EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221
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."
EA (Score:2, Insightful)
Showing it's true colors, once again.
Getting "hooked" into a free game by EA is just asking for it. Without lube.
Don't like it? Don't pay them. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
So stop playing? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Don't like it? Don't pay them. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [youtube.com]. Now, I feel cheated.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but the problems is the flip-flop, not the model they chose.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:1, Insightful)
I tried D&D Online recently, and it seems to follow this kind of model too. I honestly would give the micropayment model a go for a game I'm truly interested in, but the feeling of it was wrong somehow. I don't really want to play a game where I can get my character something, using real money, that the character isn't entitled to in-game.
Why not just charge micropayments to play through an instance of a dungeon, and leave it at that? Charging for items just ruins the game for me; even if I'm not opposed to the idea of paying real money for them, it detracts from the experience.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't like it? Don't pay them. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Honest from the start (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:2, Insightful)
At least if it's free you didn't need to invest any up-front money to get started. You can just walk away and they won't get any [more] money from you.
Maybe if enough people do the same the penny - or the equivalent in BattleBucks - will drop.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Don't like it? Don't pay them. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Honest from the start (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Imagine if it applied in real world games. Allow rich clubs to have extra players, for example. When Man U play they'd have 75 players on the field. And they're allowed to handle the ball. And they're riding horses.
Of course, it would be crap to watch and crap to play, which isn't good for business. Everybody will say sod it, and go and cut the lawn or something. A balanced game is more exciting. The NFL don't try to level the teams out for shits and giggles.
Pretty poor example. Man U has been spending enormous amounts of money to field championship teams in a league where there is huge disparity in spending.
wish they'd learn from layoffs (Score:2, Insightful)
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".
EA has a company wide directive for online revenue (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Since the player with the most money wins anyway, it would be too boring for me."
How is that any different from "the player with the most spare time" wins? If you don't have the free time available to do the massive grind effort needed to get the best gear to be competitive most of the existing online games, it is terribly frustrating - and franky, I dont really want to burn that much of my life playing a game, due to real world commitments, relationships etc. On the other hand, people that have lots of time to burn playing games are less likely to have the ready cash to buy expensive upgrades - so in a way it works out. Of course, with two players similarly equipped, the guy who has been playing longest is more likely to win over the guy who just bought his way there, so the dedicated player still has an edge.
I personally prefer a truly level playing field - like quake or unreal tournament (or chess)- where it's just down to strategy and knowledge of the game, with everyone having the same gear.
Re:Bye-bye BF Heroes! (Score:2, Insightful)
Entitlement psychology (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Honest from the start (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Times are a changing.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe they should try an old-school marketing model then: lower the price, and more people will buy it.
Re:EA (Score:3, Insightful)
Which Korean games promised that paying customers would get no advantages over the freeloaders, and then went back on that promise?
Re:Don't like it? Don't pay them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Entitlement psychology (Score:3, Insightful)
"People aren't whining about prescription drug prices because of the difference between the price and the cost to make. They are whining because drug companies are making exorbitant amount of money, most of which is ending up in the pocket's of CEO's. Unless the CEO has like 2 billion mouths to feed and has a mortgage on an entire Caribbean island, I'm pretty sure these whiny people are justified."
You should add that the only reason that the drug companies are making this money is because they have their own entitlement--patent law--which is bought and paid for by the taxpayers who suffer for it.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I haven't played it. But it's very likely that I never will because I can pretty much predict where it's leading.
Correct me if I got this wrong please: The game rewards you with "points" for playing "well" (i.e. winning), and with these points you can rent equipment (i.e. rent gun X for Y hours) or buy consumables (like bandages or buff items). You can as well get these points for cash. What does this mean?
Now, to be worth these points, this equipment has to give you an edge over the other players. This isn't WoW where people hang out in some corner of the world (Ironforge) and show off their flashy feelgood fluff items between battles. Nobody will go "wow, cool new mustache", because nobody really cares. So what people will want is "usable" equipment. Having this equipment will make those that have it "stronger" compared to those that don't. Think along the ideas of people with "premium" accounts on some servers in some games who get more ammo or more money to buy gear, or all unlocks or whatever.
This has a few effects now: First, that you will have to shell out the dough to play competitively and be able to earn those "points" in game in the first place, because you will not "win" without. Others will try to play in the team where many people did just that so they can "mooch" off them, which will invariably lead to winning-team joins more than you have it already in any games. After all, people now not only play to win to feel good, they play to win so they earn more points and be able to afford their guns the next day. People will game that system by creating two accounts: One that earns points, the other one to put in the other team (to beat the forced-balancing). Which will definitly piss off the hapless players that join those games on the "wrong" team, wanting to play, only to find out that they're in the team that's being "farmed" for points.
Since "farming" will take a long time, you will end up with a LOT of "farming" games. Enough to piss off those players that just wanted to play. Especially when they just shelled out dough to play and have a gun that is gone 24 hours later.