. From the article: "Due to the expansion pack cancellation, though, DICE has told investors of slightly lower project revenues for fourth quarter 2005, but they plan on recovering through higher royalty rates through the first half of this year. The packs themselves are fairly substantial; Euro Force contains a new primary weapon, four vehicles (including the Eurofighter) and the Operation Smoke Screen, The Great Wall of China and Taraba Quarry maps. "

Re:In other words...

[Edgewize]

As a PC gaming fan, you buy new games. You'd be surprised that many people do NOT buy new games. They only buy the games that they have heard other people say good things about over a long period of time.

John Q Public is too dumb or apathetic to find out about what new games to buy for his 10-year-old son. But he might recognize an established name that's gotten positive word-of-mouth, see a new edition of it, and buy that.

This is why Madden is successful. This is why Tiger Woods is successful. This is why the Burnout games sel so well. It's why publishers talk in terms of "franchises".

Any company that's looking for long-term profit has no incentive to create new games just for the sake of being new. Properly managed franchises will always outsell new concepts.

(Whether or not franchises like Madden or Burnout are well-handled is a totally separate issue, but you certainly can't argue with them based on sales charts...)

Re:Good old EA.

[quantax]

Its funny, with any other decently made game, Id be jumping at an opportunity for more content but while BF2 is very fun to play, the stuff that happens ouside of the actual game really drags it down. Like as you mentioned, the TERRIBLE menu system which somehow is worst than BF1942's menu system (1942's wasnt too bad, but aren't interfaces supposed to get better, not worst?). The most glaring and sad of these problems is the fact that the server browser is essentially broken and needs to be coddled to work. Basically, you hit the update button and DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ELSE, since if you do, all of a sudden, the list of servers is non-existant or bizarrely truncated. Keep hitting that update button again, it won't do jack until you restart the entire game. Thats right, you need to quit BF2 and restart it just because you decided to use the server filters which are right there in the server browser but yet break the entire thing once you use them.

What makes this so sad is that: 1) The game purposely nerfed the single-player side of the game as a way to motivate *cough* force players to play online if they really wanted to feel the full scope of the game. 2) They impliment an entire online ranking system complete with weapon-unlocks and such for these purposes. 3) Despite this focus on MP, the server browser was roughly 50% broken on the games release, often freezing the entire game and requiring the user to restart the game just to be able to join a server to play the damn thing. Wtf?

Now, I will admit, once you get past these annoyances and enter an actual server, I've always had a great deal of fun playing the damn game. Thus, it stumps me to think of why the game engine performs better and is more reliable than the menu system. The fact that BF2 has gotten 3 patches so far (pretty sure its 3), including the one released AFTER the special forces expansion and the menus are still broken is one sad ass commentary on EA's support system. Its only in the upcoming patch that the team has indicated it will fix the broken server browser. Sorry, but 3 patches and an expansion later and you still haven't fixed a basic problem that allows players to play your game without a lot of hassles, thats retarded/negligent/shows a total lack of care for your customers.

In conclusion of this rant I say, A) I shall continue to enjoy BF2 in its original form plus patches (hopefully including the one that supposedly will fix the server browsr), B) Fuck the special forces expansion especially since some of the stuff in it should have debatably been included in BF2 originally, C) Fuck any booster packs, get fixing basic problems with the game and maybe I will feel confident that any product I purchased will not immediately be dropped for the next for-pay expansion regardless of its problems. I hope that a majority of the original customers of the game do the same since EA has a bad habit of expansioning-away its original game problems.