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EA drops weapon charges for Bad Company
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 10th April 2008
EA and DICE have now confirmed that weapons will be free in Battlefield: Bad Company.
Bad Company had originally been planned as having pay-to-play weaponry as a major feature, with access to extra weapons going to those who bought a Gold Edition of the game or who bought extra weapons in the form of downloadable content. After huge pressure from fans and potential customers however, those plans have been scrapped.
DICE senior producer Karl-Magnus Troedsson clarified the new nature of the weapons system with IGN, saying that all players will now be able to access the premium weapons at no extra cost.
"All guns are available to everyone. However, we want to give some exclusivity to those who buy the Gold Edition. They will get the five Gold Edition weapons from Day One when they put the disc in. People that don't buy the Gold Edition can get the five additional weapons by getting to the final rank in the game."
An extra five weapons will then be made available to players through marketing promotions given out by EA - apparently 'tell us what you think of the game, get a gun' surveys.
"It's really important for us to get across that we do listen to what people say out there. We don't have time to run around and comment on everything but we do listen to what people say out in the community. It's really important feedback and that's why we make changes like this," said Troedsson.
So, give yourselves a big ol' pat on the back! You've changed the face of a game! Let us know what your new opinions are in the forums and check out our hands-on beta impressions of Battlefield: Bad Company for more info about the game.
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More maps, more weapons, more classes at a reasonable price is fine and something which everyone does. Nobody bitched at BioWare when they added new quests to Mass Effect or Activision for adding song packs to GH3.
It seems to me that EA is never able to do anything right and, despite the fact they do have a number of unique and good games now, people still see them as the big bully. Big isn't always bad though IMO.
I dont believe in Gold/Special edition games that only include extra content, it costs the developer nothing to put the content in once they have it, the only ones I have ever bought are ones that include expansion packs (which do take some effort to program), the Xbox metal case ones because I do like the metal cases (they cost more to make too) and ones with extra physical bits in the box, like Halo 3's little black book thing. Other than those I feel its just publishers scrounging more money from people who want the complete game.
I agree with allowing weapons for people who achieve a rank, its like a status symbol and is great in Vegas but I think its a little unfair to charge extra for players to start with them.
Thats an incredibly simplistic way to look at it. For a multiplayer shooter making a new gun is a huge undertaking as you need to design the model, set the damages etc and then test the crap out of it. Balancing takes a hell of a long time and your POV is essentially simplfying it to the level of "Well, to make a map you just need to put some trees in a room and stuff".
I realise it may be hard to understand, but take a look at Valve for proof. The next Team Fortress 2 update will only be adding in new achievements and a new weapon for the medic - yet they've been working on balancing that since before new year and have gone through three seperate ideas for the weapon itself.
As for free content, well that's why the PC is better - because of the mod scene. A console is a closed and proprietary system and thats why they do things like this and how they get away with it - they know that nobody else can do it, so they can charge for their services. It's that model which governs how practically all business works.
....I think I need to lie down.
DLC is a gud thing if it adds something to the game, but these guns had no advantage over the standard guns
I was thinking the exact same thing. It wont surprise me at all if EA have their hands in illegal weapon deals IRL also!
I see it from the same point as shigllgetcha, it doesn't really add anything to the game, its just more of what's already there, I find it especially stingy that they are offering a version with the extra models when they could just include them anyway. If they are usable by gold edition players against non gold edition players, surely all the models and stats are in both games so the non gold players can see the gold players guns, just disabled so the players cant use them. Reminds me of another company who had hardware capable of something but chose to disable it for a number of users unless they upgraded their hardware. That got a fair bit of hate on these forums.
I'm not one for 'conspiracy theories', but it all just seems too good to be true based on the handling of patches for Battlefield 2.
Why does the medic need another weapon, after 8 years of making it it wasn't perfect already? :p
"People that don't buy the Gold Edition can get the five additional weapons by getting to the final rank in the game."
Anyone that has played BF2 and BF2142 will realise that you will have to play for years to get to the final rank, or have they changed the ranking system?