Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 26 March 2008 06:54
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Microtransactions are the way of the future, a way for everybody (consumer and company) to win. But for some they are an insidious blight on life in the digital age, a way for big business to make even more profit on content that traditionally was delivered as part of the original package. Electronic Arts(EA) have responded to queries about purchasing extra weapons for the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company
Over at gaming site Kotuku writer Brian Crecente has received an
official response to the planned microtransaction scheme to be incorporated into the sure-to-be-popular Battlefield: Bad Company.
It reads;
Hey Brian,
Per our conversation, Battlefield: Bad Company features numerous weapons in the core game. In addition to the core set of weapons, 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.
Currently, the menu in the Battlefield: Bad Company beta notes all ten weapons; the five available free of charge pre-launch as well as the additional five available in the Gold Edition.
We will have more details on the pre-launch campaign and Gold Edition of Battlefield: Bad Company in the next few weeks.
This in its self is not too bad a response; it implies that purchasers of the non-Gold Edition will be no worse off in game balance terms than their richer rivals. This is good, though I doubt in practice it will work out this way, having a larger choice gives an adaptability advantage surely.
As Creante alludes to later in the piece, “What worries me more is where this is all headed”.
And rightly so, already we see microtransactions a well established process in the console world, where extra content packs can be downloaded for an extra fee.
