EA continues to exploit, charging $50 for Need for Speed unlockables

This whole "it's all about choice" argument glosses over the fact that this strategy will fuck up all that made games fun. I play games for the sense of completion - getting every character, and stage, and trophy. Developers (and I'm not including EA in that, the fucking cunts) appreciate that, and make a game that is rewarding, and balanced. You put in a bit of work, you get a reward.

But if you can persuade a kid to pay $20 to unlock all the cars, why bother making an interesting challenge? Just make it as fuck-off hard as you can - 250 cups with slightly different names, and you have to beat them all to unlock a new track. This is especially true with the idiot-fanbase franchises (any major EA franchise, movie tie-ins, kid's games)

My point is that developers just won't care about gradual item acquisition before. The reason games don't give you everything at the start is longevity, and to hold your interest. All this will be lost - in ten years time, kids will be memorizing their parent's credit card number, instead of the Contra 30 lives cheat

Also, fuck EA

...not a bad idea...just too much damn money...

If all this TOTALED $10 bucks I'd be much more accepting of the whole deal, but at that price point, no f'n way.

It's the same as buying the game, then paying one of your friends $50 to beat it for you. How stupid does that sound? If people saw it this way I bet it would be less successful.

More useless money grubbing that no one should give in to.

people be wary, this kind of thinking can bring upon the video game crash of the early 1980s alllll over again.

Fuck EA -- I'll never give them a cent. Vote with your wallets fellow gamers.

Since when is an option a "have to"? Here's a question for those who say this is so wrong: How many fast food restaurants have you eaten at lately? If you say even 1, then you are a hypocrite. You're paying more to have food readily available to you as opposed to making it yourself. Therefore, it stands to reason that we should do away with all the fast food chains in the world, right? Do you glare at car wash chains when you drive by because they charge $25 for something you could do yourself for around $1.50?

Am I the kind of person who would take advantage of this system? No. Because, while I am very strapped for time, I also like the feeling of completing a game through hard work. However, I know plenty of people who aren't good enough to advance in a game and so they'd gladly pay out an extra amount of money just to have access to the entire game. Is it a shady deal? Well, the consumers will answer that on their own. Just look at the whole horse-armor fiasco. The market wouldn't bear the price, and you see the results. Same as anything else. You can only get the amount of money people are willing to pay. I can guarantee you right now that if nobody was buying these add-ons, EA and other publishers would stop providing them. Everyone hates EA just like everyone hates Microsoft. When you're the big dog in the yard, you can expect everyone to come gunning for you. But the fact is, the Need for Speed franchise has been one of my favorites for a long time, with the only slip-ups being NFS2 and Most Wanted. I am looking forward to checking out Carbon as well, just as soon as I get another game system as I sold off my 360 when it got the red ring of death for the third time. I'm hoping the PS3 will have better build quality, but I'm not even going to bother with one until next year sometime when the kinks are hopefully worked out.

Back on topic though, you can't hate someone for trying to sell you something. Unless it's unethical. If they were selling some sort of supercar that isn't normally in the game, or if they were offering other advantages that people could use in multiplayer that would seriously and adversely affect the online gaming experience, then yes, I can definitly see why people would be complaining. But all they are doing here is giving you the option of earning your way, or paying your way. Everything they are offering for money is unlockable in the normal game. If you don't want to pay for it, then just get it through hard work. If you're more of a "have it now" person, it's going to cost you. But I seriously think the hating of "microtransactions" such as these has gotten way out of hand. So you pay a few bucks to unlock some things. Ok. How much are strategy guides running for again? ;). I think you get my point.

nice silent scream. its good to see someone make sense rather then just throwing out stupid comments.

If EA sold you things that you couldnt unlock in the game, I would understand being upset. All this stuff can be earned. If you dont want to buy it...DONT!

Who cares if your playing some stupid kid online that wasnt good enough to earn a specific car. You'll most likely beat him anyway due to his lack of skill.

EA, games are just a bunch of Rehashes every year. Now they want to nickel and dime everyone for a feature that has traditionally never had a price put on it ( unlockable content, etc, etc).

What Next? charge for the game manuals that get packed into the games.

