Battlefield Heroes store updated, offers advantage to microtransacting users
by Griffin McElroy 
on Dec 1st 2009 5:00AM
It's difficult to explain the current controversy surrounding
Battlefield Heroes without talking a whole lot of inside baseball, so we'll keep it simple. Players of the game are up in arms due to
a recent update to the title's in-game store. Though EA and DICE had worked up a balance between the game's two forms of currency -- Valor Points, which you unlock from playing, and Battlefunds, which you purchase with real-life money -- this patch heavily depreciates the value of the former while making the latter a near necessity for those who wish to stay competitive in the game.
Items have had their Valor Point costs increased across the board -- what's more, some of these items can no longer be permanently purchased with Valor Points, but can only be taken on a one or three-day test drive. However, these same items have had their Battlefund costs reduced, and allow purchasers to keep them indefinitely.
If the items being purchased were merely cosmetic, we wouldn't think twice about this shift in fungible value -- however, the torch-wielding mob now
moving through the Battlefield Heroes forums seem to think that the shooter's developer has forsaken the more frugal members of its community, giving the
wealthy playboys among them an unfair advantage.