EA scumbag company with scumbag rehashes of games.

If you buy this you should be shot in the face with a copy of Shadow the Hedgehog.

The whole point of "unlockable" content is to add artificial replay value to a game. By allowing people to BUY that unlockable content, they're actually charging you for the privelage of having less game. Which is silly enough.

Personally, I don't care. I don't suck enough to need to buy my unlockables, and I'm not (quite) OCD enough to be driven mad by a 99% completion rate. My real concern is that this sets a terrible precident. If enough people shell out the cash for the content, it'll take EA exactly one sequel cycle (for reference, that's about seven weeks) to realize that they can start charging twice for the same content.

The larger issue here is the same as for microtransactions. What is the fair trade price on any of this stuff? How much is a skimpy set of clothing for a game avatar worth? What is the monetary value of an extra race track? The question is doubly confusing because those things already exist. It costs EA the same amount of money to make, stamp, package and ship a game whether the purchaser buys it new and pays for unlockables or whether it laments on the shelf until it hits $19.95.

We've moved, once again, beyond the cost + profit = price formula and into the cost + greed = price formula. Nothing good will come of that.

While you have the option of not to pay for it and it doesn't affect the multiplayer it is fine for me.

Keep the milkage away! Keep the fair play!

This is rediculous. I am sick of companies like EA ruining the gaming community and exploiting the Xbox Live marketplace. This is absolutely rediculous. I already started boycotting them over the Battlefield 2142 spyware. Go away EA, no one likes you.

-D. Wells
Join me in boycotting EA's spyware and if you'd like, their games altogether: http://www.petitiononline.com/bf2142ad/petition.html

Hey EA! Guess what!
I just downloaded/pirated a copy of NFS:Carbon on my PC! Found it at this torrent side!!
Now im gonna go play it and you wont see a cent from me!

Exactly what Joe Gameplayer is willing to pay for it. Nothing has value in and of itself. What is the value of an ounce of gold? Why does that value change on a day to day basis? Gold is a pretty static supply from day to day yet the price changes.



This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If you want to truly use the classical economic model of Price = cost + expected rate of profit then you also have to keep with the classical model that says greed either A) doesn't exist or B) has no effect on the market as a whole.Instead you throw out the model once it no longer fits your world view. That isn't economics, that's philosophy.

How does greed play into this price model at all? EA is charging what they believe they can and still sell the product at a quantity sufficient enough to be worth their cost. Companies have done that since, well, forever.

Why am I wasting my time? Just do this, define greed for me. Once you've done that I can explain why you're so wrong about how the world works.

The real problem is that as EA continues to charge for unlockables, there will be pressure to increase revenue from them, especially if sales on the early ones are poor. The easiest way to do that? Make unlockables harder to obtain. More frustrated gamers who can't quite reach that goal will be tempted to pull out the credit card instead. So the unlockables will get harder. And harder. Eventually, nothing short of perfection will unlock anything. But then, why stop there? Why not make the unlockable content juuust shy of achievable? Just a few milliseconds less than the fastest possible time. Then, after awhile, after everyone is used to either paying for the unlockable content or sucking it up, quietly drop the in-game unlocking. But hey, you've got a choice, right?

EA has been on that slippery slope for a long time - but they accelerated this development greatly in the last few months.
paying for cheats --> paying for in-game money --> (BF 2142 spyware interlude) --> paying for additional content that's already on the disc!

The next logical step will be extra cost for necessary content of the game... want to see the next level? fork over 5€/$. Want to see the final boss? 5€/$ thank you, here you go. ending cinematic? another 5€/$ right there.

We can't let it get that far. Vote with your wallets and send EA the message.

H.

@44- I agree. Also, I think they should put the endings to movies first, before the credits. I paid for the ticket, why should I have to sit through 90 minutes of crap just to see the good part?

In seriousness, this practice DOES exist in other industries, like books. You can spend 2 weeks reading Moby Dick, or for $5 I can give you what you need for the test with Cliff Notes. Also food. You can make yourself dinner with ingredients in your house, or you can pay Domino's to make a pizza and bring it to your house. People WILL pay for convenience, and they will pay a LOT more to have things NOW. What's the interest rate on your credit card? That's how much you're paying to have things NOW instead of waiting and earning them.

Sorry, I'm calling bullshit on this one. It's all been pointed out before, 59.99 for the game and an additional 49.99 for content that's locked on the disk. Talk about the fleecing of a fanbase. It's called skill people. Develop some. You think the game(s) are too hard? You don't have time to play you say? then find another hobby or play something else. Better yet, get a strat guide for 10 or 15 bucks.

EA is a garbage developer and the industry would be better off without them. I used to love EA during the days of Deluxe Paint but they suck ass now. Sports rehashes that don't address constant issues, the total rape of the Bond license after the stellar Goldeneye, having the audacity to release Goldeneye: Rogue Agent in the pathetic state it was in only to turn around and release a Need for Speed, Madden and FiFA that is just as bad, the exclusive NFL rights which is an injustice to sports gamers everywhere, the joke that is Live 07. EA should be banned from developing ever again.

I agree with voting with your wallet. Don't let EA rape your wallet.

I hate buying used games because I like to support the only form of art I like. But from now on, if I want to get an EA game it going to be used. They are not getting any of my money,

haha most of you amuse me, you are dogs who just roll over and let big companies play with you. seriously, this is crap they shouldn't even alow this to be on the marketplace but i guess their will always be idiots who pay just like those willing to pay $1500 for a ps3 on e-bay. these companies already make enought money out of us, don't let them set the standard it is the consumer who sets things supply and demand if we don't buy they will drop this sh*&^ and give us good prices, look at japan they are getting all the good deals because they are not buying

You know what would be nice? I would like to see this backfire on EA.

Here's my perfect scenario
1) person buys game
2) buys content
3) finishes game in 3 days
4) sells game to used game store
5) some new kid buys the game used
6) EA sells fewer "new" games and goes under

Another way to look at it is EA is doing this because of the used game market. It gives them a chance to make some money of used games.

Just a thought anyways.

I agree with whoever just said this is like a tax for stupid people. Anyone who would give EA $50 just to turn the boolean variable contentUnlocked from False to True deserves to get it up the ass. "A fool and his money..." and all that jazz.

I 100% concur with #2's comment!
If it could be accomplished I'd like to see a 100 ft. steel pole rammed up their rectum for once.

Funny how years ago they said the marketplace would feature buyable user-created content. (Like Forza paints and levels and stuff.) Guess they are raking it in too fast to let US make some moolah. That's why we can't set 4 different pics to the 4 dash blades. So devs can make money off the fact that they can do it. Kutaragi specifically said that the PS3 would have free online matching and that they would make up the money on microtransactions. PS3 will be even more lousy with this kind of crap, but hey, just don't buy it if you aren't going to enjoy it.

I think I'll start selling fully unlocked save games on Ebay via memory unit. Anybody interested in a maxed out golfer for TW'07?

That extra content you're buying a.k.a. the collectors edition is only key that unlocks content already on the disc, after you paid 60 dollars for it. Look at the file size, it's less than 1 MB. This is getting ridiculous.

I am a 29 year old gamer. I remember when you had to WAIT for the new gamer mags to get SOME sort of code. But that was WAY before the internet. Then the internet made it easy to get a code or 3. But Then EA decided to make you BEAT the game before unlocking some stuff and then beat it again for MORE unlocking. But Now since you can just DOWNLAOD saves....They decided to MAKE PEOPLE PAY!!! So in two small letters i say to EA, FU! I refuse to pay a HUGE about of money for a game and the PAY to play that game. Or to unlock any thing. Yeah yeah you can Play the game over and over to unlock it. But once and awhile I do like to use a code to have more fun with the game. I see how the gameing market is going. More dead Pres to make it. Well I see it as a down fall for the gaming market. becasue people are going to start running out of money. People like me. That get a house start a family but still wanna have fun with a game or two and be able to unlock stuff with out paying a f'en cent!
So I am starting to hate vgames becasue of this money money money and not entertainment and for enjoyment. But how much money I can save if I buy this or any newer game. I have about had enough of this crap. Make a game, market that game, sell that game for a good price, and play. Rinse and repeat.

Thanks